The Prophet raised his head and a gleam of interest crossed his eyes; but almost immediately he subdued the look.
"I am willing," he replied, unemotionally, in the usual formula. Then he glanced at his attendant. "After this, the audiences for the day are over," he added.
The man bowed, and with awe-struck deference moved silently from the room, almost immediately reappearing, to usher in the devotee, and with the same conscious air of mystery, to retire, closing the heavy door.
For a moment the new-comer stood just inside the threshold. As on the night of the Prophet"s coming, she wore a long, black dress that accentuated her height and grace, and brought into prominence the clear pallor of her skin and the remarkable luminous brilliance of her eyes. A struggle between superst.i.tious dread and human curiosity was distinctly visible in her expression as she stood uncertain of her position, doubtful as to her first move.
The Prophet glanced at her, and the shadow of a smile touched his lips.
"Have no fear," he said. "Come forward!"
The strong, steady voice gave her courage, and with slightly agitated haste she stepped towards the table.
The Prophet gravely motioned her to a seat and a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of attention. Upon each of the thirty mornings he had sat in this same position in his ivory chair, while, one after another, the members of the sect had claimed audience with him. Morning after morning he had exhibited the same grave, aloof interest--his hands clasped, his eyes upon the Scitsym--while the fearful, the fanatical, the hysterical had poured forth their tales of struggle or aspiration. But now, on this last morning, he was conscious of a new suggestion, a new impression in what had grown to be routine. This last aspirant for spiritual light was neither fanatical nor hysterical, was scarcely even imbued with fear.
Something within his brain responded to the idea, to the rea.s.suring human curiosity that gleamed in her eyes. He found himself waiting for her first words with an impatience that no other member of the congregation had aroused.
But the wait was long--disconcertingly long. The aspirant glanced uncertainly about the room, as if unwilling or unable to break into speech; then at last she raised her head, and, with an effort, met the Prophet"s eyes.
"I"m terribly nervous!" she said, in an irresistibly feminine voice.
The effect upon her hearer was instantaneous. The distant and spiritual aloofness, so easy to a.s.sume in the presence of the credulous, became suddenly a matter of impossibility. With a quiet dignity that had more of masculine protectiveness than of mystical inspiration he turned to her afresh.
"Have no fear!" he answered, gently. "My only desire is to help you.
Tell me everything that is in your mind."
She leaned forward quickly. "You--you are most kind--" she began. Then again she halted.
But he took no notice of her embarra.s.sment.
"Why have you never come before?" he asked. "Had you no doubts to be set at rest?" He spoke so quietly that her nervousness forsook her, and with a swift impulse she glanced up at him.
"I--I think I was afraid," she said, candidly. "You see, I am not exactly one of the others--"
"You did not quite believe that the One you had waited for had really come?" His voice was low and tinged with some inscrutable meaning.
"Oh no! No; it was not that. Before you came, I confess I was sceptical; I confess I did not believe that any one would come, that there was any truth--any real meaning--in the sect. But then--when you did come--"
The Prophet lifted his head.
"When I did come?" he asked, sharply.
"The whole thing was different--"
"The whole thing was different?" he repeated, slowly and meditatively.
By a curious process of suggestion and recollection, something of his own experiences in the realm of mental upheaval rose with her words. He studied the pale face and brilliant eyes with a fresh and more intimate interest.
"The whole thing was different?" he said once more, in his slow, deep voice.
The warm color flooded her face. "Yes," she admitted. "Yes. You seemed the one real person--the one sane thing in the whole ceremony. I felt--I knew that you were--strong." She paused, alarmed at her own timidity; and again their eyes met.
"And why have you never come to me before?" He had no particular meaning in the question; he was only conscious of an inexplicable wish to prolong the interview.
"Oh, I don"t know--I scarcely know." Again she spoke quickly and nervously. "I have come every night to hear you speak--I have loved to hear you speak. But--but to be alone with you--" She paused, expressively. "It is all so strange--so extraordinary. It doesn"t seem to belong to the present day--" She looked up at him in appealing perplexity.
"And why did you come now?"
"Why? Oh, because--because I could not stay away."
For the first time the Prophet was conscious of a tremor of discomfiture; for the first time the spectacle of his fraud, as seen from a point of view other than his own, touched him unpleasantly. He moved slightly in his ma.s.sive chair.
"In this life," he said, with a sudden, almost incontinent a.s.sumption of his Prophetic manner, "we must be ever careful to distinguish the Wine from the Vessel that contains it. I endeavor, with all the Power I am possessed of, to impress upon my People that I have come, not to _be_ the Way, but to _show_ the Way! To teach you all that what you seek in me, is in each one of you. Every man is his own Prophet, if he but knew it!" As he spoke he turned his eyes upon the Scitsym, and the hard, inscrutable look that so dominated his followers descended upon his face. As he reached the last words, he glanced again at his companion, but as his eyes rested on her face he paused disconcerted. She was gazing at him with a candid, spontaneous admiration infinitely more human and infinitely more irresistible than the neurotic adoration that was daily lavished on him. With an odd, inexplicable sense of guilt, he rose quickly from his seat.
"Do not forget--do not allow yourself to forget that this is my teaching," he said. "That you have each within yourselves the thing you demand in me. Look for it within yourselves! Rely upon yourselves!"
As he ceased, she also rose. She was pale, and trembled slightly.
"But if one cannot follow that teaching?" she asked. "If one longs to rely upon some one else? If one cannot rely upon one"s self?"
The Prophet made no answer. He stood with one hand resting on the table, his gaze fixed upon the book.
Emboldened by his silence, she approached him by a step.
"I think I could believe--" she murmured. "I think I could believe--anything, if I might learn it from you." She paused pleadingly; then, as he still stood unresponsive, the color rushed again into her face.
"I--I have been presumptuous," she said. "I have offended you."
Something in her tone, in her charming unaffected humility stung him.
For the first time in his career as Prophet, the blood surged hotly and painfully into his face.
"Do not say that!" he began, impulsively; then he checked himself. "I am here to teach my People," he added. "All my People--without exception."
For one moment she studied his face half doubtfully; then at last her own emotions conquered her doubt.
"Then I may come again?"
He did not reply at once; and when at last his words did come, his voice was unusually irresolute and low.
"You may come--at any time," he said, without meeting her eyes.
CHAPTER VI
So it came about that the serpent of misgiving entered into the Prophet"s paradise. With Enid Witcherley"s words, the realization of his true position had been unpleasantly suggested to him, and the grain of doubt had been scattered over the banquet he had set himself to enjoy.
It was one thing to fool men who yearned to be fooled--even to fool women whose peculiarities set them apart from their s.e.x; but it was indisputably another matter to dupe a young and confiding girl, who came with all the fascination of modern doubt, counterbalanced by the charm of feminine credulity.