In common with others who lead a strictly impersonal life, he possessed
the quality of utter bravery, and was always ready to face any
combination of circumstances, no matter how terrible, because he saw in
them the just working-out of past causes he had himself set in motion
which could not be dodged or modified. And whereas the majority of
people had little meaning for him, either by way of attraction or
repulsion, the moment he met some one with whom he felt his past had
been _vitally_ interwoven his whole inner being leapt up instantly and
shouted the fact in his face, and he regulated his life with the utmost
skill and caution, like a sentry on watch for an enemy whose feet could
already be heard approaching. Thus, while the great majority of men and women left him
uninfluenced--since he regarded them as so many souls merely passing
with him along the great stream of evolution--there were, here and
there, individuals with whom he recognised that his smallest intercourse
was of the gravest importance. These were persons with whom he knew
in every fibre of his being he had accounts to settle, pleasant or
otherwise, arising out of dealings in past lives; and into his relations
with these few, therefore, he concentrated as it were the efforts that
most people spread over their intercourse with a far greater number. By
what means he picked out these few individuals only those conversant
with the startling processes of the subconscious memory may say, but the
point was that Jones believed the main purpose, if not quite the entire
purpose, of his present incarnation lay in his faithful and thorough
settling of these accounts, and that if he sought to evade the least
detail of such settling, no matter how unpleasant, he would have lived
in vain, and would return to his next incarnation with this added duty
to perform. For according to his beliefs there was no Chance, and could
be no ultimate shirking, and to avoid a problem was merely to waste time
and lose opportunities for development. And there was one individual with whom Jones had long understood clearly
he had a very large account to settle, and towards the accomplishment
of which all the main currents of his being seemed to bear him with
unswerving purpose. For, when he first entered the insurance office as a
junior clerk ten years before, and through a glass door had caught sight
of this man seated in an inner room, one of his sudden overwhelming
flashes of intuitive memory had burst up into him from the depths, and
he had seen, as in a flame of blinding light, a symbolical picture of
the future rising out of a dreadful past, and he had, without any act of
definite volition, marked down this man for a real account to be
settled. "With _that_ man I shall have much to do," he said to himself, as he
noted the big face look up and meet his eye through the glass. "There is
something I cannot shirk--a vital relation out of the past of both of
us." And he went to his desk trembling a little, and with shaking knees, as
though the memory of some terrible pain had suddenly laid its icy hand
upon his heart and touched the scar of a great horror. It was a moment
of genuine terror when their eyes had met through the glass door, and
he was conscious of an inward shrinking and loathing that seized upon
him with great violence and convinced him in a single second that the
settling of this account would be almost, perhaps, more than he could
manage. The vision passed as swiftly as it came, dropping back again into the
submerged region of his consciousness; but he never forgot it, and
the whole of his life thereafter became a sort of natural though
undeliberate preparation for the fulfilment of the great duty when the
time should be ripe. In those days--ten years ago--this man was the Assistant Manager,
but had since been promoted as Manager to one of the company's local
branches; and soon afterwards Jones had likewise found himself
transferred to this same branch. A little later, again, the branch
at Liverpool, one of the most important, had been in peril owing to
mismanagement and defalcation, and the man had gone to take charge of
it, and again, by mere chance apparently, Jones had been promoted to the
same place. And this pursuit of the Assistant Manager had continued for
several years, often, too, in the most curious fashion; and though Jones
had never exchanged a single word with him, or been so much as noticed
indeed by the great man, the clerk understood perfectly well that these
moves in the game were all part of a definite purpose. Never for one
moment did he doubt that the Invisibles behind the veil were slowly and
surely arranging the details of it all so as to lead up suitably to the
climax demanded by justice, a climax in which himself and the Manager
would play the leading _roles_. "It is inevitable," he said to himself, "and I feel it may be terrible;
but when the moment comes I shall be ready, and I pray God that I may
face it properly and act like a man." Moreover, as the years passed, and nothing happened, he felt the horror
closing in upon him with steady increase, for the fact was Jones hated
and loathed the Manager with an intensity of feeling he had never before
experienced towards any human being. He shrank from his presence, and
from the glance of his eyes, as though he remembered to have suffered
nameless cruelties at his hands; and he slowly began to realise,
moreover, that the matter to be settled between them was one of very
ancient standing, and that the nature of the settlement was a discharge
of accumulated punishment which would probably be very dreadful in the
manner of its fulfilment. When, therefore, the chief cashier one day informed him that the man
was to be in London again--this time as General Manager of the head
office--and said that he was charged to find a private secretary for him
from among the best clerks, and further intimated that the selection
had fallen upon himself, Jones accepted the promotion quietly,
fatalistically, yet with a degree of inward loathing hardly to be
described. For he saw in this merely another move in the evolution of
the inevitable Nemesis which he simply dared not seek to frustrate by
any personal consideration; and at the same time he was conscious of a
certain feeling of relief that the suspense of waiting might soon be
mitigated. A secret sense of satisfaction, therefore, accompanied the
unpleasant change, and Jones was able to hold himself perfectly well in
hand when it was carried into effect and he was formally introduced as
private secretary to the General Manager. Now the Manager was a large, fat man, with a very red face and bags
beneath his eyes. Being short-sighted, he wore glasses that seemed to
magnify his eyes, which were always a little bloodshot. In hot weather a
sort of thin slime covered his cheeks, for he perspired easily.