towards midnight the expected royal personage came and went; fatigued but always amiable, he shed the sunshine of his stereotyped smile on lady melthorpe’s “crush”—shook hands with his host and hostess, nodded blandly to a few stray acquaintances, and went through all the dreary duties of social boredom heroically, though he was pining for his bed more wearily than any work-worn digger of the soil. he made his way out more quickly than he came in, and with his departure a great many of the more “snobbish” among the fashionable set disappeared also, leaving the rooms freer and cooler for their absence. people talked less loudly and assertively,—little groups began to gather in corners and exchange friendly chit-chat,—men who had been standing all the evening found space to sit down beside their favoured fair ones, and indulge themselves in talking a little pleasant nonsense,—even the hostess herself was at last permitted to occupy an arm-chair and take a few moments’ rest. some of the guests had wandered into the music-saloon, a quaintly-decorated oak-panelled apartment which opened out from the largest drawing-room. a string band had played there till royalty had come and gone, but now “sweet harmony” no longer “wagged her silver tongue,” for the musicians were at supper. the grand piano was open, and madame vassilius stood near it, idly touching the ivory keys now and then with her small white, sensitive-looking fingers. close beside her, comfortably ensconced in a round deep chair, sat a very stout old lady with a curiously large hairy face and a beaming expression of eye, who appeared to have got into her pink silk gown by some cruelly unnatural means, so tightly was she laced, and so much did she seem in danger of bursting. she perspired profusely and smiled perpetually, and frequently stroked the end of her very pronounced moustache with quite a mannish air. this was the individual for whom lady melthorpe had been searching,—the baroness von denkwald, noted for her skill in palmistry.
“ach! it is warm!” she said in her strong german accent, giving an observant and approving glance at irene’s white-draped form.—“you are ze one womans zat is goot to look at. a peach mit ice-cream,—dot is yourself.”
irene smiled pensively, but made no answer.
the baroness looked at her again, and fanned herself rapidly.
“it is sometings bad mit you?” she asked at last.—“you look sorrowful? zat eastern mans—he say tings disagreeable? you should pelieve me,—i have told you of your hand—ach! what a fortune!—splendid!—fame,—money, title,—a grand marriage——”
irene lifted her little hand from the keyboard of the piano, and looked curiously at the lines in her pretty palm.
“dear baroness, there must be some mistake,” she said slowly.—“i was a lonely child,—and some people say that as you begin, so will you end. i shall never marry—i am a lonely woman, and it will always be so.”
“always, always—not at all!” and the baroness shook her large head obstinately. “you will marry; and gott in himmel save you from a husband such as mine! he is dead—oh yes—a goot ting;—he is petter off—and so am i. moch petter!”
and she laughed, the rise and fall of her ample neck causing quite a cracking sound in the silk of her bodice.
madame vassilius smiled again,—and then again grew serious. she was thinking of the “elsewhere” that el-râmi had spoken of,—she had noticed that all he said had seemed to be uttered involuntarily,—and that he had hesitated strangely before using the word “elsewhere.” she longed to ask him one or two more questions,—and scarcely had the wish formed itself in her mind, than she saw him advancing from the drawing-room, in company with lord melthorpe, sir frederick vaughan, and the pretty frivolous idina chester, who, regardless of all that poets write concerning the unadorned simplicity of youth, had decked herself, american fashion, with diamonds enough for a dowager.
“it’s too lovely!” the young lady was saying as she entered.—“i think, mr. el-râmi, you have made me out a most charming creature! “unemotional, harmless, and innocently worldly”—that was it, wasn’t it? well now, i think that’s splendid! i had an idea you were going to find out something horrid about me;—i’m so glad i’m harmless! you’re sure i’m harmless?”
“quite sure!” said el-râmi with a slight smile. “and there you possess a great superiority over most women.”
and he stepped forward in obedience to lady melthorpe’s signal, to be introduced to the “dear” baroness, whose shrewd little eyes dwelt upon him curiously.
“do you believe in palmistry?” she asked him, after the ordinary greetings were exchanged.
“i’m afraid not,” he answered politely—“though i am acquainted with the rules of the art as practised in the east, and i know that many odd coincidences do occur. but,—as an example—take my hand—i am sure you can make nothing of it.”
he held out his open palm for her inspection—she bent over it, and uttered an exclamation of surprise. there were none of the usual innumerable little criss-cross lines upon it—nothing, in fact, but two deep dents from left to right, and one well-marked line running from the wrist to the centre.
“it is unnatural!” cried the baroness in amazement.—“it is a malformation! there is no hand like it!”
“i believe not,” answered el-râmi composedly.—“as i told you, you can learn nothing from it—and yet my life has not been without its adventures. this hand of mine is my excuse for not accepting palmistry as an absolutely proved science.”
“must everything be ‘proved’ for you?” asked irene vassilius suddenly.
“assuredly, madame!”
“then have you ‘proved’ the elsewhere of which you spoke to me?”
el-râmi flushed a little,—then paled again.
“madame, the message of your inner spirit, as conveyed first through the electric medium of your brain, and then through the magnetism of your touch, told me of an ‘elsewhere.’ i may not personally or positively know of any ‘elsewhere,’ than this present state of being,—but your interior self expects an ‘elsewhere,’—apparently knows of it better than i do, and conveys that impression and knowledge to me, apart from any consideration as to whether i may be fitted to understand or receive it.”
these words were heard with evident astonishment by the little group of people who stood by, listening.
“dear me! how ve—ry curious!” murmured lady melthorpe.—“and we have always looked upon dear madame vassilius as quite a free-thinker,”—here she smiled apologetically, as irene lifted her serious eyes and looked at her steadily—“i mean, as regards the next world and all those interesting subjects. in some of her books, for instance, she is terribly severe on the clergy.”
“not more so than many of them deserve, i am sure,” said el-râmi with sudden heat and asperity.—“it was not christ’s intention, i believe, that the preachers of his gospel should drink and hunt, and make love to their neighbours’ wives ad libitum, which is what a great many of them do. the lives of the clergy nowadays offer very few worthy examples to the laity.”
lady melthorpe coughed delicately and warningly. she did not like plain speaking,—she had a “pet clergyman” of her own,—moreover, she had been bred up in the provinces among “county” folk, some of whom still believe that at one period of the world’s history “god” was always wanting the blood of bulls and goats to smell “as a sweet savour in his nostrils.” she herself preferred to believe in the possibility of the deity’s having “nostrils,” rather than take the trouble to consider the effect of his majestic thought as evinced in the supremely perfect order of the planets and solar systems.
el-râmi, however, went on regardlessly.
“free-thinkers,” he said, “are for the most part truth-seekers. if everybody gave way to the foolish credulity attained to by the believers in the ‘mahatmas’ for instance, what an idiotic condition the world would be in! we want free-thinkers,—as many as we can get,—to help us to distinguish between the false and the true. we want to separate the actual from the seeming in our lives,—and there is so much seeming and so little actual that the process is difficult.”
“why, dat is nonsense!” said the baroness von denkwald. “mit a fact, zere is no mistake—you prove him. see!” and she took up a silver penholder from the table near her.—“here is a pen,—mit ink it is used to write—zere is what you call ze actual.”
el-râmi smiled.
“believe me, my dear madame, it is only a pen so long as you elect to view it in that light. allow me!”—and he took it from her hand, fixing his eyes upon her the while. “will you place the tips of your fingers—the fingers of the left hand—yes—so! on my wrist? thank you!”—this, as she obeyed with a rather vague smile on her big fat face.—“now you will let me have the satisfaction of offering you this spray of lilies—the first of the season,” and he gravely extended the silver penholder.—“is not the odour delicious?”
“ach! it is heavenly!” and the baroness smelt at the penholder with an inimitable expression of delight. everybody began to laugh—el-râmi silenced them by a look.
“madame you are under some delusion,” he said quietly.—“you have no lilies in your hand, only a penholder.”
she laughed.
“you are very funny!” she said—“but i shall not be deceived. i shall wear my lilies.”
and she endeavoured to fasten the penholder in the front of her bodice,—when suddenly el-râmi drew his hand away from hers. a startled expression passed over her face, but in a minute or two she recovered her equanimity and twirled the penholder placidly between her fingers.
“zere is what you call ze actual,” she said, taking up the conversation where it had previously been interrupted.—“a penholder is always a penholder—you can make nothing more of it.”
but here she was surrounded by the excited onlookers—a flood of explanations poured upon her, as to how she had taken that same penholder for a spray of lilies, and so forth, till the old lady grew quite hot and angry.
“i shall not pelieve you!” she said indignantly.—“it is impossible. you haf a joke—but i do not see it. irene”—and she looked appealingly to madame vassilius, who had witnessed the whole scene—“it is not true, is it?”
“yes, dear baroness, it is true,” said irene soothingly.—“but it is a nothing after all. your eyes were deceived for the moment—and mr. el-râmi has shown us very cleverly, by scientific exposition, how the human sight can be deluded—he conveyed an impression of lilies to your brain, and you saw lilies accordingly. i quite understand,—it is only through the brain that we receive any sense of sight. the thing is easy of comprehension, though it seems wonderful.”
“it is devilry!” said the baroness solemnly, getting up and shaking out her voluminous pink train with a wrathful gesture.
“no, madame,” said el-râmi earnestly, with a glance at her which somehow had the effect of quieting her ruffled feelings. “it is merely science. science was looked upon as ‘devilry’ in ancient times,—but we in our generation are more liberal-minded.”
“but what shall it lead to, all zis science?” demanded the baroness, still with some irritation.—“i see not any use in it. if one deceive ze eye so quickly, it is only to make peoples angry to find demselves such fools!”
“ah, my dear lady, if we could all know to what extent exactly we could be fooled,—not only as regards our sight, but our other senses and passions, we should be wiser and more capable of self-government than we are. every step that helps us to the attainment of such knowledge is worth the taking.”
“and you have taken so many of those steps,” said irene vassilius, “that i suppose it would be difficult to deceive you?”
“i am only human, madame,” returned el-râmi, with a faint touch of bitterness in his tone, “and therefore i am capable of being led astray by my own emotions as others are.”
“are we not getting too analytical?” asked lord melthorpe cheerily. “here is miss chester wanting to know where your brother féraz is. she only caught a glimpse of him in the distance,—and she would like to make his closer acquaintance.”
“he went with mr. ainsworth,” began el-râmi.
“yes—i saw them together in the conservatory,” said lady melthorpe. “they were deep in conversation—but it is time they gave us a little of their company—i’ll go and fetch them here.”
she went, but almost immediately returned, followed by the two individuals in question. féraz looked a little flushed and excited,—roy ainsworth calm and nonchalant as usual.
“i’ve asked your brother to come and sit to me to-morrow,” the latter said, addressing himself at once to el-râmi. “he is quite willing to oblige me,—and i presume you have no objection?”
“not the least in the world!” responded el-râmi with apparent readiness, though the keen observer might have detected a slight ring of satirical coldness in his tone.
“he is a curious fellow,” continued roy, looking at féraz where he stood, going through the formality of an introduction to miss chester, whose bold bright eyes rested upon him in frank and undisguised admiration. “he seems to know nothing of life.”
“what do you call ‘life’?” demanded el-râmi, with harsh abruptness.
“why, life as we men live it, of course,” answered roy, complacently.
“‘life, as we men live it!’” echoed el-râmi. “by heaven, there is nothing viler under the sun than life lived so! the very beasts have a more decent and self-respecting mode of behaviour,—and the everyday existence of an ordinary ‘man about town’ is low and contemptible as compared with that of an honest-hearted dog!”
ainsworth lifted his languid eyes with a stare of amazement;—irene vassilius smiled.
“i agree with you!” she said softly.
“oh, of course!” murmured roy sarcastically—“madame vassilius agrees with everything that points to, or suggests, the utter worthlessness of man!”
her eyes flashed.
“believe me,” she said, with some passion, “i would give worlds to be able to honour and revere men,—and there are some whom i sincerely respect and admire,—but i frankly admit that the majority of them awaken nothing in me but the sentiment of contempt. i regret it, but i cannot help it.”
“you want men to be gods,” said ainsworth, regarding her with an indulgent smile; “and when they can’t succeed, poor wretches, you are hard on them. you are a born goddess, and to you it comes quite naturally to occupy a throne on mount olympus, and gaze with placid indifference on all below,—but to others the process is difficult. for example, i am a groveller. i grovel round the base of the mountain and rather like it. a valley is warmer than a summit, always.”
a faint sea-shell pink flush crept over irene’s cheeks, but she made no reply. she was watching féraz, round whom a bevy of pretty women were congregated, like nineteenth-century nymphs round a new eastern apollo. he looked a little embarrassed, yet his very diffidence had an indefinable grace and attraction about it which was quite novel and charming to the jaded fashionable fair ones who for the moment made him their chief object of attention. they were pressing him to give them some music, and he hesitated, not out of any shyness to perform, but simply from a sense of wonder as to how such a spiritual, impersonal, and divine thing as music could be made to assert itself in the midst of so much evident frivolity. he looked appealingly at his brother,—but el-râmi regarded him not. he understood this mute avoidance of his eyes,—he was thrown upon himself to do exactly as he chose,—and his sense of pride stimulated him to action. breaking from the ring of his fair admirers, he advanced towards the piano.
“i will play a simple prelude,” he said, “and, if you like it, you shall hear more.”
there was an immediate silence. irene vassilius moved a little apart and sat on a low divan, her hands clasped idly in her lap;—near her stood lord melthorpe, roy ainsworth, and el-râmi;—sir frederick vaughan and his fiancée, idina chester, occupied what is known as a “flirtation chair” together; several guests flocked in from the drawing-rooms, so that the salon was comparatively well filled. féraz poised his delicate and supple hands on the keyboard,—and then—why, what then? nothing!—only music!—music divinely pure and sweet as a lark’s song,—music that spoke of things as yet undeclared in mortal language,—of the mystery of an angel’s tears—of the joy of a rose in bloom,—of the midsummer dreams of a lily enfolded within its green leaf-pavilion,—of the love-messages carried by silver beams from bridegroom-stars to bride-satellites,—of a hundred delicate and wordless marvels the music talked eloquently in rounded and mystic tone. and gradually, but invincibly, upon all those who listened, there fell the dreamy nameless spell of perfect harmony,—they did not understand, they could not grasp the far-off heavenly meanings which the sounds conveyed, but they knew and felt such music was not earthly. the quest of gold, or thirst of fame, had nothing to do with such composition—it was above and beyond all that. when the delicious melody ceased, it seemed to leave an emptiness in the air,—an aching regret in the minds of the audience; it had fallen like dew on arid soil, and there were tears in many eyes, and passionate emotions stirring many hearts, as féraz pressed his finger-tips with a velvet-like softness on the closing chord. then came a burst of excited applause which rather startled him from his dreams. he looked round with a faint smile of wonderment, and this time chanced to meet his brother’s gaze earnestly fixed upon him. then an idea seemed to occur to him, and, playing a few soft notes by way of introduction, he said aloud, almost as though he were talking to himself—
“there are in the world’s history a few old legends and stories, which, whether they are related in prose or rhyme, seem to set themselves involuntarily to music. i will tell you one now, if you care to hear it,—the story of the priest philemon.”
there was a murmur of delight and expectation, followed by profound silence as before.
féraz lifted his eyes,—bright stag-like eyes, now flashing with warmth and inspiration,—and, pressing the piano pedals, he played a few slow solemn chords like the opening bars of a church chant; then, in a soft, rich, perfectly modulated voice, he began.
