"You would that I explain?" The deliberate affectation of broken English was the accepted convention of an English actress playing the part of a Frenchwoman; every one in the room was conscious of the artificiality. The voice was unmodulated and monotonous. "In all ages men have tried to read the future. By the stars and by crystal balls and cards and numbers and pools of ink.... What can a pool of ink tell you? The future lies in yourselves. Within your bodies are seeds of new life—innumerable; and each seed holds innumerable other seeds of new life—generation after generation, seed within seed. He who put them there ordained that the Future should lie buried in the Present, as the Present lay buried in the Past—and as the Past lies buried in the Present! It is hard for Man to unbury the Future. Man has not been ready to face the light, and I—I who help you to see that light have never seen it myself. Even I do not know how glaring is that light.... But, as the seeds of the Future lie in you, so the knowledge of the Future lies there also. Man knows all the Future, as Man holds all the Future within himself, but he has forgotten. It is within his unconscious. I do not know it, but I can help you to remember. I can tell you nothing, not even your name, but you can tell me everything about yourself, Past, Present and Future. What is your name?"
Lady Barbara started with surprise when the abrupt question cut through the sleepy drone of mock-mystic jargon. Summertown was trapped into seriousness, for he answered promptly:
"John Antony Merivale-Farwell. I'm usually called Jack Summertown."
"Why are you called Jack Summertown?"
"Well, you see, Summertown's the guv'nor's second title. Thirty per cent. on your bills, and not a dam' thing else."
He looked obediently into the unwavering eyes, but Lady Barbara felt that his familiar colloquialism was a deliberate effort to break up the atmosphere of pretentious mystery.
"And your father?"
"Well, he's rather at a loose end at present. He was Councillor of Embassy at Paris, and they offered him Madrid, I believe; but he'd been ill for some time and so he chucked in his hand. Oh, who is he? Marling. Earl of."
"You are married?"
"God, no!"