Sophy gazed at him. She wondered what was coming, and as he smiled at her in his slow way, she thought how much worse it seemed for a poet to have black teeth than for a mere, ordinary mortal like John Arundel.

"How did I make you see a beautiful dawn?" she asked, knowing that he wanted her to put the question.

"By writing your 'Shadow of a Flame' and letting me read it. Yes--all night I played with those lovely, flickering verses."

"You are too kind to me," she said shyly. "Tell me when I am to read another of _your_ books--that are not shadows of flames, but flames themselves."

"Lovely--lovely!" he murmured. "That is quite lovely of you. But as for a new book---- It is so prosaic to publish a book in London. Nothing really happens. Now in Paris--why--one day all the boulevards blossom like beds of daffodils. You are amazed. You ask, 'Why this delicious flowering?' You are answered--'Paul Bourget has published a new novel.'"

He went airily on for some moments in this strain. From across the table, a clever critic and man of letters was listening with pleased amus.e.m.e.nt. Suddenly he said:

"Tell me, Oswald, have you ever read the works of an American called Edgar Saltus?"

"Why Edgar Saltus, like a stiletto from the blue? Yes; I have read some of his productions. But why?"

"Because the American boulevards seem to blossom with his flowers of rhetoric in the way that you describe. I have often wanted to parody him. But parody crouches at his feet."

Tyne held up one of his suave, heavy hands.

"Softly, please," he murmured. "Tread softly there. I have a certain tenderness for Mr. Edgar Saltus. I know nothing in literature more touching than the way that pa.s.sion and grammar struggle for mastery on every one of his wonderful pages!"

Amaldi listened with his quiet smile. He himself was not in a talkative mood that night. Besides, he was one of those men who, while seeming outwardly unconscious of what is not directly in contact with them, notice everything that takes place, and he had caught those dark looks cast by Cecil Chesney at Sophy and himself. Now he was glad to see that she was becoming diverted and roused from her listlessness by the talk of Oswald Tyne and his friend. He also observed that Chesney, too, had apparently changed his humour and was engaged in an animated conversation with the men and women nearest him. After a while, he saw that Chesney was holding forth alone. But it was evidently a perfectly amiable harangue, for the others were listening with animated faces.

Still Sophy, who could not catch the gist of her husband's talk, looked suddenly anxious, and Amaldi was relieved when the critic, who had been talking with Tyne, and whose name was Ferrars, said to Sophy:

"Your husband's having a brilliant go at Russian literature, Mrs.

Chesney. Are you as keen on that subject as he is?"

"Yes, quite, I think."

"Tolstoy and Dostoievsky are our living Pillars of Hercules," said Ferrars, a little didactically. "They guard the portals of modern literature. They are our colossi--we others fuss and potter about under their huge limbs like pygmies."

"Speak for yourself, Charles," said Tyne coolly. "I may not be a colossus, but I have wings. Gauzy, iridescent, little vans maybe, but sufficient to lift me. I am not what sportsmen call a 'heavyweight' of literature--but I can coruscate, which your colossi cannot. And I am not sure that I don't prefer fireflies to eagles."

"Which do you think greater--Tolstoy or Dostoievsky?" Sophy slipped in, before Ferrars could launch a sarcasm.

"Oh, Tolstoy, Tolstoy ... by all means," murmured Tyne.

"Which do _you_ think greater?" said Sophy to Amaldi.

"Well...." Amaldi reflected an instant. "When Tolstoy regards the human race, one feels that he sees it made up of little Tolstoys. When Dostoievsky looks inward--it is as if he saw all humanity in himself--in Dostoievsky."

"Capital!" cried Ferrars. Sophy looked at Amaldi, pleased at hearing her own conviction so well put into words. Tyne regarded the young man dreamily.

"How charming is the multiplicity of opinion," he then said. "If I ever sacrificed it would be to the G.o.ddess of Variety. Now to me, Tolstoy is by far the greater figure of the two."

Ferrars had begun to talk to the woman on his right and was not listening any longer. The women on the left and right of Tyne and Amaldi were eagerly attentive.

"Why?" asked several voices at once.

"Because Tolstoy is the greatest Immoralist of his time," said Tyne serenely.

"Oh! Oh!" came several voices.

"He is immoral in spirit where others are only immoral in fact,"

continued the poet, quite unmoved. "Never was there so irreligious, so immoral a spectacle as that t.i.tan in the throes of religion. For this religion of his violates and thwarts every natural instinct and desire of his pagan nature. To deny one's true nature is irreligion. To be egotistically selfless is the paradox of the inferno. Besides, is there a greater sin against genius than to worship the commonplace? Now virtue is the norm--the level convention invented by civilised man. The crime of virtuous genius is that it becomes null. The cult of virtue is the eighth deadly sin--in a creative mind. Fancy a virtuous Creator!"

He laughed suddenly into the faces which seemed not to have decided whether to look shocked or to smile.

Sophy turned to Amaldi. But try as she might, she could not overcome the _gene_ cast upon her by those hostile looks of her husband. She felt that she was not being natural with Amaldi, and the more this feeling overcame her, the more she felt it impossible to recover her free, delightful intercourse with him. They talked conventionally, gliding over the surface of things. Once, in spite of herself, her eyes strayed towards Cecil. But he was not looking at her. He was leaning close to Lady Cha.s.silis. A flush had come into his face. His eyes glittered. He seemed to be saying something delightful but rather shocking, for Sybil Cha.s.silis gave him a sidelong flash out of her black eyes--then flushed and cast them down, smiling in a peculiar way. Sophy noticed with a sinking heart that he drank gla.s.s after gla.s.s of champagne. It must indeed be good wine for Cecil to drink so freely of it. He usually cursed the champagne of his friends.

Suddenly Tyne turned again to Sophy.

"I have a grievance--a sorrow--a real sorrow," he said. "I wonder if you can console me?"

"What is it?" asked Sophy in a low voice. He seemed never to be in earnest, yet, at that moment, the queer feeling of compa.s.sion that he always excited in her, rose in her heart.

He drew a deep sigh. Now she was sure that there was a mocking light, far back in his pale eyes.

"It is that no one will believe in my real wickedness--my beautiful vileness. I have no disciple who really believes in me. Yet I am wonderfully vile. Virtue seems like a pale, pock marked wench to me. I feel like crying out on her like old Capulet: 'Out, you tallow-face! You baggage!' But Sin, with the clear black flames curled about her naked feet like the petals of a lotus--Sin, with her delicate, acrid lips that never satiate and are never satiated--her I worship! her I serve!--Do you believe me?"

Sophy sat gazing at him. Something strange and wild, and unbelievable took place in her. She saw--no, she _knew_--not by ratiocination, but as one knows when one falls into the sea that one is wet--she _knew_ that this man was truly vile, that he was speaking the truth to her. But even more wonderful, she knew that horror and tragedy unspeakable waited for him. It was as if the poisonous shadow fell over him as she looked--as if its outer hem touched her like a thing of palpable texture.

He was looking at her strangely, too--half as if afraid, but curious.

Like a man who knows that the oracle can divine truly--that it may answer to his undoing, and that, if it answers thus, that answer will surely come to pa.s.s.

"Do you believe me?" he said again, keeping up the bravado of his light tone, but some chord in his voice stirred oddly.

Sophy drew a long breath. She felt herself shivering, then, "Yes," she said almost inaudibly. He continued to look at her--a strange, musing look.

"Thank you," he said blandly. "So I have a disciple at last."

Then that pa.s.sion of horror and pity broke down all conventional restraint in Sophy.

"But _why_?" she said, in a pa.s.sionate whisper. "Why? _Why?_"

He was silent just for an instant's pressure, then he answered by the most extraordinary and appalling piece of blasphemy.

"Because," he said, "'_before Abraham was I am_.'"

XI

Sophy sat white and still, her profile towards Amaldi, playing with the spray of orchids at her plate. Then, all at once, she realised that Cecil was speaking louder than he had been. His words reached her distinctly. She glanced towards him in terror. What a horrible evening!

What, what was going to happen?

What Chesney said was this: