"How is that?"

"Would you trammel the soul with the shackles of the flesh?"

"You mean that literature and art persistently look in the gutter for subjects when they would be more worthily employed in questioning the stars?"

"I mean that if literature and art were not trades, inspiration might have a chance."

"And you regard inspiration as a spiritual journey?"

"Certainly; and imagination as the memory of the soul. There is no such thing as intellectual creation. We are instruments only. John Newman did not invent _The Dream of Gerontius_; he remembered it. There is a strain in the music of _Samson et Dalila_ which was sung in the temples of Nineveh, where it must have been heard by Saint Saens. The wooing of Tarone in your _Francesca of the Lilies_ is a faithful account of a scene enacted in Florence during the feuds between the Amidei and Buondelmonti."

Paul Mario fell silent. The storm was pa.s.sing, and now raged over the remote hills which looked out upon the sea; but the darkness prevailed, and he became aware of a vague disquiet which stirred within him. The conversation of Jules Thessaly impressed him strangely, not because of its hard brilliance, but because of a masterful certainty in that quiet voice. His words concerning Newman and Saint Saens were spoken as though he meant them to be accepted literally--and there was something terrifying in the idea. For he averred that which many have suspected, but which few have claimed to know. Presently Paul found speech again.

"You believe, as I believe, that our 'instincts' are the lessons of earlier incarnations. Perhaps you are a disciple of Pythagoras, Mr.

Thessaly?"

"I am, in one sense. I am a disciple of his Master."

"Do you refer to Orpheus?"

Jules Thessaly hesitated, but the pause was scarcely perceptible. "The Orphic traditions certainly embody at least one cosmic truth."

"And it is?"

"That for every man there is a perfect maid, and for every maid a perfect lover; that their union will be eternal, but that until it is accomplished each must remain incomplete--a work in two volumes of which one is missing."

"Would you then revive the Eleusinian Mysteries?"

"Why not?"

"You would scandalise society!"

"In other words become the pet of the petty. You care as little for the inst.i.tution called 'Society' as I do, Mr. Mario. Moreover, there is no Society nowadays. Murray's has taken its place."

Again the lightning flashed--less vividly; and in the glimpse thus afforded him of the speaker's face Paul derived the impression that Jules Thessaly was laughing, but of this he could not be sure. The thunder when it came spoke with a muted voice, for the storm was speeding coastward, and a light cool breeze stole through the aisles of the hills. A grey eerie light began to spread ghostly along the gallery.

The ebon cloud was breaking, but torrents of rain continued to descend.

Paul's keen intuition told him that Jules Thessaly was indisposed to pursue the Orphic discussion further at the moment, but he realised that the owner of Babylon Hall was no ordinary man, but one who had delved deeply into lore which had engaged much of his own attention. He found himself looking forward with impatient curiosity to his visit to the home of this new acquaintance.

"You are comparatively a new-comer in Lower Charleswood, Mr. Thessaly?"

"Yes, Babylon Hall had been vacant for some years, having formerly belonged to a certain Major Rushin, a retired Anglo-Indian of sixty-five, with a nutmeg liver and a penchant for juvenile society. He was drowned one morning in the lake which lies beyond the house, whilst bathing with three young ladies who were guests of his at the time. He was one of the pillars of the late Sir Jacques' church."

Paul laughed outright. "Do you quarrel with the whole of humanity, Mr.

Thessaly?"

"Not at all. I love every creature that has life; I share the very tremors of the sheep driven to the slaughter-house. Human sorrow affects me even more profoundly."

"But you are hotly intolerant of human hypocrisy? So am I."

"Yet it may be one of the principles of nature. Witness the leaf insect."

"You don't believe it to be, though. You probably regard it as a hateful disguise imposed upon man by a moral code contrary to that of nature."

"Mr. Mario, your words contain the germ of a law upon the acceptance of which I believe humanity's spiritual survival to depend."

The elfin light was growing brighter by perceptible degrees; and Paul, looking toward the speaker, now was able to discern him as a shadowy bulk, without definite outline, but impressive, pagan--as a granite G.o.d, or one of those broken pillars of Medinet Habu. Either because Jules Thessaly had moved nearer to him, or by reason of an optical delusion produced by the half-light, the s.p.a.ce between them seemed to have grown less--not only physically, but spiritually. The curves of their astral selves were sweeping inward to a point of contact which Paul knew subconsciously would be electric, odic, illuminating. He felt the driving force of Jules Thessaly's personality, and it struck from the lyre of his genius strange harmonious chords. He knew, as some of the ancients knew, that the very insect we crush beneath our feet is crushed not by accident, but in accordance with a design vast beyond human conception; and he wondered what part in his life this strange, powerful man was cast to play. His thoughts found expression.

"There is no such thing as chance," he said dreamily.

"No," answered Jules Thessaly. "There is no such thing in the universe.

Our meeting to-day was an appointment."

XI

Jules Thessaly, like the Indian rope trick, was a kind of phenomenon twice removed. In every capital throughout the world one heard of him; of his wealth, of his art collection, of his financial interests; but one rarely met a man who actually claimed to know him although every second man one met knew another who did.

When he acquired Babylon Hall, for so long vacant, the county was stirred from end to end. Lower Charleswood, which lacked a celebrity, felt a.s.sured at last of its place in history and ceased to cast envious glances toward that coy hamlet of the hills which enshrined the cottage of George Meredith. The Vicar of High Fielding, who contributed occasional "Turn-overs" to the _Globe_, investigated the published genealogy of the great man, and caused it to be known that Jules Thessaly was a French Levantine who had studied at Oxford and Gottingen, a millionaire, an accomplished musician, and an amateur of art who had exhibited a picture in the Paris Salon. He was a member (according to this authority) of five clubs, had other country seats, as well as a house in Park Lane, was director of numberless companies--and was unmarried. Miss Kingsbury called upon the reverend gentleman for further particulars.

But when at last Jules Thessaly actually arrived, Lower Charleswood experienced a grievous disappointment. He brought no "introductions," he paid no courtesy calls, and those who sought him at Babylon Hall almost invariably were informed that Mr. Thessaly was abroad. When he entertained, his guests arrived from whence no one knew, but usually in opulent cars, and thereby departed no one knew whither. Lower Charleswood was patient, for great men are eccentric; but in time Lower Charleswood to its intense astonishment and mortification realised that Jules Thessaly was not interested in "the county." Lower Charleswood beheld itself snubbed, but preferred to hide its wounds from the world, and therefore sent Jules Thessaly ceremoniously to Coventry. He was voted a vulgar plutocrat and utterly impossible. When it leaked out that Lady James knew him well and that Sir Jacques frequently dined at Babylon Hall, Miss Kingsbury said, "Lady _James_? Well, of course"--And Sir Jacques, as the only eligible subst.i.tute for a real notability, was permitted a certain license. He was "peculiar," no doubt, but he had built a charming church and was a bachelor.

Urged to the task by Miss Kingsbury, the Vicar of High Fielding made further and exhaustive enquiries. He discovered that it was impossible to trace Jules Thessaly's year at Oxford for the same reason that it was impossible to trace anything else in his history. One man knew another man whose brother was at Oriel with Thessaly; a second man had heard of a third man who distinctly remembered him at Magdalen. The vicar's cousin, a stockbroker, said that Thessaly's father had been a Greek adventurer. Miss Kingsbury's agent--who sometimes succeeded in disposing of her pictures--a.s.sured Miss Kingsbury that Jules Thessaly was a Jew.

When war began all the county whispered that Jules Thessaly was a big shareholder in Krupps.

The const.i.tution of his establishment at Babylon Hall was attacked in the local press. Babylon Hall was full of dangerous aliens. Strains of music had been heard proceeding from the Hall at most unseemly hours--by the village innkeeper. Orgies were held there. But Jules Thessaly remained silent, unmoved, invisible. So that at the time of Sir Jacques'

death Lower Charleswood had pa.s.sed through three phases: pique, wonder, apathy. One or two folks had met Thessaly--but always by accident; had acclaimed him a wonderful man possessing the reserve of true genius.

Finally, Miss Kingsbury had met him--in Lower Charleswood post office, and by noon of the following day, all "the county" knew that he was "a charming recluse with the soul of a poet."

And this was the man with whom Paul Mario paced along the green aisles toward the point where they crossed that Pilgrim's Way which linking town to village, village to hamlet, lies upon the hills like a rosary on a nun's bosom.

"My car is waiting below," said Jules Thessaly. "You will probably prefer to drive back?"

Paul a.s.sented. He was breathing deeply of the sweet humid air, pungent with a thousand fresh scents and the intoxicating fragrance of rain-kissed loam. The sound of greedily drinking plant things arose from the hillside. Beyond the purple heath hung the midnight curtain, embroidered fitfully with silver, and he removed his hat that the cool breeze might touch him. Hatless he was magnificently picturesque; Antinous spared to maturity; the nature-worshipper within him stirred to quickness by magic perfumes arising from the breast of Mother Earth, he resembled that wonderful statue of the Bithynian which shows him as Dionysus the Twice-born, son of the raincloud, lover of the verdure.

"The world," said Jules Thessaly, "is waiting for you."

Through his abstract Orphic dreams the words reached Paul's mind; and they were oddly familiar. Who had spoken them--now, and once before? He awoke, and remembered. Don had said that the world awaited him. He turned and glanced at his companion. Jules Thessaly was regarding him fixedly.

"You spoke," said Paul. "Pardon my abstraction; but what did you say?"

"I said that when Nature endows a man at once with the genius of Dante and the appearance of a Greek G.o.d, that man holds the world in the hollow of his hand. He was born with a purpose. He _dares_ not seek to evade his destiny."

Paul met the glance of the golden, prominent eyes, and it held him enthralled. "I do not seek to evade it," he replied slowly. "I accept it; but I am afraid."

A low-pitched powerful French car stood at the foot of the slope, the chauffeur in his seat and a footman standing beside the open door.

Poised ethereally betwixt solid earth and some sphere remote peopled by Greek nature-myths, Paul found himself beside Jules Thessaly, and being borne swiftly, strongly upward to the hills. At the gap beyond the toll-gate, where one may view a prospect unique in all the county, the car stopped, perhaps in obedience to a summons of the master. From the open window Paul looked out over the valley; and a rainbow linked the crescent of the hills, point to point. Backed by the murk of the moving storm, Babylon Hall looked like a giant sarcophagus behind which t.i.tan hands had draped a sable curtain; and it seemed to Paul as he looked, wondering, that the arc of heaven-born colours which no brush may reproduce, rested upon the hidden roof of Dovelands Cottage, crossed Babylon Hall, and swept down to the rain mist of the horizon, down to the distant sea. The palette of the G.o.ds began to fade from view, and Paul turned impulsively to his companion.

Jules Thessaly, his elbows resting upon his knees, was staring down, apparently at the flat-crowned black hat which he held in his hands. The car had resumed its smooth progress.