Part 30 (2/2)

The clock chimed close beside me. It was a quarter to one. I sat down again, poured out more whisky and lit a fresh cigar. I left all the lights in the room s.h.i.+ning. I was determined to drag myself back to the commonplace and to cheerfulness.

I took a book from the table beside me. It was evidently a book which Ascher had been reading. A thin ivory blade lay between the pages, marking the place he had reached. The book was a prophetic forecast of the State of the future, a record of one of those dreams of better, calmer times, which haunt the spirits of brave and good men, to which cowards turn when they are made faint by the contemplation of present evil things. I read a page or two in one part of the book and a page or two in another. I read in one place a whole chapter. I discerned in the author an underlying faith in the natural goodness of man. He believed, his whole argument was based on the belief, that all men, but especially common men, the manual workers, would gladly turn away from greed and l.u.s.t and envy, would live in beauty and peace, naturally, without effort, if only they were set free from the pressure of want and the threat of hunger. The evil which troubles us, so this dreamer seemed to hold, is not in ourselves or of our nature. It is the result of the conditions in which we live, conditions created by our mistakes, not by our vices. I wondered if Ascher, with his wide knowledge of the world, believed in such a creed or even cherished a hope that it might be true.

Do men, in fact, become saints straightway when their bellies are full?

It is strange how childish memories awaken in us suddenly. As I laid down Ascher's book there came to me a picture of a scene in my old home.

We were at prayers in the dining-room. My father sat at a little table with a great heavy Bible before him. Ranged along the wall in front of him was the long line of servants, the butler a little apart from the others as befitted the chief of the staff. My governess and I sat together in a corner near the fire. My father read, in a flat, unemotional voice, read words which he absolutely believed to be the words of G.o.d. ”Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of G.o.d.”

Well, that is a different creed. To me it seems more consonant with the facts of life. Man as he is can neither enter into nor create a great society nor enjoy peace which comes of love. Hitherto the new birth of the Spirit, which bloweth where it listeth, has been for a few in every generation. The hour of rebirth for the ma.s.s of men still lingers. Will it ever come--the time when all the young men see visions and all the old men dream dreams?

I stirred uneasily in my chair and looked up. I had not heard him enter the room, but Ascher stood beside me.

”I am glad you are here,” he said. ”I hoped you would be; but I am very late.”

”Yes,” I said, ”you are very late. It is long after midnight. Where have you been? What have you been doing?”

Ascher sat down opposite to me, and for some time he did not speak. I made no attempt to press my questions. If Ascher wanted to talk to me he would do so in his own time and in the way he chose. I supposed that he did want to talk to me. He had asked me to his house. He had bidden me wait for him.

”I have no right,” said Ascher at last, ”to trouble you with my difficulties. I ought to think them out and fight them out for myself; but it will be a help to me if I can put them into words and feel that you are listening to me.”

He paused for so long that I felt I must make some reply to him, though I did not know what to say.

”I don't suppose I can be of any use to you,” I said, ”but if I can----”

”Perhaps you can,” said Ascher. ”You can listen to me at least. Perhaps you can do more. It is a large call to make upon your friends.h.i.+p to treat you in this manner, but--I am in some ways a lonely man.”

I have always, since the day I first met him, liked and respected Ascher. When he spoke about his loneliness I felt a sudden wave of pity for him. It seems a strange thing to say, but at that moment I had a strong affection for the man.

”What I partly foresaw and greatly dreaded has come,” he said. ”I am certain now that war is inevitable, a great war, almost perhaps in the end quite worldwide.”

”And England?” I said, ”is England, too----?”

”Almost inevitably.”

”Germany?” I said.

Ascher nodded.

I was throbbing with excitement. For the moment I felt nothing but a sense of exultation, strangely out of harmony with the grave melancholy with which Ascher spoke. I suppose the soldier instinct survives in me, an inheritance from generations of my forefathers, all of whom have worn swords, many of whom have fought. We have done our part in building up the British Empire, we Irish gentlemen, fighting, as Virgil's bees worked, ourselves in our own persons, but not for our own gain. There is surely not one battlefield of all where the flag of England has flown on which we have not led men, willing to fall at the head of them. It seems strange now, looking back on it, that such an emotion should have been possible; but at the moment I felt an overmastering sense of awful joy at Ascher's news.

”I cannot tell you where I have been to-night,” said Ascher, ”nor with whom I have been talking. Still less must I repeat what I have heard, but this much I think I may say. I was sent for to give my advice on certain matters connected with finance, to express an opinion about what will happen, what dangers threaten in that world, my world, the world of money.”

”There'll be an infernal flurry on the Stock Exchange,” I said. ”Prices will come tumbling down about men's ears. Fellows will go smash in every direction.”

”There will be much more than that,” said Ascher. ”The declaration of war will not simply mean the ruin of a few speculators here and there.

You know enough about the modern system of credit to realise something of what we have to face. There will be a sudden paralysis of the nerves and muscles of the whole world-wide body of commercial and industrial life. The heart will stop beating for a short time--only for a short time I hope--and no blood will go through the veins and arteries.”

Ascher spoke very gravely. Yet, though I had spent months watching the workings of his machine, I could not at the moment share his mood. The war fever was in my blood.

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