Above it all, melodiously, ebbed and flowed the rich accents of Reginald
Clarke. Ernest listened to the words of his own play coming from the older man's
mouth. The horrible fascination of the scene held him entranced. He saw
the creations of his mind pass in review before him, as a man might look
upon the face of his double grinning at him from behind a door in the
hideous hours of night. They were all there! The mad king. The subtle-witted courtiers. The
sombre-hearted Prince. The Queen-Mother who had loved a jester better
than her royal mate, and the fruit of their shameful alliance, the
Princess Marigold, a creature woven of sunshine and sin. Swiftly the action progressed. Shadows of impending death darkened the
house of the King. In the horrible agony of the rack the old jester
confessed. Stripped of his cap and bells, crowned with a wreath of
blood, he looked so pathetically funny that the Princess Marigold could
not help laughing between her tears. The Queen stood there all trembling and pale. Without a complaint she
saw her lover die. The executioner's sword smote the old man's head
straight from the trunk. It rolled at the feet of the King, who tossed
it to Marigold. The little Princess kissed it and covered the grinning
horror with her yellow veil. The last words died away. There was no applause. Only silence. All were stricken with the dread
that men feel in the house of God or His awful presence in genius. But the boy lay back in his chair. The cold sweat had gathered on his
brow and his temples throbbed. Nature had mercifully clogged his head
with blood. The rush of it drowned the crying voice of the nerves,
deadening for a while both consciousness and pain. XII


Somehow the night had passed--somehow in bitterness, in anguish. But it
had passed. Ernest's lips were parched and sleeplessness had left its trace in the
black rings under the eyes, when the next morning he confronted Reginald
in the studio. Reginald was sitting at the writing-table in his most characteristic
pose, supporting his head with his hand and looking with clear piercing
eyes searchingly at the boy. "Yes," he observed, "it's a most curious psychical phenomenon." "You cannot imagine how real it all seemed to me." The boy spoke painfully, dazed, as if struck by a blow. "Even now it is as if something has gone from me, some struggling
thought that I cannot--cannot remember." Reginald regarded him as a physical experimenter might look upon the
subject of a particularly baffling mental disease. "You must not think, my boy, that I bear you any malice for your
extraordinary delusion. Before Jack went away he gave me an exact
account of all that has happened. Divers incidents recurred to him from
which it appears that, at various times in the past, you have been on
the verge of a nervous collapse." A nervous collapse! What was the use of this term but a euphemism for
insanity? "Do not despair, dear child," Reginald caressingly remarked. "Your
disorder is not hopeless, not incurable. Such crises come to every man
who writes. It is the tribute we pay to the Lords of Song. The
minnesinger of the past wrote with his heart's blood; but we moderns dip
our pen into the sap of our nerves. We analyse life, love art--and the
dissecting knife that we use on other men's souls finally turns against
ourselves. "But what shall a man do? Shall he sacrifice art to hygiene and
surrender the one attribute that makes him chiefest of created things? Animals, too, think. Some walk on two legs. But introspection
differentiates man from the rest. Shall we yield up the sweet
consciousness of self that we derive from the analysis of our emotion,
for the contentment of the bull that ruminates in the shade of a tree or
the healthful stupidity of a mule?" "Assuredly not." "But what shall a man do?" "Ah, that I cannot tell. Mathematics offers definite problems that admit
of a definite solution. Life states its problems with less exactness and
offers for each a different solution. One and one are two to-day and
to-morrow. Psychical values, on each manipulation, will yield a
different result. Still, your case is quite clear. You have overworked
yourself in the past, mentally and emotionally. You have sown unrest,
and must not be surprised if neurasthenia is the harvest thereof." "Do you think--that I should go to some sanitarium?" the boy falteringly
asked. "God forbid! Go to the seashore, somewhere where you can sleep and play. Take your body along, but leave your brain behind--at least do not
take more of it with you than is necessary. The summer season in
Atlantic City has just begun. There, as everywhere in American society,
you will be much more welcome if you come without brains." Reginald's half-bantering tone reassured Ernest a little. Timidly he
dared approach once more the strange event that had wrought such havoc
with his nervous equilibrium. "How do you account for my strange obsession--one might almost call it a
mania?" "If it could be accounted for it would not be strange." "Can you suggest no possible explanation?" "Perhaps a stray leaf on my desk a few indications of the plot, a
remark--who knows? Perhaps thought-matter is floating in the air. Perhaps--but we had better not talk of it now. It would needlessly
excite you." "You are right," answered Ernest gloomily, "let us not talk of it. But
whatever may be said, it is a marvellous play." "You flatter me. There is nothing in it that you may not be able to do
equally well--some day." "Ah, no," the boy replied, looking up to Reginald with admiration. "You
are the master." XIII


Lazily Ernest stretched his limbs on the beach of Atlantic City. The
sea, that purger of sick souls, had washed away the fever and the fret
of the last few days. The wind was in his hair and the spray was in his
breath, while the rays of the sun kissed his bare arms and legs. He
rolled over in the glittering sand in the sheer joy of living. Now and then a wavelet stole far into the beach, as if to caress him,
but pined away ere it could reach its goal. It was as if the enamoured
sea was stretching out its arms to him. Who knows, perhaps through the
clear water some green-eyed nymph, or a young sea-god with the tang of
the sea in his hair, was peering amorously at the boy's red mouth. The
people of the deep love the red warm blood of human kind. It is always
the young that they lure to their watery haunts, never the shrivelled
limbs that totter shivering to the grave. Such fancies came to Ernest as he lay on the shore in his bathing
attire, happy, thoughtless,--animal. The sun and the sea seemed to him two lovers vying for his favor. The
sudden change of environment had brought complete relaxation and had
quieted his rebellious, assertive soul. He was no longer a solitary unit
but one with wind and water, herb and beach and shell. Almost
voluptuously his hand toyed with the hot sand that glided caressingly
through his fingers and buried his breast and shoulder under its
glittering burden.