Only for a moment, as he looked at her, a flash of tenderness seemed to
come back to them. Then he said, with a touch of sadness: "Why should
the first word between us be a lie?" Ethel made no answer. Reginald looked at her half in wonder and said: "And is your love for
the boy so great that it overcame your hate of me?" Ah, he knew! She winced. "He has told you?" "Not a word." There was something superhuman in his power of penetration. Why should
she wear a mask before him, when his eyes, like the eyes of God, pierced
to the core of her being? "No," she replied, "it is not love, but compassion for him." "Compassion?" "Yes, compassion for your victim." "You mean?" "Reginald!" "I am all ear." "I implore you." "Speak." "You have ruined one life." He raised his eyebrows derogatively. "Yes," she continued fiercely, "ruined it! Is not that enough?" "I have never wilfully ruined any one's life." "You have ruined mine." "Wilfully?" "How else shall I explain your conduct?" "I warned you." "Warning, indeed! The warning that the snake gives to the sparrow
helpless under its gaze." "Ah, but who tells you that the snake is to blame? Is it not rather the
occult power that prescribes with blood on brazen scroll the law of our
being?" "This is no solace to the sparrow. But whatever may be said, let us drop
the past. Let us consider the present. I beg of you, leave this boy--let
him develop without your attempting to stifle the life in him or
impressing upon it the stamp of your alien mind." "Ethel," he protested, "you are unjust. If you knew--" Then an idea
seemed to take hold of him. He looked at her curiously. "What if I knew?" she asked. "You shall know," he said, simply. "Are you strong?" "Strong to withstand anything at your hand. There is nothing that you
can give me, nothing that you can take away." "No," he remarked, "nothing. Yes, you have changed. Still, when I look
upon you, the ghosts of the past seem to rise like live things." "We both have changed. We meet now upon equal grounds. You are no
longer the idol I made of you." "Don't you think that to the idol this might be a relief, not a
humiliation? It is a terrible torture to sit in state with lips
eternally shut. Sometimes there comes over the most reticent of us a
desire to break through the eternal loneliness that surrounds the soul. It is this feeling that prompts madmen to tear off their clothes and
exhibit their nakedness in the market-place. It's madness on my part, or
a whim, or I don't know what; but it pleases me that you should know the
truth." "You promised me long ago that I should." "To-day I will redeem my promise, and I will tell you another thing that
you will find hard to believe." "And that is?" "That I loved you." Ethel smiled a little sceptically. "You have loved often." "No," he replied. "Loved, seriously loved, I have, only once." XX


They were sitting in a little Italian restaurant where they had often,
in the old days, lingered late into the night over a glass of Lacrimæ
Christi. But no pale ghost of the past rose from the wine. Only a
wriggling something, with serpent eyes, that sent cold shivers down her
spine and held her speechless and entranced. When their order had been filled and the waiter had posted himself at a
respectful distance, Reginald began--at first leisurely, a man of the
world. But as he proceeded a strange exultation seemed to possess him
and from his eyes leaped the flame of the mystic. "You must pardon me," he commenced, "if I monopolise the conversation,
but the revelations I have to make are of such a nature that I may well
claim your attention. I will start with my earliest childhood. You
remember the picture of me that was taken when I was five?" She remembered, indeed. Each detail of his life was deeply engraven on
her mind. "At that time," he continued, "I was not held to be particularly bright. The reason was that my mind, being pre-eminently and extraordinarily
receptive, needed a stimulus from without. The moment I was sent to
school, however, a curious metamorphosis took place in me. I may say
that I became at once the most brilliant boy in my class. You know that
to this day I have always been the most striking figure in any circle in
which I have ever moved." Ethel nodded assent. Silently watching the speaker, she saw a gleam of
the truth from afar, but still very distant and very dim. Reginald lifted the glass against the light and gulped its contents. Then in a lower voice he recommenced: "Like the chameleon, I have the
power of absorbing the colour of my environment." "Do you mean that you have the power of absorbing the special virtues
of other people?" she interjected. "That is exactly what I mean." "Oh!" she cried, for in a heart-beat many things had become clear to
her. For the first time she realised, still vaguely but with increasing
vividness, the hidden causes of her ruin and, still more plainly, the
horrible danger of Ernest Fielding. He noticed her agitation, and a look of psychological curiosity came
into his eyes. "Ah, but that is not all," he observed, smilingly. "That is nothing. We
all possess that faculty in a degree. The secret of my strength is my
ability to reject every element that is harmful or inessential to the
completion of my self. This did not come to me easily, nor without a
struggle. But now, looking back upon my life, many things become
transparent that were obscure even to me at the time. I can now follow
the fine-spun threads in the intricate web of my fate, and discover in
the wilderness of meshes a design, awful and grandly planned." His voice shook with conviction, as he uttered these words. There was
something strangely gruesome in this man. It was thus that she had
pictured to herself the high-priest of some terrible and mysterious
religion, demanding a human sacrifice to appease the hunger of his god. She was fascinated by the spell of his personality, and listened with a
feeling not far removed from awe. But Reginald suddenly changed his tone
and proceeded in a more conversational manner. "The first friend I ever cared for was a boy marvellously endowed for
the study of mathematics. At the time of our first meeting at school, I
was unable to solve even the simplest algebraical problem. But we had
been together only for half a month, when we exchanged parts. It was I
who was the mathematical genius now, whereas he became hopelessly dull
and stuttered through his recitations only with a struggle that brought
the tears to his eyes. Then I discarded him. Heartless, you say? I have
come to know better. Have you ever tasted a bottle of wine that had been
uncorked for a long time? If you have, you have probably found it
flat--the essence was gone, evaporated. Thus it is when we care for
people. Probably--no, assuredly--there is some principle prisoned in
their souls, or in the windings of their brains, which, when escaped,
leaves them insipid, unprofitable and devoid of interest to us.