Chapter VIII (1)

URANIA’S STORY: NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND THREE.

“Yes,” said Clio, “it will soon be morning. There will be time only for one more story. Urania shall tell it to us. Do you not think that you had better go and rest now, Erato? You look so tired.”

“I am tired,” answered Erato, “but it is not the tiredness that wants sleep. And I should like to hear Urania’s story.” She was very pale; dark shadows lay under her burning eyes; her face seemed spiritualised. Her ways and her voice were subdued and gentle now. The brightness and vivacity were gone. Sometimes she would look lovingly up into Euterpe’s eyes, or touch caressingly Cupid’s curly hair. For the most part she lay motionless, and seemed to be looking fixedly at something--some vision unseen by her sisters.

But Cupid never ceased to look earnestly at her, with trouble on his pretty, boyish face. And all of them felt the strange nervous tension of those who have watched far into the night; an excited tremor came over them, bringing with it flashing, vivid imaginings. There was a pause, a silence that was like a prayer to the dawning light. Then Terpsichore arose, with no merriment, as of old, upon her face, but a look of eager penitence. And she knelt down by Erato’s side, and whispered--so softly that only Erato might hear it--“Forgive me, Erato, forgive me! I did not love you once as well as I love you now. I was half jealous because you seemed to like Euterpe better than you liked me, and because you were so beautiful. But I do love you now--I love you more than I can say. Oh, forgive me, Erato!”

Erato kissed her on the lips, and Terpsichore went back to her place, crying a little, for no particular reason, and hoping that no one noticed it, after the manner of maidens.

Suddenly Urania spoke, with a deep thrill in her voice. This was her story:--

* * * * *

There was once a man who was very careful. He saluted the sun, spoiled a good floor by making libations, sacrificed freely, and learned by heart what enabled him to remember the distinction between the _dies fastus_ and the _dies nefastus_. In fact, he did all that could be done. And his number in the books was number one hundred and three.

Now, at the end of the quarter, Zeus & Co. were going through their books. It was wearying work and dry work. Ganymede was in and out of the office all day with liquors, and Mercury had been run off his legs with messages to the different departments. The clerk was reading out the items in a dreary monotone.

“Number one hundred and one. Dead. Cholera.”

“That was a capital cholera,” murmured Co., “and did its work well. Go on, clerk.”

“Used to live in Eubœa. Killed to spite his sister, because she----”

“That’ll do,” said Zeus hurriedly; “I remember that case--a stupid woman, a very stupid woman--but pretty. Next, please.”

“Number one hundred and two. Philosopher still living because he wants to die.”

“Say ‘usual formula’ when we come to that. It’s no good wasting time. Has number one hundred and two got anything unpleasant the matter with him?”

“No, sir.”

“Ah, then--let me see--we’ll give him a couple of ulcers. Mercury, just look in at the Punishment Department, and order a couple of large ulcers to be sent to number one hundred and two, and look sharp back. Next, please.”

“Number one hundred and three. Living and prosperous. Regular in his righteousness. Further details at the Virtue Record Department.”

“We ought to give that man some other reward,” said Zeus, who sometimes suffered from a slight twinge of justice in damp weather.

“I’m not so sure of that,” said Co., who was very healthy, and never got a touch of justice in any weather. “I hate a man who does everything right. It’s so infernally hypocritical. Besides, it shows a commercial mind. He only does it in order to get something by it. I hate a commercial mind. I’ll guarantee he doesn’t do it out of affection for us.”

Zeus sniggered. “Well, well,” he said, “affection, you know, affection----” But here he was interrupted by the arrival of Mercury.

“Just look in at the Virtue Record,” said Co., “and bring the detailed list for number one hundred and three.”

Mercury was back again in a minute. “The Virtue Record office is shut, sir, nobody ever virtuous after lunch, sir--shuts at one, sir. The clerk’s gone home and taken the keys.”

“Well,” said Co., “it doesn’t matter. The man is obviously a hypocrite, and he’s got no business to try and make bargains with us. I don’t mind it so much myself, Zeus, but it _is_ such an insult to _your_ dignity.”

“Do you think so?” said Zeus quickly. “Then he shall repent it. I’ll teach him to call ME a pettifogging huckster. I’ll teach him to try to bribe ME. I’ll give him a lesson. Pass me those thunderbolts. I’ll scorch, and blight, and blast----”

“Gently, gently,” said Co. “We may just as well try and get a little fun out of it. We’ll see who can torture best--killing barred. You shall go first.”

So Zeus, who had plenty of force but very little skill, went to work in the old-fashioned way. He killed the man’s relations, burned down his house, destroyed his crops, wrecked his ships, reduced him to poverty, and afflicted him with the most distressing disease that the Punishment Department had in stock. And yet the man continued cheerful, saying that the gods were just and would yet send him prosperity.

“Oh, this is sickening,” said Zeus; “I can’t do anything with him. Now, Co., you try.”

“You’ve not left me much to work on,” said Co.; “you’ve taken away all the man has, except his baby son and his belief in us. I will give him something--a little accident--fever--cerebral disorder. See? Then he kills his child--you observe?--the child whom he loves more than himself. Then I restore him to his senses again. Pretty, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Zeus, a little sulkily, “you’ve won, Co. What made you think of that?”

“I don’t know,” said Co. modestly. “It was just an idea. He could not be tortured any worse than that?”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” objected Zeus. “You let me try again.” Number one hundred and three still lay moaning on the floor of the room.

“You can try, of course,” said Co.

Zeus still stuck to the old-fashioned plan of punishing by deprivation. There was only one thing left to take away--the man’s belief in the gods. So he took that.

Suddenly number one hundred and three arose. There was a chill smile on his face, and he walked out into the courtyard, and looked at the rising sun. “I was mistaken,” he said. “There are no gods. All is as it chances. Good is chance and bad is chance. Nothing matters any more. I would die if I thought anything mattered. There are no more values. It is the same thing whether I murder my son, who is dearer than life to me, or whether I give alms, or whether I eat my breakfast. I shall never be sorry or happy any more. Sorrow and happiness are vain and foolish.”

So he went back to his house again, and washed his hands calmly, and broke his fast.

“Well, I never!” said Zeus.

“Ah!” said Co., “you must learn the new ways. You’re behind the times.”

“Very well,” retorted Zeus snappishly; “you needn’t say it so loudly. I don’t want all Olympus to know that.”

* * * * *

“The dawn is here!”

It was Terpsichore who spoke. She had drawn back the curtain that formed the front of the cloud. Below them lay the flat fen country, with dykes, and waste places, and gaunt lonely trees. The sunrise was beautiful as a fair dream, sprigs of light snapping on the surface of the marshy pools and slow streams, where the cool dawn-wind shook the water’s surface.

“And now I will go to my rest,” said Clio.

“And I,” said the others. “And I too.” Only Erato strove to rise and could not, and fell back, breathing quickly.

“I have grown weak,” she said, and her voice was low, so that it could hardly be heard. “I will stay here, and rest here, in the warm light of the sun: I am cold, strangely cold.”

Euterpe and Cupid stayed with Erato. The rest all went into an inner room, far within the cloud. Each as she passed Erato had some gentle word to say to her. They had bidden Cupid come with them; he had replied with an angry look and a shake of the head, not trusting himself to words.

So these three were left alone in the cloud-chamber. Erato stretched out her little hands to the sun, and watched the light come flickering over them. Cupid had drawn a little apart, still watching her. At last her eyes closed. “Euterpe,” she whispered, “sing to me--sing the last song. I am drowsy, and would sleep now.” So Euterpe went to the piano. She did not sing very well, for something seemed to be wrong with her voice--a kind of huskiness:

All’s over: fall asleep.
There is no more to say,
There are no more tears to shed, and no more longings dead,
And the watch ends with the day.
Wherefore wish or weep?
Close your eyes, and fall asleep;
And happy are the dead who sleep alway.

In the fair sunlight lie;
And let your sad thoughts stray
Through the golden gleams of the gate of dreams
At the breaking of the day
Wherefore wish or weep?
Close your eyes, and fall asleep;
And happy----

Suddenly Euterpe stopped, and for a moment there was an awful silence in the room. Then putting restraint aside, she burst into sobs, weeping as if her heart were broken, and flung herself down by Erato’s side.

“Dead? Erato, my darling!”

And Erato did not move or speak; her face was very beautiful as the sunlight fell upon it. There was no sound in the room but the passionate sobbing of Euterpe.

Cupid had risen. His face, for all its boyishness, was firm, unmoved; only a little drop of blood was on his lip where he had bitten it through. He looked once at his dead Erato; then walked to the front of the cloud-chamber, and stared vacantly outwards. It seemed to him that rings of iron were growing tighter round his chest, and stopping his breath. A humming sound was in his ears. He did not quite know what was happening. Flecks of light seemed to dart before his hot, dry eyes.

He had stood there a long time--he knew not how long--when he heard a voice behind him.

“Cupid! Cupid! you loved her too.”

It was Euterpe, standing there pale and sweet, looking at him, stretching her hands towards him, the tears trembling still in her eyes.

And then, at last, flinging himself into her arms and clinging to her, he wept. “Loved her! loved her!” he cried.

So Erato lay there dead, and beautiful in death, and the sun shone fiercely, because it was now day, and men were going forth to their work.

THE CELESTIAL GROCERY.

_A FANTASIA._

It is precisely one year to-day since the incidents happened which I am going to record. Since that time I have been waiting for developments. But no developments have taken place. I find myself, in consequence, so completely at a loss what to do or what to think, that I venture to state the case plainly, and to ask for advice.

Thomas Pigge, my old college friend, had sent me a stall-ticket for the play. It was not often that I went to a theatre at all; and I had never sat in the stalls before. Pigge said in his letter that he had been meaning to come with me, but had been prevented by a sprained ankle. I found afterwards that this was quite untrue. Pigge, as a matter of fact, had bought the ticket by a mistake. He had been told that _The Dark Alley_ was having a great success. About a week afterwards he saw the advertisement of _Fair Alice_, and as his memory is notoriously weak, he confused the two plays, and ordered a ticket for the wrong one. Soon afterwards he discovered what he had done, and learning that _Fair Alice_ was a dismal failure, he offered his ticket first to his aunt and then to his tailor, both of whom refused it. It was then--and only then--that he sent it on to me. I do not think this was very nice of Thomas Pigge. I half suspected something of the kind at the time, and I was careful to make the few words of thanks that I sent him rather cold. I do not suppose he noticed it.

When I had dressed for the evening, I rang the bell--partly to tell my landlady that she need not sit up for me, but also with the intention of letting her see that, although I lived in inexpensive lodgings, I was familiar with the mode of life of English gentlemen. She surveyed me admiringly, and asked me if I would like a flower for my button-hole. “No, thank you,” I said, with a smile: “they are not worn.” I noticed with pleasure that these few authoritative words had their proper effect. However, as I was walking down the Strand on my way to the theatre I saw a man, in evening dress, who was wearing a rose in his coat, and thinking that it would be safe to follow his example, I spent sixpence on a gardenia with some maidenhair. The circumstance would be trivial were it not for its bearing on after-events.

I cannot say that I enjoyed the piece altogether. The house was by no means full. The few young men in the stalls seemed mostly to know one another, and none of them knew me. The two who came in after me had those hats that shut up; mine was an ordinary silk hat that I had worn for a year. This fact served to make me feel more lonely. My fine sensibilities render me peculiarly liable to this sort of thing; but they also do me good service by making me notice for imitation slight shades in the manners of the best people, which those of a coarser mind entirely miss. For instance, I had observed that the habitués of the stalls generally look a little careless,--not reckless precisely,--but with an air of taking everything for granted. I copied this expression throughout the evening.

A man’s surroundings have a great effect upon his character; I felt myself perceptibly refined by my presence in the stalls. My position as an under-master in a private school seemed unworthy of me. “It is not,” so I thought, “the profession for a gentleman. I shall change it.” I must have known perfectly well that it was impossible to change it; but it pleased me to say so to myself. My old tendencies towards economy vanished. I felt that I must have a cab to take me home. It would cost two shillings probably, but that would be better than an incongruity. My æsthetic principles positively forbade me to walk home after having sat in the stalls. So I hired a four-wheeler, as I always mistrust hansoms. “After all,” I said to myself as I put up the window, “what is money? We assign a value to it, but it is relative and transitory. We don’t know what anything’s really worth. What is money? What is money?” The words repeated themselves over and over again, in time with the rattling of the cab,--“What is money?” Such a repetition is liable to send one off to sleep. I am not sure that I might not have fallen into a doze myself, if I had not suddenly been startled into wakefulness by the stopping of the cab. I felt certain that the man could not have driven to my lodgings in the time, but I jumped out. To my amazement I found myself in an empty street. On one side of it ran a low stone wall, on the other there were houses; the darkness hid them to a great extent; but the house at which my cab had stopped was brightly lighted up, and appeared to be some kind of a shop. There was nothing set out in the windows, but over the door were the words “Joseph, Grocer.” The street itself was paved with blocks of crystal, and in the air there sounded the wildest music. I turned to my cabby, utterly at a loss as to where I was, or why I was there. He sat absolutely motionless; his hands still held the reins, but his eyes were shut. “Now then, cabby!” I cried, “where have you taken me to?”

He made no answer, and gave no sign of having heard me; but the horse turned its head and looked at me. As it did so, the music ceased.

“You’re starring,” the horse remarked.

I remember perfectly well that one of the young men with the shut-up hats had made the same remark about some actress, and I had then wondered what he meant. “This is very confusing,” I said. “It was the cabman that my remarks were addressed to.”

“Look over that parapet,” answered the horse.

I could not help thinking how extraordinary it was to hear a horse speak. All my life long I had been accustomed to regard a horse as a poor dumb animal. It might, of course, be all very well in fables to----

“Shut up!” shrieked the horse.

“I never said anything,” I replied, indignantly.

“No, but you thought.”

“Well, I can’t help thinking.”

“Can’t you? If you think like that again, I’ll kick this cab to splinters. I was shod yesterday. Why can’t you look over the parapet, and do as you’re told?”

I gave in. I had an indistinct idea that I was going mad, but I walked carefully across the polished street, and leaned over the low stone wall. Certainly it was a marvellous and beautiful sight. Far down, as far as my eye could reach, there was darkness; and the darkness was strewn with myriad golden stars. I heard the horse’s voice behind me: “The smallest of those is the world you’ve just left, and this is the world you’ve come to.”

I knew perfectly well that this was impossible and quite unscientific, and as I leaned over the wall I formed my conclusions. I had been terribly overworked lately, and probably part of my brain had given way----

“Never had any!” yelled the horse, and went into a roar of unmannerly laughter.

I took no notice whatever of this, but went on thinking. These delusions must have arisen from some such partial failure of brain-power. It was to be hoped that it was only temporary. Probably rest and medical advice would soon set me up again. I would step across to the grocer’s, and inquire where the nearest doctor lived. As I crossed the street, I noticed that the horse was humming the National Anthem. I pushed open the door of the grocery and entered. There were counters and shelves, but nothing on them. After waiting a little while I ventured to tap on the floor with my foot. A voice from the other side of the counter said:--

“What may we have the pleasure of doing for you?”

I looked, but I could not see any one, and I ventured to say so.

“No, you can’t see me. It doesn’t really matter, but I think I left it downstairs. James,” the voice called to some invisible person at the farther end of the shop, “what did I do with my body? I had it only this morning.”

The answer came in a boyish voice: “You left it in the cellar, Joseph, when you were packing up the nightmares.”

“So I did, so I did. You’re right, James.”

“But,” I said, “I can’t see James’s body either.”

“No, you see James has only got one. You’re very inquisitive. If you must know, his body’s gone to the wash. You wouldn’t have him wear it dirty?”

“I generally wash my own,” I said mildly.

“Well, we don’t. This is a grocery, not a laundry.”

“You must excuse me,” I pleaded, “I’m quite a stranger in these parts.” I saw it was no good to inquire for a doctor. If the grocery was part of the delusion, as it seemed to be, it would be absurd to make the inquiry there. If, on the other hand, the grocery really existed, then probably I did not require the doctor’s services. But I felt very muddled about it. “I suppose you’re Mr. Joseph?” I said.

“I am Joseph, and I should take it as a favour if you would tell me with what I can serve you.”

“Well,” I said, “judging from the state of your counter and shelves, I don’t see anything you can serve me with.”

“Of course you don’t see,” he answered, a little snappishly. “You can’t see the abstract. I’m not a grocer in the concrete. Kindly shut that door. There’s a draught keeps coming down the back of the place where my neck would have been, and that’s a thing I can’t stand.”

As I shut the door I felt more bewildered than ever. An abstract grocer was beyond me, and I said so. “What, for instance, is abstract sugar?” I asked.

“Sugar’s concrete,” was the reply, “and if you abstract it, you get spanked. We’ve got no sugar here. If you’d like a Pure White, Crystallised, Disinterested Love, we keep that, although there’s not much demand. They mostly use the coarser kinds. They say they’re sweeter.”

“Ah!” I cried, “you deal in abstract nouns then.”

“That’s more like it. It’s a clumsy way of putting it, but it’s fairly right. We supply, or, to speak more accurately, we groce, all the Emotions to the Solar System, and trade’s very slack just now in that branch. We are doing rather better in States of Being, and we’ve just got a new assortment of Deaths. Now, once for all, do you intend to buy anything?”

I remembered with joy that I had a couple of sovereigns and some loose silver in my pocket. All my life long I had suffered from want of emotional experiences. I had always regretted the want of variety, the general flatness and dulness. If the delusion or reality--I neither knew nor cared now which it was--would only last, I was determined to gratify to the full my fine perceptions. Especially was I struck with the mention of the Pure White Love. I may confess at once that I never got on much with women. I have a natural dignity and reserve that is sometimes mistaken for nervousness. I fancy it sets women against me. Somehow I am never able to say to them quite what I want to say. I have often looked at a young girl, and thought that if she could only know me as I really was--if she could once regard me as apart from wretched circumstances, my poverty, my shabby clothes, my unfortunate reserve--she might abate something of her pretty scorn.

“Certainly, I intend to buy something,” I said. “To commence with, I should like to see some samples of that peculiar Love you mentioned.”

“Dear me!” broke in Mr. Joseph. “How many more times am I to tell you? You can’t _see_ samples. You can feel them if you like. James!”

“Yes, Joseph,” answered the boyish voice from the further end of the shop.

“Let’s have some of the ‘Pure White,’--look sharp.”

“Right.”

“Now then,” continued Mr. Joseph. “Take that chair. Adopt an easy, natural position. Don’t cross the legs. If you find the light too strong, you can blink the eyes once or twice, it won’t make any difference. Head a little more this way. You’re frowning. That’s better. Now then, we’re ready. Steady, please.”

The light certainly was too strong. A sudden flash blinded me, and when I recovered my sight I was apparently no longer in the Grocery. I was in a dimly-lighted conservatory and the middle of a sentence. I have never been able to find out what could have been the beginning of it.

“... which it is not, and never was,” I was saying. “I am content only to have told you, and now I relinquish you. Let this be my farewell, my good-bye to you before I sail from England. In books that we read, a man would have asked you for one clasp of the hands, or even one kiss, but I neither ask nor wish for that.”

I looked up, and saw the girl to whom I was speaking. I had certainly never seen her before, but yet the figure was familiar. She sat in her white dress, shaded from the light by some tropical plant. It was with passionate and hopeless adoration that I looked at her, and yet I was full of a strange content; it seemed to be enough to have loved her. I saw that her head was slightly turned away from me, and that she was sobbing.

“I am sorry,” I went on, “that I have made you cry. I want you to be happy, and I know there is only one way.”

“I never knew it was going to be like this,” she said tremulously.

For the matter of that, neither had I when I first ordered the first sample pure white. But it struck me as being all quite natural. Some of that peace which must come to men of a great soul, had come to me.

“Good-bye,” I said. “I am not going to do anything desperate, anything that could cause you regret. It is enough for me to have loved you, and to feel that in comparison the rest of my life is one....”

Just as I had begun in the middle of a sentence so I ended in the middle of a sentence. The dim-lit conservatory and the maiden vanished, and I found myself once more in the Celestial Grocery.

“Do you like it?” asked Mr. Joseph’s voice.

“Yes,” I said, hesitatingly, “it is grand, it is sublime. But I don’t think I could stand very much of it. How much is it a pound?”

“We don’t sell it by the pound; we sell it by the spasm.”

“Then,” I said, “I’ll take six spasms.”

“James, six of the pure white.”

“Right,” said the voice of James.

For a moment I tried to recall the beautiful girl in white whom I had just seen. I wondered how my first sentence began and how my last sentence would have ended. I seemed to have walked for a while upon those heights of love that reach beyond the fires of passion, and on which lie the snows of perpetual purity. I felt that my self-respect had considerably increased in consequence. Here I was interrupted by Mr. Joseph.

“What will be the next order?”

“I have often longed,” I replied, “for a little real happiness.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Joseph. “But that is a blend. You buy the ingredients and you blend them yourself. Unfortunately, we do not provide Incomes. We have a Literary Fame which gives great satisfaction. ‘Political Success’ is in considerable demand. Then there’s ‘Religious Exaltation’--not much asked for lately, I’m afraid. ‘Requited Love’ is not expensive, but we’ve had complaints that it doesn’t wear well. Of course there’s Death by Drowning, Death by----”

“Stop, Mr. Joseph,” I cried, “I have no desire to die.” I had already decided what should be my next experiment; for even under-masters have their ambitions. “I think,” I said, “that I should rather like to try the ‘Political Success.’”

Mr. Joseph took my order with alacrity, and the same process as before was repeated. Once more I seemed to have left the grocery. I was standing on a balcony, my hat in my hand, and below me in the street there was a surging mass of people. As far as my sight could reach I could see eager, excited faces upturned. I was just concluding a speech, and, as before, was in the middle of a sentence.

“... not derogatory to the national sense--(cheers)--of what is the fittest, the truest, and the best way--(renewed applause)--of proving to those who at one time may have thought otherwise, that, in spite of all preconceived opinions, which, if they are not praiseworthy--and I do not say they are so--yet may with some show of justice--(hear, hear)--be asserted to have had their origin in a sentiment felt by humanity at large, and more especially by the English-speaking races, and to which we to-night, with the generosity of the conquerors towards the conquered--(loud cheers)--can well afford to extend our fullest indulgence. It is not only in the family but in a man’s public capacity; not only by the fireside, but also beneath that fiercer light that beats upon the high offices of this nation--(loud and prolonged cheering)--not only with the....”

I would have given anything to have gone on a little further. I do not even know what my politics were, although I am inclined to form an opinion from internal evidences in my speech. But I never in all my life felt such a delightful sense of exhilaration, triumph, and power. When I came to, I found myself seated on the floor of the grocery, perspiring profusely.

“Oh, that was good,” I exclaimed, “very good!” I picked myself up, and inquired eagerly what the price was, and how it was sold.

“It is expensive,” said Mr. Joseph, solemnly, “very expensive; and we sell it in bursts.”

I did not like to ask for further details. I expected that Mr. Joseph would give me a reasonable amount of credit, and with the literary fame that I intended to buy I thought that I should soon be able to pay for everything. But I thought it wise to order only two bursts of the “Political Success.”

“Mr. Joseph,” I said, “I hardly know what to order next. I should like to have a price-list, and a week to think it over. I never bought anything abstract before. At present I’ve got only some ‘Disinterested Love’ and some ‘Political Success’; do you think you could let me have some Literary Fame, Musical Ability, Personal Charm, Popularity, and Contentment?”

“It’s a large order,” said Mr. Joseph, “but we will do our best to execute it. James, will you see about those articles?”

“I will,” said James.

“And when shall I have them?”

There was no answer.

“I should like to know when I can have them,” I continued. “I don’t want to hurry you. Any time in the course of a year would do. I can give you a reference if you like. The master of St. Cecilia’s knows all about me. But as I did not imagine I was coming here to-night, I have brought hardly any money with me. However, if you would not object to taking two pounds on account----”

I pulled out my two sovereigns, and laid them on the counter. As I did so I looked up. I had ceased to be capable of surprise, or I think I should have been surprised. Before me, on the other side of the counter, stood a young girl. Perhaps I should more accurately describe her as a young angel, except that she had no wings or halo. She was dressed in some loose, white garment, which looked like the apotheosis of a night-gown. I could not say within a year or two how old she was, but she seemed to be on the verge of womanhood. Her figure was tall and slight. Her small white hands were clasped before her. Her face was, perhaps, a little wan and pale, but full of the most spiritual beauty. The expression upon it was one of sweet, calm seriousness. Her eyes seemed to be looking sadly at something far off. Her hair was long and dark, and fell loosely about her shoulders. I gazed at her a long time before I could speak.

“Mr. Joseph?” I stammered out, questioningly.

“Joseph and James,” she said, in a low musical voice, “have gone downstairs to feed Joseph’s body. They sent me up here to wait on you. What are these?”

She took up the two sovereigns I had placed on the counter.

“A mere trifle,” I said. “I thought that, perhaps, it would be better to pay a trifle on account. If I had known that I was coming here, I would have brought more--I would, indeed.”

“Will you please put them away?” she said, slowly. “They have no value. I will tell you about it soon. I have known you for a long time--known you so well.”

I was entranced by her beauty, and could hardly find words to speak, but I muttered the usual commonplaces. It was very stupid of me, but I did not seem to recall her face. I did not even remember her name.

“No,” she replied, “you have never seen me before. You will know my name one day, but not yet. I have watched you for years, and sometimes I have been with you. I am glad that you came here to-night, for I have often wished to speak with you.”

It is possible that I may have looked a little incredulous, for she fixed her eyes full upon mine, leaning across the counter, and whispered something to me. I do not see that I am called upon to write down what she said. It was quite personal and private. If I did record it, it would probably be misunderstood. But it answered its purpose. It made me feel that she knew me indeed, that here I had no impression to make and none to mar. There was no longer any barrier of reserve between us.

“And at last you have come to me,” she said. “No one can overhear us; we are quite alone.”

My cheeks were flushed and my voice trembled. “You do not talk,” I said, “as the women I met on earth, nor as Joseph and James did. No earthly woman that I know would have whispered to me the things that you did.”

“You are not angry with me for it?” she said.

I loved her for it, but I could not tell her so. For a moment or two I gazed at her in a kind of rapture. “You are very beautiful,” I said at last.

“Yes; but that is not of any real consequence here. Here the body is always beautiful, because the spirit never spoils it. Would that I could alter your nature and make it like ours! But they told me that you would look at me as on your earth a man looks at a woman. I do not understand that. I do not know your way--ah, do not look at me so.”

“I cannot help it; you draw my eyes towards you.”

“Do not say that!” she cried, in a distressed voice. “Do not think of it. I can think, and speak, and love when I am not in the body. I almost wish that I had not come to you like this. If I had been only a voice I should still have desired you.”

Like most people of a shy disposition, I have an occasional access of boldness. “Do you mean that you do not understand the kind of attraction that a woman has for a man? Do you not know what flushed cheeks, and longing looks, and trembling voice mean? And yet I could believe that the earthly love would be possible to you.”

“The lower is always possible for the higher,” she said. “But that is not what I want. I long to-night to teach you the other love. But now that I am face to face with you I have no words. There are none in any language that will tell you. I want names for things of which you know nothing--things which with men and women of your world do not exist. I should feel no shame in speaking to you of it, for there is no shame in our love. Your love is full of shame. That was why at first I whispered to you. That was why I told you that no one could hear us. It was for your sake, not mine.” She stopped and sighed.

“Why do you sigh?” I asked.

“Because I cannot say what I want.”

“Try,” I said.

“No, it is no use now. What have you been buying?”

I gave her a list of my purchases, and she went over them, as it seemed to me, a little sadly. “You have not bought the best things,” she said. “But they will cost you all that you have here, one gardenia and a sprig of maidenhair.”

“Is that flower really worth more than the two sovereigns that I offered you?”

“Yes, we have none here, and flowers are the only purity on your earth.”

“But this will die in an hour.”

“No,” she said, “it would have died there, but here it will never die.” As I laid it on the counter I noticed that even the maidenhair was quite fresh.

“If I had only known,” I said, “I would have loaded my cab with flowers. Can I not come back again?”

“No--never.”

“Then let me change the things that I have bought. They seemed high and noble, especially the White Love.”

“Yes, you shall change them. You did not value the Love because it was noble, but because it made you feel noble.”

“And what shall I buy for myself?”

“Nothing. If you had kept the goods that you ordered, you would have made a little flutter on an indescribably small portion of a rather insignificant world. You would have been called the great poet, the eminent statesman, and it would not have helped you any further--it would not have raised you any higher. Your nature would still have been bounded on the earth by earthly possibilities. No, you shall buy nothing for yourself. There is only one step that you can take that will bring you nearer me. There is only one thing that you can do that has a real value.”

“You mean self-denial,” I said. “I will obey you. I surrender all that I had bought. You shall give me instead the best thing for some one else--for whom?”

“For your own father.”

I bent my head in shame. It was a subject of which I could hardly bear to speak; but she with great tenderness, laying one of her little hands softly and caressingly on mine, dropped her voice almost to a whisper.

“Yes, for your father. My poor boy, there are no secrets between you and me. There is to be no shame between you and me. I know all. In the same asylum where your grandfather died your father now lies. His reason is gone. A horrible darkness has come over his mind. He lies there moaning and----”

“Stop!” I cried. “For pity’s sake say no more. You are right. Give me the best thing for him.”

“It shall be so,” she said. “And now the end of your time here grows near. But you have taken the first step. You and I have advanced a little further towards the sacred unity of the new love. Come, let us go and look down at the stars, and I will tell you about them.”

She came round to my side of the counter, and we passed through the door together. Her bare feet trod lightly on the crystal blocks with which the street was paved. I gazed at her in an ecstasy of adoration. The cab was still standing there, and the horse looked round at us. He grinned horribly, showing his yellow fangs.

“Oh my! ain’t it sweet!” he called out.

“You vulgar beast!” I said to him angrily, “if you say another word, I’ll take that whip and simply flay you.”

“You needn’t distress yourself,” he answered, “because you’ll be asleep in two minutes.”

I saw that she had taken no notice of the unmannerly animal. She had crossed the street, and was leaning over the low stone wall, with her beautiful head supported on one hand; I saw that my most dignified course was to follow her, and I did so.

“Yes,” she said, pointing downwards with her finger, “those are the other worlds. They were put there to be a heating and lighting apparatus for the most insignificant of them--at least that is the prevalent creed, for the most insignificant. Do not believe it. On each one there is life, and for each one there is a purpose; all are part of one scheme that----”

The horse was quite right. At this point, I rested my head on my arms as I leaned over the parapet, and went fast asleep. I can never forgive myself for it, but I was powerless to prevent it. I do not know how long I slept, but I woke suddenly. She was no longer leaning over the parapet; she stood on the pathway, gazing upwards, with a strange light in her eyes. Of course she was in the middle of a sentence. That was only part of the generally unsatisfactory nature of everything.

“----would get new experiences, new data. You would think and imagine new things. You would know what the new love means. I can only speak to you as a woman to a man, but I do not look at you as a woman would. She would see only a poor little schoolmaster, not very beautiful, rather sleepy-headed, in a dress-suit much too tight for him. I too can see that. But I see also a life that long ago came out into the darkness hand-in-hand with mine. Had you been placed in this world, you would have known as I know; but I came here, and you were sent elsewhere. Out of the same clay the potter makes two vessels, one to honour and one to dishonour.”

“And that is extremely unjust,” I said.

“It would be quite impossible for you to think otherwise; but you are wrong. You will soon know that you are wrong.”

“When?” I asked.

“On the day that you know my name, when the earthly love that you feel for me is changed to the new love of which it is the shadow, when we come back together, you and I, out of the darkness into the light.”

“Where is the light?”

“Look upwards. There are no more stars, and above all seems dark. And the darkness flows on like a river, on and on. But the river will run dry at the last, the darkness will have passed at the last, and then we shall enter into the light.”

“And now,” said the voice of the unconscionable cab-horse behind us, “I will ask you to join with me in singing the last hymn on the paper.”

“What on earth,” I exclaimed testily, “is the point of making that perfectly idiotic remark?”

“Mere absent-mindedness,” the brute answered. “I thought from the general style of the conversation that I was at some missionary meeting. That’s all.”

“At any rate,” I said, “you need not interrupt a--a lady.”

“Lady! S’help me! That high-toned, female grocer’s assistant, a lady!” The beast positively shrieked with laughter. “Get into the cab, you little fool, and let’s get home. There’s no place like home.”

I sprang at the cab, seized the whip, and determined to take my revenge. But I never got it. The agile beast waltzed round and round with amazing rapidity in the middle of the street. I struck out wildly; but though I occasionally hit the cab, I never succeeded in hitting the horse. All this time the cabman remained motionless. Suddenly the brute stopped, and backed the cab right into me. I fell down on the pavement by the low wall. I picked myself up and gazed around.

She was no longer there.

I staggered across the road. The lights were out in the grocery. I tried the door, but it was locked. I shook it, and called loudly, but no answer came. Once more I turned savagely on the horse, but at the first stroke the whip broke in my hands.

“Now then,” he yelled, “you little fool, get into the cab, and let’s enter into the Light!”

For a moment I stood there helpless. I felt weak and sick with my fall. Then I flung down the broken whip, and got into the cab, which started instantly at full speed. I buried my face in my hands, and burst into tears.

When, after a moment, I looked up again, there was the roar of the London streets about me, and we were within a hundred yards of my lodgings. The cab stopped at them, and I got out. It was evident that the cabman knew nothing about what had happened; he looked cheery, comfortable, and commonplace. I saw that there would be no use in speaking to him about it. I merely paid him three times his proper fare, to compensate him for the loss of his whip, which, by the way, he did not seem to have noticed.

I was very tired, and soon went off to sleep. I had lost fame, and I had gained for my father a return to sanity. It was worth the sacrifice. He should come to London, and live with me. It was years since I had been able to speak to him. Then slumber interrupted my thoughts.

As soon as I woke in the morning I sprang from my bed, and took up my dress-coat. No, it was no dream. The gardenia and maidenhair were gone, and my father had regained his reason. Would that I could see her once more, and thank her.

There came a tap at my door.

“All right, Mrs. Smith,” I cried. “I’m getting up.”

“There’s a telegram for you, sir.”

It was pushed under the door. I opened it. It was from the doctor at the asylum where my father was placed, and it read as follows:--

“Your father died suddenly early this morning. Please come at once.”

There have been no further developments, and I do not know what to do. I feel that I must see her, and ask her. I cannot understand. And, alas! I cannot get to her.

* * * * *

Since writing the above, I have had a letter from my Principal. He wants my resignation. He says something about “strangeness of manner--medical advice--real kindness to me--hope for recovery.” Mrs. Smith has asked me, with tears in her eyes, to leave my apartments. She says that I have been most regular in my payments, and in every way showed myself to be a perfect gentleman; but the other lodgers are frightened of me, and I frighten her sometimes. She can feel for me, because she had a cousin who once went off like that; but would I mind going?

Well, I have resigned my post, and to-night I leave my lodgings. I am very lonely.

“BILL.”

_THE STORY OF A BOY WHOM THE GODS LOVED._

Bill came slowly up the steps from a basement flat in Pond Buildings, crossed the pavement, and sat down on the kerb-stone in the sunshine, with his feet in a delightful puddle. He was reflecting.

“All that fuss about a dead byeby!” he said to himself.

He was quite a little boy, with a dirty face, gipsy eyes, and a love for animals. He had slept the deep sleep of childhood the night before, and had heard nothing of what was happening. In the early morning, however, he had been enlightened by his father--a weak man, with a shuffling gait, who tried to do right and generally failed.

“Bill, cummere. Larst night there were a byeby come to be your sister if she’d grow’d. But she didn’t live more’n hour. An’ that’s why your awnt’s ’ere, an’ mind yer do whort she tells yer, an’ don’t go inter the other room, an’ don’t do nothin’ ’cep’ whort yer told, or I’ll break yer ’ead for yer, sure’s death, I will!”

Then Bill’s father had gone away to his work, being unable to afford the loss of a day; and Bill’s vehement, red-haired aunt had come into the kitchen, and shaken him, and abused him, and given him some breakfast. Bill’s aunt was one of those unfortunate people who cannot love one person without hating three others to make up for it. Just at present she was loving Bill’s mother, her sister, very much, and retained her self-respect by being very strict with Bill’s father, with Bill himself, and with the doctor. She instructed Bill that he was not to go to school that morning. He was to remain absolutely quiet in the kitchen, because he might be wanted to run errands and do odd jobs. For some time Bill had obeyed her, and then monotony tempted him to include the little yard at the back in his definition of the kitchen. All the basement flats in Pond Buildings have little yards at the back. Most of the inhabitants use them as drying-grounds. In some of them there is a dead shrub or the remains of a sanguine geranium that failed; in all of them there are cinders and very old meat-tins. Now, when Bill went out into the yard, he found the black cat, which he called Simon Peter, asleep in the sun on the wall. Simon Peter did not belong to any one; she roamed about at the back of Pond Buildings, dodged anything that was thrown at her, and ate unspeakable things. She had formed a melancholy and unremunerative attachment to Bill; her name had been suggested to him by stray visits to a Sunday-school, forced on him during a short season when his father, to use his own phrase, had got religion. “Siming Peter,” said Bill, as he scratched her gently under the ear, “Siming Peter, my cat, come in ’ere along o’ me and ’ave some milk.”

It is not at all probable that Simon Peter was deceived by this. She must have known that, with the best intentions in the world, Bill could not do so much as this for her. Yet she blinked at him with her lazy green eyes, and followed him from the yard into the kitchen. Bill filled a saucer with water, and put it down on the ground before her. “There yer are, Siming Peter,” he said; “an’ that’s better for yer nor any milk.” Simon Peter put up her back slowly, mewed contemptuously, and trotted out into the yard again. Bill, dashing after her, trod on the saucer and broke it, and overturned a chair. In another moment he was in the clutches of his fierce aunt.

“Do you want to kill your blessed mother, you devil? Didn’t I tell yer to sit quoite? An’ a good saucer broke, with the poor dead corpse of your byeby sister lyin’ in the next room. Go hout! You’re more nuisance nor you’re wuth. See ’ere. Don’t you show your ugly ’ead ’ere agin afore night. An’ when yer comes back I’ll tell your father of yer, an’ ’e ’ll skin yer alive. Dinner? Not for such as you. Hout yer git.”

So Bill had been turned out, and now sat with his feet in a delightful puddle, reflecting for a minute or two on dead babies, injustice, puddles, and other things. It was a larger puddle, as far as Bill could see, than any other in the street, and it was this which made it so charming. But a puddle is of no use to any one who has not got something to float on it. If you have something to float on it you can imagine boats, and races, and storms, and it becomes a magnificent playground for the imagination; otherwise the biggest puddle is simply a puddle, and it is nothing more. So Bill started down the street to look for something which would float, a scrap of paper or a straw. He was stopped by a lanky unkempt girl with yellow hair, who was leaning on a broom that was almost bald, outside an open door. She was four or five years older than Bill, and she was very fond of him. The girls of the wretched neighbourhood for the most part rather petted Bill; they did so, without knowing their reason, because he was quaint, and pretty, and little. He was rather dirty it was true, but then so were they; and for the most part they were not so pretty.

“Bill,” said the yellow-haired girl, “why awnt yer at school? You’ll ketch it, Bill.”

“No, I ’ont. They kep’ me, ’cos we’ve got a byeby, an’ the byeby’s dead. Then they tunned me out for breakin’ a saucer when I was goin’ after Siming Peter what I were feedin’, an’ I ain’t to ’ave no dinner, and I ain’t to come back afore night, and when I do come back I’m goin’ to be walloped. I wish I was dead!”