Of the air serene,
Float with my flag-like wings unfurled,
Alone—alone—’twixt God and the world!
Here he broke off with a laugh. “She was a strange Spirit,”—he said—“because she could see nothing but herself ‘’twixt God and the world.’ She was evidently quite unaware of the numerous existing barriers put up by mankind between themselves and their Maker. I wonder what unenlightened sphere she came from!”
I looked at him in mingled wonder and impatience.
“You talk wildly,”—I said—“And you sing wildly. Of things that mean nothing, and are nothing.”
He smiled, lifting his eyes to the moon, now shining her fullest and brightest.
“True!” he replied—“Things which have meaning and are valuable, have all to do with money or appetite, Geoffrey! There is no wider outlook evidently! But we were speaking of love, and I hold that love should be eternal as hate. Here you have the substance of my religious creed if I have any,—that there are two spiritual forces ruling the universe—love and hate,—and that their incessant quarrel creates the general confusion of life. Both contend one against the other,—and only at Judgment-Day will it be proved which is the strongest. I am on the side of Hate myself,—for at present Hate has [p 355] scored all the victories worth winning, while Love has been so often martyred that there is only the poor ghost of it left on earth.”
At that moment my wife’s figure appeared at the drawing-room window, and Lucio threw away his half-smoked cigar.
“Your guardian-angel beckons!” he said, looking at me an odd expression of something like pity mingled with disdain,—“Let us go in.”