Mine is a lazy life, but not an idle one. I am an enthusiastic onlooker."

Paul gazed at him reproachfully. "You never even warned me of your projected journey, Thessaly. Do you leave all your friends with equally slight regret?"

Thessaly gazed into the peculiar hat, and something in the pose of his head transported Paul to the hills above Lower Charleswood, where, backed by the curtain of a moving storm, he seemed to see Babylon Hall framed in a rainbow which linked the crescent of the hills. "You misjudge me," replied Thessaly. "What I have said is true, but I go in response to a sudden and unforeseen summons. Death and a frail woman have tricked me, and at one stroke have undone all that I had done. I am compelled to go."

Paul detected in the deep voice a note of pathos, of defeat. "I am sorry," he said simply. "I value your friendship."

"Friendship, Mario, is heaven's choicest gift. The love of woman is sometimes wonderful, but it always rests upon a physical basis. The love of a friend is the loftiest sentiment of which man is capable. Its only parallel is the unselfish devotion of a dog to his master."

A servant came in with the refreshments which Paul had ordered. Directly she had departed Thessaly began speaking again. "I have lived in Germany, Mario, and in my younger student days--for I am perhaps an older man than you imagine me to be--I have met those philosophers, or some of them, to whom Germany owes a debt of hatred which cannot be repaid even unto the third and fourth generation. I have lived in France, and in many a sunset I have seen the blood that would drench her fairest pastures. I have watched the coming of the storm, and I saw it break upon the rocks of these inviolable islands. I thought that I knew its portent; I thought that I had discerned the inner meaning of the Day. Mario, I was wrong. Humanity has proved too obstinate."

He spoke with a suppressed vehemence that was startling. "The point of this escapes me," said Paul, watching him. "For what or for whom has humanity proved too obstinate?"

"For _us_, Mario--for _us_. There is many an ancient knot to be untied before man can be free to think unfettered. The myth, Imperialism, alone is an iron barrier to universal brotherhood. Not even in the spectacle of the Germanic peoples pouring out their blood in pursuit of that shadow has the rest of the world perceived a lesson. A colony is like a married son with whose domestic arrangements his father persists in interfering. The jewels in an imperial crown mean nothing even to the wearer of that crown, except additional headache. But attack the blood-stained legend of Imperialism and you attack Patriotism, its ferocious parent. Humanity has grown larger since the wolf suckled Romulus, but no wiser, and strong wine is not for weak intellects."

He laid his hand upon the typed pages of _The Key_. "Is our friendship staunch enough to sustain the shock of real candour, Mario?"

Paul was deeply and unaccountably moved by something in Thessaly's manner. "I trust so," he replied.

"Then--forgive me--burn _The Key_. It is not yet too late."

"Thessaly! You offer me this counsel! Do you realise what it means to me?"

"Some day, Mario, you may comprehend all that it meant to _me_."

Paul stared at him truly dumfounded. "What can have happened thus suddenly to divert the current of your life and the tenor of your philosophy?"

"The inevitable, against which we fight in vain."

"And your advice--that I burn _The Key_--is given sincerely?"

"It is."

"I cannot realise that you mean it, Thessaly. I cannot realise that you are going."

"I am sorry, Mario. In these troublous days a cloud of misgiving hangs over every parting, since _au revoir_ may mean good-bye. But I must go, following the precept of that wise man who said, 'Live un.o.bserved, and if that cannot be, slip un.o.bserved from life.'"

An hour later Paul was about to leave the house when a telegram was brought to him. He experienced great difficulty in grasping its purport.

He could not make out from whom it came, and it seemed at first to be without meaning....

"Regret to inform you Captain Donald H. Courtier,--Coy., Irish Guards, killed in action...."

XI

On the following day a phenomenal storm burst upon London out of a blue sky. Tropical rain beat down into the heated streets and thunder roared in t.i.tan anger. Paul came out of the War Office and stood on the steps for some moments watching a rivulet surging along the edge of the pavement.... "I am sorry, Mario, but it was mercifully swift, and his end was glorious. Ireland has disappointed some of us, but fellows like Courtier and those who went with him make one think...."

Paul walked out into the lashing rain, going in the direction of Charing Cross. He was thinking of another storm which had struck swiftly out of a fair sky, of the aisles of the hills, and of one that he had met there. To-day Jules Thessaly was leaving England. Don was dead. Some who knew Paul and who saw him driving on through the downpour as if fury-ridden or sped by some great urgency, wondered and later remembered. But to him London was empty, and heedless of the curiosity of men and the tumult of the elements he pressed on. Nothing penetrated to his consciousness save the eternal repet.i.tion of his own name and the name of his book. Evidences of his influence seemed to leer at him from window and h.o.a.rding. A performance of the French symphony, _Dawn_, was advertised to take place at the Queen's Hall, and he found one bill announcing an exhibition of pictures by an ultra-modern Belgian--pictures which their painter declared to be "ill.u.s.trations" of _The Gates_. And in his pocket were the papers deposited with Nevin to be given to Paul only in the event of Don's death. Paul had read them, and whilst he longed with a pa.s.sionate longing to go to Flamby, he knew that to-day he dared not trust himself within sight of the clear grey eyes, of the alluring lips, within touch of the red-brown hair. But he recognised that he must go ultimately, and so he drove on through the storm and right and left of him were traces of his mark upon the world.

Tropical heat prevailed throughout the following day and Paul spent the morning pacing up and down his study. Yvonne was in Brighton. Paul long since had realised that the sympathy between them was imperfect, but always he had counted upon re-establishing the old complete comradeship when his great task should be at last concluded. This morning he had learned the truth, that Yvonne was with Orlando James, but his brain was still too numb fully to appreciate it. Towards noon he sat down at his writing-table and began to read with close attention the typed pages of _The Key_. Ba.s.sett was becoming anxious and had rung up more than once during the morning. Arrangements had been made to publish simultaneously in the princ.i.p.al capitals of the world, and the publishers had been busy for several months acc.u.mulating paper to meet the unparalleled demand for this vast first edition.... Eustace knocked three times at the study door to announce that luncheon was served, but Paul continued his reading. During the afternoon he caused a fire to be lighted in the study grate.

It was late evening before he left the house, and he set out with no conscious objective in view, yet subconsciously he was already come to his journey's end. His ideas were chaotic, and he seemed to be spiritually adrift. That his book was indeed the Key he was unable to doubt. He had truly grasped the stupendous truth underlying that manifestation called life, but seeking to discern retrospectively the path whereby he had pierced to the heart of the labyrinth he found confusion and stood dismayed before the dazzling jewel which he had unearthed. The past intruded subtly upon him, and he was all but swept away by sorrowful memories of Don. He saw him coming along the Pilgrim's Way and heard his cheery greeting as he stepped upon the terrace of Hatton Towers.

Where that night's wandering led him he knew not, but there were those who saw him pa.s.sing along Limehouse Causeway as if in quest of the Chinese den where once he and Thessaly had watched men smoke opium, and others who spoke to him, but without receiving acknowledgment, in the neighbourhood of Westminster Cathedral. He appeared, too, at the Cafe Royal, standing just within the doorway and looking from table to table as one who seeks a friend, but went out again without addressing a word to anyone. At a late hour he saw a light shining from a cas.e.m.e.nt window and mechanically he pressed the k.n.o.b of a bell above which appeared the number 23. Flamby opened the door and Paul stood looking at her in the dusk.

XII

"Oh," said Flamby, "I had given you up."

She wore a blue and white kimono and had little embroidered Oriental slippers on her feet. Under the light of the silk-shaded lamp her hair gleamed wonderfully. She had matured since that day in Bluebell Hollow, when Paul and Don had first seen her. The world had not hardened her and the curves of her face were almost childlike, yet there was something gone from her eyes and something new come to replace it. Resourcefulness was there, but no hint of boldness and her moods of timidity were exquisite. Now, having naively confessed her dreams, her sudden confusion was lovable.

"I scarcely know," declared Paul. "I scarcely know why I have come at such an hour. It is not fair to you, and it is not practising what I preach."

"Please come in. You are welcome at any time, and as n.o.body will see you there can be no harm done."

Paul entered and stood looking vaguely at the parcel which he carried.

It contained the ma.n.u.script of _The Key_. Thus reminded of its presence he found himself wondering why since he had forgotten that he carried it, he had not absently left it behind somewhere during his aimless wanderings. He laid it with his hat on the open bureau. The little apartment had a.s.sumed very marked individuality. Many delightful sketches and water-colour drawings ornamented the walls and a delicate pastel study of Dovelands Cottage hung above the famous clock on the mantelpiece. Paul crossed and examined this picture closely.

"Who is living in Dovelands Cottage now, Flamby?" he asked. "I believe Nevin told me that it had been sold."

Flamby turned aside to take up a box of cigarettes.

"Don bought it," she said slowly. "I don't know why he didn't want you to know, but he asked me not to tell you."

Paul continued to stare at the picture, until Flamby spoke again. "Will you have a cigarette?" she asked, her voice low and monotonous.

"No, thank you very much."

"I can make coffee in a minute."

"Please don't think of it."

Through the little mirror immediately below the pastel Flamby studied Paul covertly. He had aged; all the beauty of his face resided now in his eyes. Two years had changed him from a young and handsome man to one whose youth is left behind, and who from the height of life's pilgrimage looks down sadly but unfalteringly into a valley of shadows. He turned to her.

"Mrs. Chumley?"

"I was with her this morning. She is staying for a while at the cottage.

I think she is nearly broken-hearted. From the time that his mother died, when Don was very little, Mrs. Chumley looked after him until he went away to school. You know, don't you? But she is so brave. I wish,"

said Flamby, her voice sunken almost to a whisper, "I wish I could be as brave ..." She sat down on the settee, biting her lower lip and striving hard to retain composure.

"You are very brave indeed, and very loyal," answered Paul, but he did not approach her where she sat. "You have taught me that there are women as far above pettiness and spitefulness as every man should be, but as every man is not."

"I wasn't like it before I knew Mrs. Chumley and--Don."