“Stop!” exclaimed Dimitrius, in a strained, eager voice. “Give me your papers!—let me see!”
She handed them to him at once, and he sat down to read. While he was thus occupied, her gaze constantly wandered to the small, scythe-like instrument mowing off the seconds in dots of flame as a mower sweeps off the heads of daisies in the grass. A curious crimson colour seemed to be diffused round the whole piece of mechanism,—an effect she had never noticed before, and then she remembered it was late in the afternoon and that the sun had set. The rosy light emanating from the instrument and deeply reflected in the crystal pedestal on which it was balanced, seemed like an after-glow from the sky,—but the actual grey twilight outside was too pronounced and cold to admit of such an explanation.
Suddenly Dimitrius looked up.
“You are right!” he said. “This ancient problem demands my closest study. And yet it is no problem at all, but only an exposition of my inmost thought!” He paused,—then: “Come here, Diana May!” he continued—“I may as well begin with you. Come and sit close beside me.”
She obeyed. With his eyes fixed upon her face, he went on:
“You, as a woman of superior intelligence, have never supposed, I am sure, that I have secured your services merely to decipher and copy out old Latin script? No!—I see by your look that you have fully realised that such is not all the actual need I have of you. I have waited to find out, by a study of your character and temperament, when and how I could state plainly my demands. I think I need not wait much longer. Now this ancient treatise on ‘Problems,’ obscure and involved in wording as it is, helps me to the conviction that I am on the right track of discovery. It treats of Light. ‘The problem of the Fourth, Sixth and Seventh,’ with its ‘ultimate culmination of the Eighth’ is the clue. In that ‘ultimate culmination’ is the Great Secret!”
His eyes flashed,—his features were transfigured by an inward fervour.
“Have the patience to follow me but a little,” he continued. “You have sense and ability and you can decipher a meaning from an apparent chaos of words. Consider, then, that within the limitations of this rolling ball, the earth, we are permitted to recognise seven tones of music and seven tones of colour. The existing numbers of the creative sum, so far as we can count them, are Seven and Five, which added together make Twelve, itself a ‘creative’ number. Man recognises in himself Five Senses, Touch, Taste, Sight, Hearing, Smell—but as a matter of fact he has Seven, for he should include Intuition and Instinct, which are more important than all the others as the means of communicating with his surroundings. Now ‘the culmination of the Eighth’ is neither Five nor Seven nor Twelve,—it is the close or rebound of the Octave—the end of the leading Seven—the point where a fresh Seven begins. It is enough for humanity to have arrived at this for the present—for we have not yet sounded the heights or depths of even the first Seven radiations which we all agree to recognise. We admit seven tones of music, and seven tones of colour, but what of our seven rays of light? We have the ‘violet ray,’ the ‘X ray’—and a newly discovered ray showing the working bodily organism of man,—but there are Seven Rays piercing the density of ether, which are intended for the use and benefit of the human being, and which are closely connected with his personality, his needs and his life. Seven Rays!—and it is for us to prove and test them all!—which is the very problem you have brought to my notice in this old Latin document: ‘the Fourth, Sixth and Seventh, culminating in the Eighth.’”
He put the papers carefully together on the table beside him, and turned to Diana.
“You have understood me?”