Part 9 (2/2)
What a lovely creature she is!” she added enthusiastically. ”I suppose you know you're the most envied person in the hotel at this present moment?”
He smiled, but his face still looked anxious and disturbed.
”Because I have the privilege of being her friend?” he said. ”Well, I am not going to deny that it _is_ a privilege--a most enviable one.”
”I should think,” said Mrs Jefferson meaningly, ”it is also one that has its dangers.”
The calm grey eyes met her sharp inquisitive glance, but were utterly unrevealing.
”I will not affect to misunderstand you,” he said, ”but there are men who covet danger for its own sake. They may seem foolhardy, but they are only accountable to themselves for the risks they run.”
”Well,” said Mrs Jefferson warmly, ”I'm only a woman, and yet if it's possible to fall in love with one of my own s.e.x, I've done it. She's perfectly charmed me. I can't get her out of my head for a single moment. It's not only her wonderful beauty, but her mind. As for our poet,” she added, laughing, ”he's quite gone. He's done nothing all day but moon about under the pine trees. Writing sonnets, I guess, and hoping to catch a glimpse of her. All useless--she's not left the hotel to-day, and I suppose she'll not favour us to night.”
Colonel Estcourt was silent. Conversation was more or less general, but it sounded vague and unmeaning to him. He heard a voice on his left holding forth with energy, but he did not heed it until Mrs Jefferson touched his arm and whispered an entreaty.
”Do listen,” she said, ”it's Diogenes. Isn't he coming out? I surmise it's _her_ influence. You remember last night?”
”An atheist,” said the dogmatic voice of the individual who had given that common-sense view of spiritualism the previous evening, ”must be a fool of the most complete type. Because he doubts what _men_ teach of G.o.d, is no reason for doubting the existence of G.o.d. I grant that the Reverend John Smith, with his high-falutin' trappings of Ritualism on one side, and the Reverend Josiah Stiggins, with his coa.r.s.e and commonplace familiarity with the Almighty (whose personality he has the effrontery to expound as if he were discussing the characteristics of an ordinary mortal), on the other, are enough to drive hundreds of people out of the pale of Christianity, and force them to take refuge in defiance and opposition. But, all the same, the expectation of another life is a rooted belief in the minds of all men, quite apart from religion. Even the savage has it. If we call it human nature to eat, drink, fight, love, or desire, it must also be human nature that gives universal a.s.sent to this idea of an after existence. The fact of finding it in all races is but a proof that Man is the creation of a Power that intends him for a far wider range of existence than he sees before him. There are many things affirmed by man's consciousness that he cannot really or logically explain. Yet it is a narrow reasoning that bids us reject the inexplicable.”
”Yet you reject spiritualism,” said Mrs Jefferson quickly.
”Not at all, my dear madam. I only reject the humiliating and degrading trickery that is its sensational form. I only repeat what I said yesterday, that no lofty or educated mind could do anything but resent the idea of being subjugated to a mere material will, and being forced by that will to perform conjuring tricks in order that a small portion of the civilised world should gape, and gaze, and cry out 'How wonderful!' To deny that spirits exist, aye and work, would be to deny the very crudest faith in Christianity.”
”There is no doubt,” said Colonel Estcourt, ”that everything _is_ explicable, but we must wait for the growth and development of our higher natures before we can comprehend half the mysteries of the higher life. The great fault of the materialist and the scientist is, that they would fain bring everything down to the level of their _present_ comprehension, instead of patiently waiting the completion of their future spiritual forces. It is quite evident that we are not meant to attain our full mental stature on the earth-plane, or what would be left to achieve in the countless ages of immortality? Man believes in immortality and yet seems to contemplate it as a state of stagnation and quiescence. Why he believes in it he cannot fully explain. It is, as you said before, a consciousness given to the races of humanity, but no more capable of commonplace a.n.a.lysis than time, or s.p.a.ce, or thought.”
”The beautiful is as the cloud that floats in radiant s.p.a.ce,” murmured the poet. ”The very vagueness of form permits the eye to clothe it in the loveliest tints of Fancy.”
”Now that's what I call rational,” murmured Mrs Jefferson in Colonel Estcourt's ear. ”Do you think he knows what he means. I guess he don't... Gracious!”
She started, and suddenly grasped his arm. ”Look,” she said, ”there's the princess in the doorway. Is she coming in? No! She's moving away.
I believe she's going into the drawing-room after all. Did you see her?”
”No,” said Colonel Estcourt. ”Are you sure it was the princess?”
His face looked strangely pale. She saw that his hand trembled as he laid down his knife on the plate before him.
”Sure?” exclaimed Mrs Jefferson, with asperity. ”Of course I'm sure!
It's not easy to mistake _her_, I fancy. I can't think why you didn't catch sight of her. She just looked in as she pa.s.sed, I suppose.”
”No doubt,” he said. But the gravity and uneasiness of his face deepened.
Just then one of the waiters paused beside Mrs Jefferson's chair. She turned eagerly to him. ”Watson,” she said, ”just oblige me by going to the drawing-room and finding out if Madame Zairoff is there. I guess,”
she added laughingly to Colonel Estcourt, ”that I'm not going to waste my time over thirteen courses if she is.”
Still he did not speak, and his unusual pallor and gravity began to affect the lively little American woman. She helped herself to truffled pheasant, and became absorbed in gastronomical duties.
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