Part 9

"Ay, ay indeed!" said Morgeson soothingly--"Or perhaps you _thought_ you felt, which is another very curious phase of the literary temperament. You see, to convince people at all, you must first yourself be convinced. The result of this is generally a singular magnetic attraction between author and public. However I am a bad hand at argument,--and it is possible that in hasty reading I may have gathered a wrong impression of your intentions. Anyhow the book shall be a success if we can make it so. All I venture to ask of you is that you should personally endeavour to manage McWhing!"

I promised to do my best, and on this understanding we parted. I realised that Morgeson was capable of greater discernment than I had imagined, and his observations had given me material for thought which was not altogether agreeable. For if my book, as he said, lacked tenacity, why then it would not take root in the public mind,--it would be merely the ephemeral success of a season,--one of those brief 'booms' in literary wares for which I had such unmitigated contempt,--and Fame would be as far off as ever, except that spurious imitation of it which the fact of my millions had secured. I was in no good humour that afternoon, and Lucio saw it. He soon elicited the sum and substance of my interview with Morgeson, and laughed long and somewhat uproariously over the proposed 'managing' of the redoubtable McWhing. He glanced at the five names of the other leading critics and shrugged his shoulders.

"Morgeson is quite right,"--he said--"McWhing is intimate with the rest of these fellows--they meet at the same clubs, dine at the same cheap restaurants and make love to the same painted ballet-girls. All in a comfortable little fraternal union together, and one obliges the other on their several journals when occasion offers. Oh yes! I should make up to McWhing if I were you."

"But how?" I demanded, for though I knew McWhing's name well enough having seen it signed _ad nauseam_ to literary articles in almost every paper extant, I had never met the man; "I cannot ask any favour of a press critic."

"Of course not!" and Lucio laughed heartily again--"If you were to do such an idiotic thing what a slating you'd get for your pains! There's no sport a critic loves so much as the flaying of an author who has made the mistake of lowering himself to the level of asking favours of his intellectual inferiors! No, no, my dear fellow!--we shall manage McWhing quite differently,--_I_ know him, though you do not."

"Come, that's good news!" I exclaimed--"Upon my word Lucio, you seem to know everybody."

"I think I know most people worth knowing--" responded Lucio quietly--"Though I by no means include Mr McWhing in the category of worthiness. I happened to make his personal acquaintance in a somewhat singular and exciting manner. It was in Switzerland, on that awkward ledge of rock known as the Mauvais Pas. I had been some weeks in the neighbourhood on business of my own, and being surefooted and fearless, was frequently allowed by the guides to volunteer my services with theirs. In this capacity of amateur guide, capricious destiny gave me the pleasure of escorting the timid and bilious McWhing across the chasms of the Mer de Glace, and I conversed with him in the choicest French all the while, a language of which, despite his boasted erudition, he was deplorably ignorant. I knew who he was I must tell you, as I know most of his craft, and had long been aware of him as one of the authorised murderers of aspiring genius. When I got him on the Mauvais Pas, I saw that he was seized with vertigo; I held him firmly by the arm and addressed him in sound strong English thus--'Mr McWhing, you wrote a damnable and scurrilous article against the work of a certain poet' and I named the man--'an article that was a tissue of lies from beginning to end, and which by its cruelty and venom embittered a life of brilliant promise, and crushed a noble spirit. Now, unless you promise to write and publish in a leading magazine a total recantation of this your crime when you get back to England,--_if_ you get back!--giving that wronged man the 'honourable mention' he rightly deserves,--down you go! I have but to loosen my hold!' Geoffrey, you should have seen McWhing then! He whined, he wriggled, he clung! Never was an oracle of the press in such an unoracular condition. 'Murder!--murder!' he gasped, but his voice failed him. Above him towered the snow peaks like the summits of that Fame he could not reach and therefore grudged to others,--below him the glittering ice-waves yawned in deep transparent hollows of opaline blue and green,--and afar off the tinkling cowbells echoed through the still air, suggestive of safe green pastures and happy homes. 'Murder!' he whispered gurglingly. 'Nay!' said I, ''tis I should cry Murder!--for if ever an arresting hand held a murderer, mine holds one now! Your system of slaying is worse than that of the midnight assassin, for the assassin can but kill the body,--_you_ strive to kill the soul. You cannot succeed, 'tis true, but the mere attempt is devilish. No shouts, no struggles will serve you here,--we are alone with Eternal Nature,--give the man you have slandered his tardy recognition, or else, as I said before--down you go!' Well, to make my story short, he yielded, and swore to do as I bade him,--whereupon placing my arm round him as though he were my tender twin-brother, I led him safely off the Mauvais Pas and down the kindlier hill, where, what with the fright and the remains of vertigo, he fell a'weeping grievously. Would you believe it, that before we reached Chamounix we had become the best friends in the world? He explained himself and his rascally modes of action, and I nobly exonerated him,--we exchanged cards,--and when we parted, this same author's bug-bear McWhing, overcome with sentiment and whisky toddy (he is a Scotchman you know) swore that I was the grandest fellow in the world, and that if ever he could serve me he would. He knew my princely title by this time, but he would have given me a still higher name. 'You are not--_hic_--a poet yourself?' he murmured, leaning on me fondly as he rolled to bed. I told him no. 'I am sorry--very!' he declared, the tears of whisky rising to his eyes, 'If you had been I would have done a great thing for you,--I would have boomed you,--_for nothing_!' I left him snoring nobly, and saw him no more. But I think he'll recognize me, Geoffrey;--I'll go and look him up personally. By all the gods!--if he had only known Who held him between life and death upon the Mauvais Pas!"

I stared, puzzled.

"But he did know"--I said--"Did you not say you exchanged cards?"

"True, but that was afterwards!" and Lucio laughed; "I assure you, my dear fellow, we can 'manage' McWhing!"

I was intensely interested in the story as he told it,--he had such a dramatic way of speaking and looking, while his very gestures brought the whole scene vividly before me like a picture. I spoke out my thought impulsively.

"You would certainly have made a superb actor, Lucio!"

"How do you know I am not one?" he asked with a flashing glance, then he added quickly--"No,--there is no occasion to paint the face and prance over the boards before a row of tawdry footlights like the paid mimes, in order to be histrionically great. The finest actor is he who can play the comedy of life perfectly, as I aspire to do. To walk well, talk well, smile well, weep well, groan well, laugh well--and die well!--it is all pure acting,--because in every man there is the dumb dreadful immortal Spirit who is real,--who cannot act,--who Is,--and who steadily maintains an infinite though speechless protest against the body's Lie!"

I said nothing in answer to this outburst,--I was beginning to be used to his shifting humours and strange utterances,--they increased the mysterious attraction I had for him, and made his character a perpetual riddle to me which was not without its subtle charm. Every now and then I realized, with a faintly startled sense of self-abasement, that I was completely under his dominance,--that my life was being entirely guided by his control and suggestion,--but I argued with myself that surely it was well it should be so, seeing he had so much more experience and influence than I. We dined together that night as we often did, and our conversation was entirely taken up with monetary and business concerns. Under Lucio's advice I was making several important investments, and these matters gave us ample subject for discussion. At about eleven o'clock, it being a fine frosty evening and fit for brisk walking, we went out, our destination being the private gambling club to which my companion had volunteered to introduce me as a guest. It was situated at the end of a mysterious little back street, not far from the respectable precincts of Pall-Mall, and was an unpretentious looking house enough outside, but within, it was sumptuously though tastelessly furnished. Apparently, the premises were presided over by a woman,--a woman with painted eyes and dyed hair who received us first of all within the lamp-lighted splendours of an Anglo-Japanese drawing-room. Her looks and manner undisguisedly proclaimed her as a _demi-mondaine_ of the most pronounced type,--one of those 'pure' ladies with a 'past' who are represented as such martyrs to the vices of men. Lucio said something to her apart,--whereupon she glanced at me deferentially and smiled,--then rang the bell. A discreet looking man-servant in sober black made his appearance, and at a slight sign from his mistress who bowed to me as I passed her, proceeded to show us upstairs. We trod on a carpet of the softest felt,--in fact I noticed that everything was rendered as noiseless as possible in this establishment, the very doors being covered with thick baize and swinging on silent hinges. On the upper landing, the servant knocked very cautiously at a side-door,--a key turned in the lock, and we were admitted into a long double room, very brilliantly lit with electric lamps, which at a first glance seemed crowded with men playing at _rouge et noir_ and _baccarat_. Some looked up as Lucio entered and nodded smilingly,--others glanced inquisitively at me, but our entrance was otherwise scarcely noticed. Lucio drawing me along by the arm, sat down to watch the play,--I followed his example and presently found myself infected by the intense excitement which permeated the room like the silent tension of the air before a thunderstorm. I recognised the faces of many well known public men,--men eminent in politics and society whom one would never have imagined capable of supporting a gambling club by their presence and authority. But I took care to betray no sign of surprise, and quietly observed the games and the gamesters with almost as impassive a demeanour as that of my companion. I was prepared to play and to lose,--I was not prepared however for the strange scene which was soon to occur and in which I, by force of circumstances was compelled to take a leading part.

[2] The author has Mr Knowles's own written authority for this fact.

X

As soon as the immediate game we were watching was finished, the players rose, and greeted Lucio with a good deal of eagerness and effusion. I instinctively guessed from their manner that they looked upon him as an influential member of the club, a person likely to lend them money to gamble with, and otherwise to oblige them in various ways, financially speaking. He introduced me to them all, and I was not slow to perceive the effect my name had upon most of them. I was asked if I would join in a game of baccarat, and I readily consented. The stakes were ruinously high, but I had no need to falter for that. One of the players near me was a fair-haired young man, handsome in face and of aristocratic bearing,--he had been introduced to me as Viscount Lynton. I noticed him particularly on account of the reckless way he had of doubling his stakes suddenly and apparently out of mere bravado, and when he lost, as he mostly did, he laughed uproariously as though he were drunk or delirious. On first beginning to play I was entirely indifferent as to the results of the game, caring nothing at all as to whether I had losses or gains. Lucio did not join us, but sat apart, quietly observant, and watching me, so I fancied, more than anyone. And as chance would have it, all the luck came my way, and I won steadily. The more I won the more excited I became, till presently my humour changed and I was seized by a whimsical desire to lose. I suppose it was the touch of some better impulse in my nature that made me wish this for young Lynton's sake. For he seemed literally maddened by my constant winnings, and continued his foolhardy and desperate play,--his young face grew drawn and sharply thin, and his eyes glittered with a hungry feverishness. The other gamesters, though sharing in his run of ill-luck, seemed better able to stand it, or perhaps they concealed their feelings more cleverly,--anyhow I know I caught myself very earnestly wishing that this devil's luck of mine would desert me and set in the young Viscount's direction. But my wishes were no use,--again and again I gathered up the stakes, till at last the players rose, Viscount Lynton among them.

"Well, I'm cleaned out!" he said, with a loud forced laugh. "You must give me my chance of a _revanche_ to-morrow, Mr Tempest!"

I bowed.

"With pleasure!"

He called a waiter at the end of the room to bring him a brandy and soda, and meanwhile I was surrounded by the rest of the men, all of them repeating the Viscount's suggestion of a 'revanche,' and strenuously urging upon me the necessity of returning to the club the next night in order to give them an opportunity of winning back what they had lost. I readily agreed, and while we were in the midst of talk, Lucio suddenly addressed young Lynton.

"Will you make up another game with me?" he inquired. "I'll start the bank with this,"--and he placed two crisp notes of five hundred pounds each on the table.

There was a moment's silence. The Viscount was thirstily drinking his brandy-and-soda, and glanced over the rim of his tall tumbler at the notes with covetous bloodshot eyes,--then he shrugged his shoulders indifferently. "I can't stake anything," he said; "I've already told you I'm cleaned out,--'stony-broke,' as the slang goes. It's no use my joining."

"Sit down, sit down, Lynton!" urged one man near him. "I'll lend you enough to go on with."

"Thanks, I'd rather not!" he returned, flushing a little. "I'm too much in your debt already. Awfully good of you all the same. You go on, you fellows, and I'll watch the play."

"Let me persuade you Viscount Lynton," said Lucio, looking at him with his dazzling inscrutable smile--"just for the fun of the thing! If you do not feel justified in staking money, stake something trifling and merely nominal, for the sake of seeing whether the luck will turn"--and here he took up a counter--"This frequently represents fifty pounds,--let it represent for once something that is not valuable like money,--your soul, for example!" A burst of laughter broke from all the men. Lucio laughed softly with them.

"We all have, I hope, enough instruction in modern science to be aware that there is no such thing as a soul in existence"--he continued. "Therefore, in proposing it as a stake for this game at baccarat, I really propose less than one hair of your head, because the hair is a something, and the soul is a nothing! Come! Will you risk that non-existent quantity for the chance of winning a thousand pounds?"

The Viscount drained off the last drop of brandy, and turned upon us, his eyes flushing mingled derision and defiance.

"Done!" he exclaimed; whereupon the party sat down.

The game was brief,--and in its rapid excitement, almost breathless. Six or seven minutes sufficed, and Lucio rose, the winner. He smiled as he pointed to the counter which had represented Viscount Lynton's last stake.

"I have won!" he said quietly. "But you owe me nothing, my dear Viscount, inasmuch as you risked--Nothing! We played this game simply for fun. If souls had any existence of course I should claim yours;--I wonder what I should do with it by the way!" He laughed good-humouredly. "What nonsense, isn't it!--and how thankful we ought to be that we live in advanced days like the present, when such silly superstitions are being swept aside by the march of progress and pure Reason! Good-night! Tempest and I will give you, your full revenge to-morrow,--the luck is sure to change by then, and you will probably have the victory. Again--good-night!"

He held out his hand,--there was a peculiar melting tenderness in his brilliant dark eyes,--an impressive kindness in his manner. Something--I could not tell what--held us all for the moment spellbound as if by enchantment, and several of the players at other tables, hearing of the eccentric stake that had been wagered and lost, looked over at us curiously from a distance. Viscount Lynton, however, professed himself immensely diverted, and shook Lucio's proffered hand heartily.

"You are an awfully good fellow!" he said, speaking a little thickly and hurriedly--"And I assure you seriously if I had a soul I should be very glad to part with it for a thousand pounds at the present moment. The soul wouldn't be an atom of use to me and the thousand pounds would. But I feel convinced I shall win to-morrow!"

"I am equally sure you will!" returned Lucio affably, "In the meantime, you will not find my friend here, Geoffrey Tempest, a hard creditor,--he can afford to wait. But in the case of the lost soul,"--here he paused, looking straight into the young man's eyes,--"of course _I_ cannot afford to wait!"

The Viscount smiled vaguely at this pleasantry, and almost immediately afterwards left the club. As soon as the door had closed behind him, several of the gamesters exchanged sententious nods and glances.

"Ruined!" said one of them in a _sotto-voce_.

"His gambling debts are more than he can ever pay"--added another--"And I hear he has lost a clear fifty thousand on the turf."

These remarks were made indifferently, as though one should talk of the weather,--no sympathy was expressed,--no pity wasted. Every gambler there was selfish to the core, and as I studied their hardened faces, a thrill of honest indignation moved me,--indignation mingled with shame. I was not yet altogether callous or cruel-hearted, though as I look back upon those days which now resemble a wild vision rather than a reality, I know that I was becoming more and more of a brutal egoist with every hour I lived. Still I was so far then from being utterly vile, that I inwardly resolved to write to Viscount Lynton that very evening, and tell him to consider his debt to me cancelled, as I should refuse to claim it. While this thought was passing through my mind, I met Lucio's gaze fixed steadily upon me. He smiled,--and presently signed to me to accompany him. In a few minutes we had left the club, and were out in the cold night air under a heaven of frostily sparkling stars. Standing still for a moment, my companion laid his hand on my shoulder.

"Tempest, if you are going to be kind-hearted or sympathetic to undeserving rascals, I shall have to part company with you!" he said, with a curious mixture of satire and seriousness in his voice--"I see by the expression of your face that you are meditating some silly disinterested action of pure generosity. Now you might just as well flop down on these paving stones and begin saying prayers in public. You want to let Lynton off his debt,--you are a fool for your pains. He is a born scoundrel,--and has never seen his way to being anything else,--why should you compassionate him? From the time he first went to college till now, he has been doing nothing but live a life of degraded sensuality,--he is a worthless rake, less to be respected than an honest dog!"

"Yet some one loves him I daresay!" I said.

"Some one loves him!" echoed Lucio with inimitable disdain--"Bah! Three ballet girls live on him if that is what you mean. His mother loved him,--but she is dead,--he broke her heart. He is no good I tell you,--let him pay his debt in full, even to the soul he staked so lightly. If I were the devil now, and had just won the strange game we played to-night, I suppose according to priestly tradition, I should be piling up the fire for Lynton in high glee,--but being what I am, I say let the man alone to make his own destiny,--let things take their course,--and as he chose to risk everything, so let him pay everything."

We were by this time walking slowly into Pall Mall,--I was on the point of making some reply, when catching sight of a man's figure on the opposite side of the way, not far from the Marlborough Club, I uttered an involuntary exclamation.

"Why there he is!" I said--"there is Viscount Lynton!"

Lucio's hand closed tightly on my arm.

"You don't want to speak to him now, surely!"

"No. But I wonder where he's going? He walks rather unsteadily."

"Drunk, most probably!"

And Lucio's face presented the same relentless expression of scorn I had so often seen and marvelled at.

We paused a moment, watching the Viscount strolling aimlessly up and down in front of the clubs,--till all at once he seemed to come to a sudden resolution, and stopping short, he shouted,

"Hansom!"

A silent-wheeled smart vehicle came bowling up immediately. Giving some order to the driver, he jumped in. The cab approached swiftly in our direction,--just as it passed us the loud report of a pistol crashed on the silence.

"Good God!" I cried reeling back a step or two--"He has shot himself!"

The hansom stopped,--the driver sprang down,--club-porters, waiters, policemen and no end of people starting up from Heaven knows where, were on the scene on an instant,--I rushed forward to join the rapidly gathering throng, but before I could do so, Lucio's strong arm was thrown round me, and he dragged me by main force away.

"Keep cool, Geoffrey!" he said--"Do you want to be called up to identify? And betray the club and all its members? Not while I am here to prevent you! Check your mad impulses, my good fellow,--they will lead you into no end of difficulties. If the man's dead he's dead, and there's an end of it."

"Lucio! You have no heart!" I exclaimed, struggling violently to escape from his hold--"How can you stop to reason in such a case! Think of it! _I_ am the cause of all the mischief!--it is my cursed luck at baccarat this evening that has been the final blow to the wretched young fellow's fortunes,--I am convinced of it!--I shall never forgive myself--"

"Upon my word, Geoffrey, your conscience is very tender!" he answered, holding my arm still more closely and hurrying me away despite myself--"You must try and toughen it a little if you want to be successful in life. Your 'cursed luck' you think, has caused Lynton's death? Surely it is a contradiction in terms to call luck 'cursed,'--and as for the Viscount, he did not need that last game at baccarat to emphasise his ruin. You are not to blame. And for the sake of the club, if for nothing else, I do not intend either you or myself to be mixed up in a case of suicide. The coroner's verdict always disposes of these incidents comfortably in two words--'Temporary insanity.'"

I shuddered. My soul sickened as I thought that within a few yards of us was the bleeding corpse of the man I had so lately seen alive and spoken with,--and notwithstanding Lucio's words I felt as if I had murdered him.