Don remained in London for several months, performing light duties at the War Office. No one but Paul ever knew how far he had penetrated into the grim valley, how almost miraculous had been his recovery. And not even Paul knew that if Flamby's heart had been free Don might never have returned to France. In despite of his shattered health he refused the staff appointment which was offered to him and volunteered for active service, unfit though he was to undertake it.
"We don't seem to be able to realise, Paul," he said, "that the possession of an artificial leg and a Victoria Cross does not constitute a staff officer. My only perceptible qualification for the post offered is my crocky condition. The brains of the Army should surely be made up not of long pedigrees and gallant cripples, but of genius fit to cope with that of the German High Command. A cowardly criminal with a capacity for intrigue would probably be a greater acquisition than that of the most gallant officer who ever covered a strategic 'withdrawal.'"
Poor Flamby smiled and jested until the very moment of Don's departure and cried all day afterwards. Then she sat down at the little oak bureau and wrote a long letter declaring that she had quite definitely and irrevocably decided to forget Paul, and that she should have something "very particular" to confide to Don when he returned. Whilst searching for a stamp she chanced upon a photograph of Paul cut from a weekly journal. Very slowly she tore the letter up into tiny pieces and dropped them in a Japanese paper-basket. She went to bed and read The Gates until she fell asleep, leaving the light burning.
The fear of which she had spoken to Don oppressed her more and more. That Paul had grasped the Absolute Key she could not doubt, but it seemed to Flamby that he had given life to something which had lain dormant, occult, for untold ages, that he had created a thing which already had outgrown his control. In art, literature and music disciples proclaimed themselves. One of France's foremost composers produced a symphony, Dawn, directly inspired by the gospel of Paul Mario; in The Gates painters found fresh subjects for their brushes, and the literature of the world became a mirror reflecting Paul's doctrine. Here was no brilliant spark to dazzle for a moment and die, but a beacon burning ever brighter on which humanity, race by race, fixed a steadfast gaze. Theosophy acclaimed him the new Buddha, and in Judaism a sect arose who saw, in Paul, Isaiah reborn.
But Flamby was afraid. Paul's theory that the arts had taken the place of the sibyls, that man was only an instrument of higher powers which shaped the Universe, dismayed her; for upon seeking to analyse the emotions which The Gates aroused she thought that she could discern the origin of this fear in an unfamiliar note which now and again intruded, a voice unlike the voice of Paul Mario. He was sometimes dominated by an alien influence, perhaps was so dominated throughout save that the control did not throughout reveal its presence. His own work proved his theory to be true. It was a concept of life beyond human ken revealed through the genius of a master mind. Such revelations in the past had only been granted to mystics who had sought them in a life of self-abnegation far from the world. It was no mere reshuffling of the Tarot of the Initiates, but in many respects was a new gospel, and because that which is unknown is thought to be wonderful, in questing the source of Paul's inspiration Flamby constantly found her thoughts to be focussed upon Jules Thessaly.
At this time she had won recognition from the artistic coterie, or mutual admiration society, which stands for English art, although her marked independence of intellect had held her to some extent aloof from their ever-changing "cults." But she had met those painters, illustrators, sculptors, critics, dealers and art editors who "mattered." Practically all of them seemed to know Thessaly; many regarded him as the most influential living patron of art; yet Flamby had never met Thessaly, had never even seen him. She had heard that he possessed a striking personality, she knew that he often lunched at Regali's and sometimes visited the Café Royal. People had said to her, "There goes Jules Thessaly"—and she had turned just too late, always too late. Orlando James had arranged for her to meet him at luncheon one day, and Thessaly had been summoned to Paris on urgent business. At first Flamby had thought little of the matter, but latterly she had thought much. To Don she had refrained from speaking of this, for it seemed to savour of that feminine jealousy which regards with suspicious disfavour any living creature, man, woman or dog, near to a beloved object. But she was convinced that Thessaly deliberately avoided her and she suspected that he influenced Paul unfavourably, although of this latter fact she had practically no evidence.
Similar doubts respecting the motive which might be attributed to her had prevented Flamby from telling Don why she wished to keep in touch with Orlando James. Paul's philosophy was a broad one, and imposed few trammels upon social intercourse between the sexes. He regarded early-Victorian prudery with frank horror, and counted the narrowness of middle-class suburban life as directly traceable to this tainted spring. Don had once declared a suburban Sunday to be "hell's delight. Rock of Ages," he said, "(arrangement for piano) has more to answer for than the entire ritual of the Black Mass." Paul applauded breadth of outlook; nevertheless Flamby doubted if Paul would have approved certain clandestine visits to James's studio. It was Flamby's discovery of the identity of the tall lady, closely veiled, whom she had seen one night descending from a cab and hurrying under the arch into the little courtyard of the faun, which first had awakened that indefinite fear whereof she had spoken to Don. On several successive evenings she had invented reasons for remaining late at Chauvin's, and at last had been rewarded by seeing the veiled visitor admitted to James's studio. The light shining out upon her face had revealed the features of Yvonne Mario. Flamby had spied and had counted her espionage justified. Any other woman in like circumstances would have spied also, justified or otherwise. For women in some respects are wiser than men, and he who counts woman supine has viewed his world awry; but the true deeps of a woman's soul may only be stirred by passion. Honour and those other temporal shadows at whose beck men lay down life leave women unstirred. What man of honour would tear open a letter addressed to another, though he suspected it to contain his death-warrant? What woman, in like case, would hesitate to steam it?
VI
High Mass in Westminster Cathedral was about to conclude. The air was heavy with incense, and the organ notes seemed to float upon it buoyantly, rebounding from marble wall and Byzantine pillar to remain indefinitely suspended ere sinking into silence. The voice of the officiating priest fascinated Paul Mario strangely. He found himself following the rhythm but not the meaning of the words. That solitary human voice was the complement of a theme whereof the incense and the monotonous music made up the other parts. Comprehension of words and syllables was unnecessary. Detached, no portion of the ritual had meaning; its portent lay in the whole. The atmosphere which it created was not that of the Mount, but was purely mediaeval, nor had the Roman fashion of the vast interior power to hold one's imagination enchained to the Cross of Calvary. The white robes of the altar servants, broidered vestments of the priests and pallid torches of a hundred candles belonged to the Rome of Caesar Borgia and not to the Rome of Caesar Nero. Into that singular building, impressive in its incompleteness, crept no echo of the catacombs, and the sighing of the reed notes was voluptuous as a lover's whisper, and as far removed from the murmurs of the Christian martyrs. Here were pomp and majesty with all their emotional appeal. Mystery alone was lacking. The robes of Cardinal Pescara lent a final touch of colour to the mediaeval opulence of the scene.
It was to hear the cardinal speak that Paul had come. The occasion was an impressive one, and the great church was sombre with mourning. Men of a famous Irish regiment occupied row after row of seats, and from the galleries above must have looked like a carpet of sand spread across the floor. The sermon had proved to be worthy of the master of rhetoric who had delivered it. The silvern voice of the Cardinal, from the pronouncement of his opening words to the close of his peroration when he stood with outstretched arms and eyes uplifted pitifully in illustration of the Agony of Golgotha, charmed his hearers as of old the lyre of Apollo had power to charm. His genius invested the consolation of the church with a new significance, exalting the majesty of bereavement to a higher sovereignty. His English was faultless, beautified by a soft Italian intonation, and his sense of the dramatic and of the value of sudden silences reminded Paul of Sir Henry Irving, whom he had seen once during his first term at Oxford and had never forgotten. Dramatically it was a flawless performance; intellectually it was masterful. That crucified pitiful figure stood majestic above a weeping multitude dominating them by the sheer genius of oratory. Chord after chord of his human instrument he had touched unerringly, now stirring the blood with exquisite phrases, now steeping the mind in magnetic silence. Paul recognised, and was awe-stricken, that this white-haired ascetic man wielded a power almost as great as his own.