"Yvonne told you I had called?"
"Yes. You did not know I was away?"
"My knowledge of your movements up to the time that I left France was based upon those two or three brief communications, partially undecipherable, with which you have favoured me during the past six months. I read your paper, Le Bateleur, in the Review. Everybody has read it. Paul, you have created a bigger sensation with those five or six thousand words than Hindenburg can create with an output of five or six thousand lives!"
"It was designed to pave the way, Don. You think it has succeeded?"
"Succeeded! You have stirred up the religious world from Little Bethel to St. Peter's." Don dropped into an armchair and began to load his pipe from the Mycenaean vase. "Some of your facts are startlingly novel. For instance, where on earth did you get hold of that idea about the initiation of Christ by the Essenes at Lake Moeris in Egypt?"
Paul's expression grew wrapt and introspective. "From material in the possession of Jules Thessaly," he replied. "In a tomb near the Pyramid of Hawâra in the Egyptian Fayûm was found the sarcophagus of one Menahîm, chief of the Order of the Essenes, who were established near Lake Moeris. Menahîm's period of office dated from the year 18 B.C. to the year of his death in the reign of Caligula, and amid the dust of his bones was found the Golden Chalice of Initiation. I cannot hope to make clear to you without a very lengthy explanation how the fact dawned upon my mind that Jehoshoua of Nazareth, son of Joseph, became an initiate, but the significance of these dates must be evident. When you see the Chalice you will understand."
"Had it been found in Renan's time what a different Vie de Christ we should have had."
"Possibly. Renan's Vie de Christ is an exquisite evasion, a jewelled confession of failure. But there are equally wonderful things at Thessaly's house, Don. You must come there with me."
"I shall do so without fail. It appears to me, Paul, that you have materially altered your original plan. You have abandoned the idea of casting your book in the form of a romance?"
"I have—yes. The purely romantic appeal may be dispensed with, I think, in this case. Zarathustra has entered the blood of the German people like a virus from a hypodermic needle. I do not hesitate to accept its lesson. Where I desire to cite instances of illustrative human lives they will be strictly biographical but anonymous."