"Oh! I don"t understand. The world is going upside down. I took you--took you for another person."
He laughed gently. "Truly, I am none other than Edmund Gray--always Edmund Gray. My first name I can never change if I wished, because it is my baptismal name. The latter I do not wish to change, because it is my name ancestral."
"I asked because--because--I fancied a resemblance to another person.
Were you ever told that you are much like a certain other person?"
"No; I think not. Resemblances, however, are extremely superficial. No two living creatures are alike. We are alone, each living out his life in the great Cosmos, quite alone--unlike any other living creature.
However, I am Edmund Gray, young lady. It isn"t often that I receive a visit from a young lady in these Chambers. If you have no other doubt upon that point, will you let me ask you, once more, how I can help you?
And will you come in and sit down?"
"Oh! it is wonderful," she cried--"wonderful! most wonderful!" Again she controlled herself. "Are you," she asked again, "the same Mr. Edmund Gray who wrote the letter to the _Times_ the other day?"
"Certainly. There is no other person, I believe, of the name in this Inn. Have you read that letter?"
"Yes--oh, yes."
"And you have come here to talk to me about that letter?"
"Yes--yes." She caught at the hint. "That is why I came--to talk about that letter. I came in the hope of finding the author of that letter at home."
He threw open the door of his sitting-room.
"Will you step in? We can talk quite quietly here. The Inn at this hour on Sat.u.r.day is almost deserted." He closed the outer door and followed his visitor into the sitting-room. "This," he went on, "is the quietest place in the whole of London. We have not, in this Square, the stately elms of the old garden, but still we have our little advantages--s.p.a.cious rooms--quiet always in the evening and on Sundays.
A few rackety young men, perhaps; but for one who reads and meditates, no better place in London.--Now, young lady, take the easy-chair and sit down. We will talk. There are very few people who talk to me about my theories. That is because I am old, so that I have lost my friends, and because my views are in advance of the world. No man is so lonely as the man born before his time. He is the prophet, you know, who must be stoned because he prophesies things unintelligible and therefore uncomfortable--even terrifying. I shall be very glad to talk a little with you.--Now, allow me first to open these letters."
Elsie sat down and looked about her. She was in a large low wainscoted room, with two windows looking upon the Square. The room was quite plainly but quite well furnished. There was a good-sized study table with drawers: a small table between the windows: a few chairs, a couch and an easy-chair; and a large bookcase filled with books--books on Socialism, George had told her. A door opened upon a smaller room: there was probably a bedroom at the back. A plain carpet covered the floor.
Above the high old-fashioned mantel were two or three portraits of Socialist leaders. The room, if everything had not been covered with dust, would have been coldly neat: the chairs were all in their places: the window-blinds were half-way down as the laundress thought was proper--millions of Londoners always keep their blinds half-way down--a subject which must some day be investigated by the Folklore Society: the curtains were neatly looped: it wanted only a Bible on a table at a window to make it the Front Parlour of a Dalston Villa. There were no flowers, no ornaments of any kind.
Mr. Edmund Gray opened half-a-dozen letters lying on his table and glanced at them. There were a great many more waiting to be opened.
"All are from people who have read my letter," he said. "They share with me in the new Faith of a new Humanity. Happy is the man who strikes the note of leading at the right moment. Happy he who lights the lamp just when the darkness is beginning to be felt.--Yes, young lady, you are not the only one who has been drawn towards the doctrines of that letter.
But I have no time to write to all of them. A letter makes one convert--a paragraph may make a thousand."
Elsie rose from her chair. She had decided on her line. You have heard that her voice was curiously soft and winning--a voice that charms--a voice which would soothe a wild creature, and fill a young man"s heart with whatever pa.s.sion she chose to awaken. She had, besides, those soft eyes which make men surrender their secrets, part with their power and their strength. Did she know that she possessed all this power?--the girl who had no experience save of one man"s love, and that the most natural, easy, and unromantic love in the world, when two who are brought up side by side and see each other every day, presently catch each other by the hand and walk for the future hand in hand without a word. Yet Delilah herself, the experienced, the crafty, the trained and taught--could not--did not--act more cleverly and craftily than this artless damsel. To be sure, she possessed great advantages over Delilah--by some esteemed attractive--in the matter of personal charm.
"Oh!" she murmured softly, "it is a shame that you should be expected to waste your valuable time in writing letters to these people. You must not do it. Your time is wanted for the world, not for individuals."
"It is," he replied--"it is. You have said it."
"You are a Master--a Leader--a Prince in Israel--a Preacher--a Prophet."
"I am--I am. You have said it. I should not myself have dared to say it.
But I am."
"No one can doubt it who has read that letter. Be my Master--too--as well as the Master of--of all these people who write to you."
"Be your Master?" He blushed like a boy. "Could I desire anything better?"
"My Father and my Master," she added with a little change of colour.
Girls take fright very easily, and perhaps this old gentleman might interpret the invitation--well--into something other than was meant.
"Yes--yes." He held out his hand. She took it in her own--both her own soft hands, and bowed her head--her comely head--over it.
"I came to-day thinking only"--Oh, Delilah!--"to thank you for your great and generous and n.o.ble words, which have put fresh heart into me.
And now that I have thanked you, I am emboldened to ask a favour----"
"Anything, anything."
"You will be my Master--you will teach me. Let me, in return, relieve you of this work." She laid her hand on the pile of letters. "Let me answer them for you. Let me be your Private Secretary. I have nothing to do. Let me work for you." She looked into his face with the sweetest eyes and the most winning smile, and her voice warmed the old man"s ear like soft music. Ah, Circe!--"Now that I have seen you--let me be your disciple, your most humble disciple, and"--Ah, Siren!--"let me be more, Edmund Gray--I cannot say Mr. Gray--let me be more, Edmund Gray." She laid her hand, her soft-gloved, dainty, delicate hand, upon his, and it produced the effect of an electric battery gently handled. "Let me be your Secretary."
It was ten o"clock before Elsie reached home that evening, and she refused to tell them, even her own brother and her lover, where she had been or how she had spent her evening.
CHAPTER XXII
MASTER AND DISCIPLE
It was Sunday afternoon in Gray"s Inn. The new Disciple sat at the feet of the Master, her Gamaliel: one does not know exactly the att.i.tude adopted by a young Rabbi of old, but in this case the disciple sat in a low chair, her hands folded in her lap, curiously and earnestly watching the Master as he walked up and down the room preaching and teaching.
"Master," she asked, "have you always preached and held these doctrines?"
"Not always. There was a time when I dwelt in darkness--like the rest of the world."
"How did you learn these things? By reading books?"
"No. I discovered them. I worked them out for myself by logic, by reason, and by observation. Everything good and true must be discovered by a man for himself."
"What did you believe in that old time? Was it, with the rest of the world, the sacredness of Property?"
"Perhaps." He stood in front of her, laying his right forefinger in his left forefinger and inclining his head. "My dear young scholar, one who believes as I believe, not with half a heart, but wholly, and without reserve, willingly forgets the time when he was as yet groping blindly in darkness or walking in artificial light. He wishes to forget that time. There is no profit in remembering that time. I have so far drilled and trained myself not to remember that time, that I have in fact clean forgotten it. I do not remember what I thought or what I said, or with whom I a.s.sociated in that time. It is a most blessed forgetfulness. I daresay I could recover the memory of it if I wished, but the effort would be painful. Spare me. The recovery of that Part would be humiliating. Spare me, scholar. Yet, if you wish--if you command----"
"Oh, no, no! Forgive me." Elsie touched his hand. He took hers and held it. Was it with a little joy or a little fear that the girl observed the power she already had over him? "I would not cause you pain.
Besides--what does it matter?"
"You know, my child, when the monk a.s.sumes the tonsure and the triple cord, he leaves behind him, outside the cell, all the things of the world--ambition, love, luxury, the pride of the eye--all--all. He forgets everything. He casts away everything. He abandons everything--for meditation and prayer. The monk," added the Sage, "is a foolish person, because his meditation advances not the world a whit. I am like the monk, save that I think for the world instead of myself. And so, spending days and nights in meditation, I know not what went before--nor do I care. It is a second birth when the new faith takes you and holds you together, so that you care for nothing else. Oh, child!--upon you also this shall come--this obsession--this possession--so that your spirit shall know of no time but that spent in the service of the Cause. Nay, I go so far that I forget from day to day what pa.s.sed, except when I was actively engaged for the Cause. Yesterday I was here in the afternoon. You came. We talked. You offered yourself as my disciple. I remember every word you said. Could I ever forget a disciple so trustful and so humble? But--before you came. Where was I?
Doubtless here--meditating. But I know not. Then there are things which one must do to live--breakfast, dinner--of these I remember nothing. Why should I? It is a great gift and reward to me that I should not remember unnecessary things--low and common things. Why should I try to do so?
"No--no," murmured the catechumen, carried away by his earnestness.
"Best forget them. Best live altogether in and for the Cause." Yet--she wondered--how was she to bring things home to him unless he could be made to remember? He was mad one hour and sane the next. How should she bridge the gulf and make the mad man cross over to _the other side_?
The Master took her hand in his and held it paternally. "We needed such a disciple as you," he went on, slightly bending his head over her.
"Among my followers there is earnestness without understanding. They believe in the good time, but they are impatient. They want revolution, which is terrific and destroys. I want conviction. There are times when a great idea flies abroad like the flame through the stubble. But men"s minds must first be so prepared that they are ready for it. The world is not yet ready for my idea, and I am old, and may die too soon to see the sudden rise of the mighty flood, when that doctrine shall suddenly cease in all mankind. We need disciples. Above all, we need women. Why do women, I wonder, throw themselves away in imitating man, when there are a thousand things that they can do better than any man? I want women--young, beautiful, faithful. I can find work for hundreds of women. Hypatia would be worth to me--to us--far more than he of the Golden Mouth. Child--your sweet voice, your sweet face, your sweet eyes--I want them. I will take them and use them--expend them--for the great Cause. It may be that you will be called upon to become the first martyr of the Cause. Hypatia was murdered by a raging mob. You will have against you a mob worse than any of Alexandria. You will have a mob composed of all those who are rich, and all who want to be rich, and all the servile crews at their command. Happy girl! You will be torn to pieces for the cause of humanity. Happy girl! I see the roaring, shrieking mob. I see your slender figure on the steps--what steps?
Where? I hear your voice, clear and high. You are preaching to them; they close in round you: you disappear--they have dragged you down: they trample the life out of you. You are dead--dead--dead--and a name for ever. And the Cause has had its martyr."
It was strange. She who had offered herself as a disciple with deception in her heart, thinking only to watch and wait and spy until she could see her way plain before her, who knew that she was listening to the voice and the dreams of a madman. Yet she was carried away: he made her see the mob: she saw herself dragged down and trampled under their heels. She shuddered, yet she was exultant: her eyes glowed with a new light: she murmured: "Yes--yes. Do with me what you please. I am your disciple, and I will be your martyr, if you please."