Part 18 (1/2)

In his flippant way Sidney spoke the truth. He had an almost physical repugnance for his fathers' ways of looking at things.

'I think you're the two most wicked people in the world,' exclaimed Addie gravely.

'We are,' said Sidney lightly. 'I wonder you consent to sit in the same box with us. How you can find my company endurable I can never make out.'

Addie's lovely face flushed; and her lip quivered a little.

'It's your friend who's the wickeder of the two,' pursued Sidney, 'for she's in earnest, and I'm not. Life's too short for us to take the world's troubles on our shoulders, not to speak of the unborn millions. A little light and joy, the flush of sunset or of a lovely woman's face, a fleeting strain of melody, the scent of a rose, the flavour of old wine, the flash of a jest, and, ah, yes, a cup of coffee--here's yours, Miss Ansell--that's the most we can hope for in life. Let us start a religion with one commandment, ”Enjoy thyself.”'

'That religion has too many disciples already,' said Esther, stirring her coffee.

'Then why not start it if you wish to reform the world?' asked Sidney.

'All religions survive merely by being broken. With only one commandment to break, everybody would jump at the chance. But so long as you tell people they mustn't enjoy themselves, they will. It's human nature, and you can't alter that by Act of Parliament or Confession of Faith. Christ ran amuck at human nature, and human nature celebrates his birthday with pantomimes.'

'Christ understood human nature better than the modern young man,'

said Esther scathingly, 'and the proof lies in the almost limitless impress he has left on history.'

'Oh, that was a fluke,' said Sidney lightly. 'His real influence is only superficial. Scratch the Christian and you find the pagan--spoiled.'

'He divined by genius what science is slowly finding out,' said Esther, 'when he said, ”Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”'

Sidney laughed heartily. 'That seems to be your King Charles's head, seeing divinations of modern science in all the old ideas. Personally I honour him for discovering that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Strange he should have stopped half-way to the truth.'

'What is the truth?' asked Addie curiously.

'Why, that morality was made for man, not man for morality,' said Sidney. 'That chimera of meaningless virtue which the Hebrew has brought into the world is the last monster left to slay. The Hebrew view of life is too one-sided. The Bible is a literature without a laugh in it. Even Raphael thinks the great Radical of Galilee carried spirituality too far.'

'Yes, he thinks he would have been reconciled to the Jewish doctors, and would have understood them better,' said Addie, 'only he died so young.'

'That's a good way of putting it,' said Sidney admiringly. 'One can see Raphael is my cousin, despite his religious aberrations. It opens up new historical vistas. Only it is just like Raphael to find excuses for everybody, and Judaism in everything. I am sure he considers the devil a good Jew at heart. If he admits any moral obliquity in him, he puts it down to the climate.'

This made Esther laugh outright, even while there were tears for Raphael in the laugh. Sidney's intellectual fascination rea.s.serted itself over her; there seemed something inspiring in standing with him on the free heights that left all the clogging vapours and fogs of moral problems somewhere below, where the sun shone and the clear wind blew, and talk was a game of bowls with Puritan ideals for ninepins.

He went on amusing her till the curtain rose, with a pretended theory of Mohammedology which he was working at. Just as for the Christian apologist the Old Testament was full of hints of the New, so he contended was the New Testament full of foreshadowings of the Koran, and he cited as a most convincing text, 'In heaven there shall be no marrying, nor giving in marriage.' He professed to think Mohammedanism was the dark horse that would come to the front in the race of religions, and win in the West, as it had won in the East.

'There's a man staring dreadfully at you, Esther,' said Addie, when the curtain fell on the second act.

'Nonsense,' said Esther, reluctantly returning from the realities of the play to the insipidities of actual life. 'Whoever it is, it must be at you.'

She looked affectionately at the great glorious creature at her side, tall and stately, with that winning gentleness of expression which spiritualises the most voluptuous beauty.

Addie wore pale sea-green, and there were lilies of the valley at her bosom, and a diamond star in her hair. No man could admire her more than Esther, who felt quite vain of her friend's beauty, and happy to bask in its reflected suns.h.i.+ne. Sidney followed her glance, and his cousin's charms struck him with almost novel freshness. He was so much with Addie that he always took her for granted. The semi-unconscious liking he had for her society was based on other than physical traits.

He let his eyes rest upon her for a moment in half-surprised appreciation, figuring her as half-bud, half-blossom. Really, if Addie had not been his cousin--and a Jewess! She was not much of a cousin when he came to cipher it out, but then she was a good deal of a Jewess.

'I'm sure it's you he's staring at,' persisted Addie.

'Don't be ridiculous!' persisted Esther. 'Which man do you mean?'

'There! The fifth row of stalls, the one, two, four, seven--the seventh man from the end. He's been looking at you all through, but now he's gone in for a good long stare. There! next to that pretty girl in pink.'

'Do you mean the young man with the dyed carnation in his b.u.t.tonhole and the crimson handkerchief in his bosom?'