CHAPTER XXVI
Spring had come with her sweet torment of delight, her promises, herpassion, and London lay washed and perfumed beneath April's eager sun.An immense, persuasive glamour was in the sky. The whole earth caughtup a swifter gear, as the magic of rich creative life poured out of"dead" soil into flower, insect, bird and animal. The prodigious streamomitted no single form; every "body" pulsed and blossomed at fullstrength. The hidden powers in each seed emerged. And it was from theinanimate body of the earth this flood of increased vitality rose.
Into Edward Fillery, strolling before breakfast over the wet lawn ofthe enclosed garden, the tide of new life rose likewise. It was veryearly, the flush of dawn still near enough for the freshness of the newday to be everywhere. The greater part of the huge city was asleep.He was alone with the first birds, the dew, the pearl and gold of thesun's slanting rays. He saw the slates and chimneys glisten. Spring,like a visible presence, was passing across the town, bringing theamazing message that all obey yet no man understands.
"This is its touch upon the blossomed rose, The fashion of its hand shaped lotus-leaves; In dark soil and the silence of the seeds The robe of spring it weaves.
"It maketh and unmaketh, mending all; What it hath wrought is better than had been; Slow grows the splendid pattern that it plans, Its wistful hands between."
The lines came to his memory, while upon his mind fell lovely andwonderful impressions. It was as though the subconsciousness ofthe earth herself emerged with the spring, producing new life, newsplendour everywhere. Out of a single patch of soil the various rootsdrew material they then fashioned into such different and complicatedoutlines as daisy, lily, rose, and a hundred types of tree. From thesame bit of soil emerged these intricate patterns and designs, thesedifferent forms. At this very moment, while his feet left dark tracksacross the silvery lawn, the process was going steadily forward allover England. Beneath those very feet up rushed the power into allconceivable bodies. Colour, music, form, marvellously organized, makingno mistakes, were turning the world into a vast, delicious garden.
Form, colour, sound! From his own hidden region rose again the flaminghope and prophecy. He stooped and picked a daisy, examining with raptattention its perfect little body. Who, what made this astonishingthing, that was yet among the humbler forms? What intelligence devisedits elaborate outline, guarded, cared for, tended it, ensured itsgrowth and welfare? He gazed at its white rays tipped with crimson,its several hundred florets, its composite design. The spring life hadbeen pouring through it until he picked it. Through the huge mass ofearth's body its tiny roots had drawn the life it needed. This powerwas now cut off. It would die. The process, as with everything else,was "automatic and unintelligent!" It seemed an incredible explanation.The old familiar question troubled him, but he saw it abruptly now froma new angle.
"We built it," came a voice so close that it seemed behind him, forwhen at first he turned, startled, and yet not startled, he saw nofigure standing; "we who work in darkness, yet who never die, theHidden Ones who build and weave inside and out of sight. You havedestroyed our work of ages...."
A pang of sudden regret and anguish seized him. He stood still andstared in the direction whence he thought the voice had come, butno form, no outline, no body that could have produced a sound, avoice, was visible. A blackbird flew with its shrill whistle over theenclosing wall, and the gardener, up unusually early, was now movingslowly past the elms at the far end, some two hundred yards away. Theold man, he remembered, had been telling him only the day before thatthe life in his plants this year had been prodigious and successfulbeyond his whole experience. It puzzled him. Something of reverence, ofsuperstition almost, had lain in the man's voice and eyes.
"Who are you?" whispered Fillery, still holding the "dead" brokenflower in his hand and staring about him. He was aware that the soundfrom which the voice had come, detaching itself, as it were, intoarticulate syllables out of a general continuous volume, had notceased. It was all about him, softly murmuring. Was it in himselfperhaps? An intense inner activity, like the pressure of an envelopingtide, that was also in space, in the soil, the body of the planet, rosein him too. And it seemed to him that his mind was suddenly in processof being shaped and fashioned into a new "body of understanding"; a newinstrument of understanding.
"This is its work upon the things ye see: The unseen things are more; men's hearts and minds, The thoughts of peoples and their ways and wills, These, too, the great Law binds."
"I know," he exclaimed, this time with acceptance that omitted thedoubt he had first felt. "I know who you are" ... and even as he saidthe words, there dropped into him, it seemed, some knowledge, somehint, some wonder that lay, he well knew, outside all human experience.It was as though some cosmic power brushed gently against and throughhis being, but a power so alien to known human categories that toattempt its expression in human terms--language, reason, imaginationeven--were to mutilate it. Yet, even for its partial, brokenmanifestation, human terms were alone available, since without these itmust remain unperceived, he himself unaware of its existence.
He _was_, however, aware of its presence, its existence. All thatwas left to him therefore was his own personal interpretation.Herein, evidently, lay the truth for him; this was the meaning of his"acceptance." It was, in some way, a renewal of that other vision hecalled the Flower Hill and Flower Music experience.
"I know you," he repeated, his voice merging curiously in the generalunderlying murmur of the morning. "You belong to the bodiless, thedeathless ones who work and build and weave eternally. Form, sound,colour are your instruments, the elements your tools. You wove thisflower," he fingered the dying daisy, "as you also shaped thisbody"--he tapped his breast--"and--you built as well this mind----"
He stopped dead. Two things arrested him: the feeling that the ideaswere not primarily his own, but derived from a source outside himself;and a sudden intensification of the flaming hope and prophecy thatburst up as with new meaning into the words "mind" and "body."
The broken body of the flower slipped from his fingers and fell uponthe body of the earth. He looked down at its now empty form throughwhich no life flowed, and his eye passed then to his own body beatingwith intense activity, and thence to the bodies of the trees, thedarting birds, the gigantic sun now peering magnificently along theheavens. Body! A body was a form through which life expressed itself, avehicle of expression by means of which life manifested, an instrumentit used. But a body of thought was a true phrase too. And with thewords, shaped automatically in his brain, a new light flashed andflooded him with its waves.
"A body of thought, a mental body"--the phrase went humming andflowing strangely through him. A body of thought! Father Collins, heremembered, had used some such wild language, only it had seemed emptywords without intelligible meaning. Whence came the intense new meaningthat so suddenly attached itself to the familiar phrase? Whence camethe thrilling deep conviction that new, greater knowledge was hoveringnear, and that for its expression a new body must be devised? Andwhat was this new knowledge, this new power? Whence came the amazingcertainty in him that a new way was being shown to him, a means ofprogress for humanity that must otherwise flounder always to itsaverage level of growth, development, then invariably collapse again?
"_We_ built it," ran past him through the air again, or rose perhapsfrom the stirred depths of his own subconscious being, or again,dropped from a hidden rushing star. "The more perfect and adequatethe form, the greater the flow of life, of knowledge, of power it canexpress. No mind, no intellect, can convey a message that transcendshuman experience. Yet there is a way."
The new knowledge was there, if only the new vehicle suited to itsexpression could be devised....
The stream of life pouring through him became more and more intense;some power of perception seemed growing into white heat within him;transcending the limited senses; becoming incandescent. This tide ofsound, inaudible to ord
inary ears, was the music which is inseparablefrom the rhythm that underlies all forms, the music of the earth'smanifold activities now pouring in vibrations huge and tiny all roundand through him. He turned instinctively.
"You...!" exclaimed the doctor in him, as though rebuke, reprovalstirred. "You here...!"
It seemed to him that the figure of "N. H.," embodying as it were a rayof sunlight, stood beside him.
"We," came the answer, with a smile that took the sparkling sunlightthrough the very face. "We are all about you," added the voice witha rhythm that swamped all denial, all objection, bringing an exultantexhilaration in their place. "We come from what always seems toyou a Valley of sun and flowers, where we work and play behind theappearances you call the world."
"The world," repeated Fillery. "The universe as well."
The voice, the illusion of actual words, both died away, merging insome perplexing fashion into another appearance, perhaps equally anillusion so far as the senses were concerned--the phenomenon men callsight. Instead of hearing, that is, he now suddenly saw. Something inthe arrangement of light caught his attention, holding it. The deep,central self in him, that which interprets and de-codes the reports thesenses bring, employed another mode.
The figure of "N. H." still was definite enough in form indeed, yetat the same time taking the rays into itself as though it were a bodyof light. There was no transparency, of course, nor was this clearradiance seen by Fillery for the first time, but rather that hisnatural shining was caught up and intensified by the morning sunshine.A body of light, none the less, seemed a true description of whatFillery now saw. This sunshine filled the air, the space all roundhim, the entire lawn and garden shone in a sparkling flood of dancingbrilliance. It blazed. The figure of "N. H." was merely a portion ofthis blazing. As a focus, but one of many, he now thought of it. Andabout each focus was the toss and fling of lovely, ever-rising spirals.
Across the main stream came then another pulsing movement, hardlydiscernible at first, and similar to an under-swell that moves thesea against the wave--so that the eye perceives it only when notlooking for it. This contrary motion, it soon became apparent, went innumerous, almost countless directions, so that, within and below itscomplicated wave-tracery, he was aware of yet other motions, crossingand interlacing at various speeds, until the space about him seemedto whirl with myriad rhythms, yet without the least confusion. Theserhythms were of a hundred different magnitudes, from the very tiny tothe gigantic, and while the smallest were of a radiant brilliance thatmade the sunshine pale, the larger ones seemed distant, their lightof an intenser quality, though of a quality he had never seen before.These were strangely diffused, these bigger ones--"distant" was theword that occurred to him, although that inner brilliance which occursin dreams, in imaginative moments, the nameless glow that coloursmental vision, described them better. Moreover they wore colours thehuman eye had never seen, while the smallest rhythms were lit with thefamiliar colours of the prism.
He stood absorbed, fascinated, drinking in the amazing spectacle, asthough the glowing spirals of fire communicated to his inmost being aheat and glory of creative power. He was aware of the creative streamof spring in his own heart, pouring from the body of the earth on whichhe stood, drenching mind, nerves and even muscles with concentratedlife. His subconscious being rose and stretched its wings. All, allwas possible. A sensation of divine deathlessness possessed him. Thelimitations of his ordinary human faculties and powers were overborne,so that he felt he could never again face the mournful prison thatcaged him in. The meaning of escape became plain to him.
He saw the invisible building Intelligences at work.
He was aware then suddenly of purpose, of intention. The seeming welterof the waves of coloured light, of the immense and tiny rhythms, theintricate streams of vibrating, pulsing, throbbing movements were, henow perceived, marvellously co-ordinated. There was a focus, a vortex,towards which all rushed with a power so prodigious that a sense ofterror touched him. He suddenly became conscious of a pattern formingbefore his eyes, hanging in empty space, shining, soft with light andbeauty. It became, he saw, a geometric design. An idea of crystals,frost-forms, a spider's web hung with glistening dewdrops shot acrosshis memory. The spirals whirled and sang about it.
This outline, he next perceived, was the focus to which the light,heat, colour all contributed their particular touch and quality. Itglowed now in the centre of the vortex. So overwhelming, however, wasthe sense of the stupendous power involved that, as he phrased itafterwards, it seemed he watched the formation of some mighty sun. Itwas the whirling of those billion-miled sheets of incandescent firesthat attend the birth of a nebula he watched. The power, at any rate,was gigantic.
He stood trembling before a revelation that left him lost, shelterless,bereft of any help that his little self might summon--when, suddenly,with an emotion of strange tenderness, he saw the great rhythms becomecompletely dominated by the very smallest of all. The same instantthe pattern grew sharply outlined, perfect in every detail, as thoughthe focus of powerful glasses cleared--and the pattern hung a momentexquisitely fashioned in space beneath his eyes before it sank slowlyto the ground. It remained in an upright position on the grass at hisfeet--a daisy, growing in the earth, alive, its tiny delicate facetaking the sunlight and the morning wind.
With a shock he then realized another thing: it was the very daisy hehad broken, uprooted, killed a few minutes before.
He stooped, one hand outstretched as though to finger its wee whitepetals, but found instead that he was listening--listening to a sweetfaint music that rose from the surface of the lawn, from grass andflowers, running in waves and circles, like the vibrations of gentlewind across a thousand strings. It was similar, though less in volume,to the sound he had heard in the presence of "N. H." He rose slowly toan upright position, dazed, bewildered, yet rapt with the wonder of thewhole experience.
"N. H.!" he heard his voice exclaim, its sound merging in the growingvolume of music all about him. "N. H.!" he cried again. "This is yourwork, your service...!"
But he could not see him; his figure was no longer differentiated fromthe ever-moving sea of light that filled space wherever he looked. Thesame play of brilliance shone and glistened everywhere, whirling, evershifting as in vortices of intricate geometrical designs, dancing,interpenetrating, and with a magnificence of colour that caughthis breath away. There were remarkable flashings, and two of theseflashings blazed suddenly together, forming an immense physiognomy, anexpression, rather, as of a mighty face. The same instant there werea hundred of these mighty brilliant visages that pierced through thesea of whirling colour and gazed upon him, close, terrific, with apower and beauty that left thought without even a ghost of language todescribe them. Their glory lay beyond all earthly terms. He recognizedthem. These mighty outlines he had seen before.
His mind then made an effort; he tried to think; memory and reasonstrove with emotion and sensation. The forms, the faces, the powers atonce grew fainter. They faded slowly. The whirling vortices withdrew insome extraordinary way, the colour paled, the sound grew thinner, evermore distant, the great weaving designs dissolved. The lovely spiralsall were gone. He saw the garden trees again, the flower beds. Spaceemptied, showing the morning sunshine on roofs and chimney-pots.
"We have rebuilt, remade it," he heard faintly, but he heard also theroar and boom of the gigantic rhythms as they withdrew, not spatially,so much as from his consciousness that was now contracting once more,till only the fainter sounds of the smaller singing patterns, theFlower Music as he had come to call it, reached his ears. Words andmusic, like voices known in dreams, seemed interwoven. He rememberedthe huge faces, with their bright confidence and glory, rising throughthe sunlight, peering as through a mirror at him, radiant and ofimperishable beauty. The words, perhaps, he attached himself, his owninterpretations of their ringing motions.
The sounds died away. He reeled. The expansion and subsequentcontraction of consciousness had been too rapid,
the whole experiencetoo intense. He swayed, unsure of his own identity. He rememberedvaguely that tears filled his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, thatthe destruction of a lovely form had caused him a peculiar anguish,and that its recreation produced an intolerable joy, bringing tears ofhappiness. An arm caught him as he swayed. The accents of a voice heknew were audible close beside him. But at first he did not understandthe words, feeling only a dull pain they caused.
"Their imperishable beauty! Their divine loveliness!" he stammered,recognizing the face and voice. He flung his arms wide, gazing intothe now empty air above the London garden. "The great service theyeternally fulfil--oh, that we all might----" He made a gesture towardsthe other houses with their sightless, shuttered windows.
"I know, I know," came in the familiar tones. "But come in now, comein, Edward, with me. I beg you--before it is too late." Paul Devonham'svoice shook so that it was hardly recognizable. The skin of his facewas white. He wore a haggard look.
"Too late!" repeated the other; "it is always too late. The world willnever see. Their eyes are blinded." An intolerable emotion swept him.He stared suddenly at his colleague, an immense surprise in him. "Butyou, Paul!" he exclaimed. "You understand! Even you----!"
Devonham led him slowly into the house. There was protection in hismanner, in voice and gesture there was deep affection, respect aswell, but behind and through these flickered the signs of anotherunmistakable emotion that Fillery at first could hardly credit--ofpity, was it? Of something at any rate he dared not contemplate.
"Even I," came in quick, low tones, "even I, Edward, understand.You forget. I was once alone with him"--the voice sank to a rapidwhisper--"in the mountain valley." Devonham's expression was curious.He raised his tone again. "But--not now, not now, I beg of you. Notyet, at any rate. You will be cast out, judged insane, your workdestroyed, your career ruined, your reputation----" His excitementbetrayed itself in his bright eyes and unusual gestures. He was shakento the core. Fillery turned upon him. They were in the corridor now. Heflung his arm free of the restraining hand.
"You know!" he cried, "yet would keep silent!" His voice choked."You saw what I saw: new sources open, the offer made, the channelsaccessible at our very door, yet you would refuse----"
"Not one in ten million," came the hard rejoinder, "would believe."The voice trembled. "We have no proof. Their laws of manifestationare unknown to us, and such glimpses are but glimpses--useless anddangerous." He whispered suddenly: "Besides--what are they? What, afterall, are we dealing with?"
"We can experiment," interrupted his companion quickly.
"How? Of what possible value?"
"You felt what I felt? In your own being you experienced the revelationtoo, and yet you use such words! New forces, new faculties, Beings fromanother order of incalculable powers to ennoble, to bless, to inspire!The creation of higher forms through which new, greater life andknowledge, shall manifest!"
He could hardly find the words he sought, so bright was the hope andwonder in his heart still. "Think--at a time like this--what humanitymight gain. _Creative_ powers, Paul, creative! Acting directly onthe subconscious selves of everybody, intensifying every individual,whether he understands and believes or not! The gods, Paul--and nothingless---- You saw the daisy----"
Devonham seized both of his companion's hands, as he heard the torrentof wild, incoherent words: "You'll have the entire world against you,"he interrupted. "Why seek crucifixion for a dream?" Then, as his handswere again flung off, he turned, a finger suddenly on his lips. "Hush,hush, Edward!" he whispered. "The house is sleeping still. You'll wakethem all."
There was a new, strange authority about him. Dr. Fillery controlledhimself. They went upstairs on tiptoe.
"Listen!" murmured Devonham, as they reached the first-floor landing."That's what woke me first and led me to his room, but only to find itempty. He was already gone. I saw him join you on the lawn. I watchedfrom the open window. Then--I lost him.... Listen!" He was tremblinglike a child.
The sound still echoed faintly, distant, rising and falling, sweet andvery lovely, and hardly to be distinguished from the musical hum ofwind that sighs and whispers across the strings of an aeolian harp. Toone man came incredible sensations as they paused a moment. Dim thoughthe landing was, there still seemed a tender luminous glow pervading it.
"They're everywhere," murmured Fillery, "everywhere and always aboutus, though in different space. Through and behind and inside everythingthat happens, helping, building, constructing ceaselessly. Oh, Paul,how can you doubt and question value? Behind every single form andbody, physical or mental, they operate divinely----"
"Mental! Edward, for God's sake----"
Devonham stepped nearer to him with such abruptness that his companionstopped. The pallor of the assistant's face so close arrested hiswords a moment. They held their breath, listening together side byside. The sounds grew fainter, died away in the stillness of the earlymorning, then ceased altogether. It was not the first time they hadlistened thus to the strange music, nor was it the first time thatFillery entered the room alone. As once before, his colleague remainedoutside, watching, waiting, half seduced, it seemed, yet vehementlyagainst a sympathetic attitude. He watched his chief go in, he saw theexpression on his face. Upon his own, behind a mild expectancy, lay alook of pain.
"Empty!" He heard the startled exclamation.
And instantly Devonham was at his side, a firm hand upon his arm, hiseyes taking in an unused bed, a window opened wide, a glow of lightand heat the early sunshine could not possibly explain. The perfume,as of flowers in the air, he noted too, and a sense of lightness,freshness, sweetness about the atmosphere that produced happiness,exhilaration. The room throbbed, as it were, with invisible waves ofsome communicable power even he could not deny. But of "N. H.," therecent occupant, there was no sign.
"In the garden still. I lost sight of him somehow. I told you."
Fillery crossed quickly to the window, his colleague with him, lookingout upon a lawn and paths that held no figure anywhere. The gardenerwas not in sight. Only the birds were visible among the daisies. Thequiet sunlight lay as usual upon leaves and flowers waving in thebreeze. "He came in," Fillery went on rapidly under his breath. "Hemust have slipped back when----"
The sound of steps and voices behind them in the corridor brought bothmen round with a quick movement, as Nurse Robbins, her arm linked inthat of "N. H.," stood in the open doorway. Her face was radiant, hereyes alight, her breath came unevenly, and one might have thought hercaught midway in some ecstatic dance that still left its joy and blissstamped on her pretty face. Only she looked more than pretty; therewas beauty, a fairy loveliness about her that betrayed an intenseexperience of some inner kind.
At the sight of the two doctors she rapidly composed herself, leadingher companion quietly into the room. "He was upstairs, sir," she saidrespectfully but breathlessly somewhat, and addressing herself, Fillerynoticed, to Devonham and not to himself. "He was going from room toroom, talking to the patients--er--singing to them. It was the singingwoke me----"
"Upstairs!" exclaimed Devonham. "He has been up there!"
She broke off as Fillery came forward and took "N. H." by the hands,dismissing her with a gesture she was quick to understand. Devonhamwent with her hurriedly, intent upon a personal inspection at once.
"Your service called you," said Fillery quietly, the moment they werealone. "I understand!" Through the contact of the hands waves of powerentered him, it seemed. About the face was light, as though fire glowedbehind the very skin and eyes, producing the effect almost of a halo.
"They came for me, and I must go." The voice was deep and wonderful,with prolonged vibrations. "I have found my own. I must return where myservice needs me, for here I can do so little."
"To your own place where you are ruler of your fate," the other saidslowly. "Here you----"
"Here," came the quick interruption, while the voice lost itsresonance, fading as it were in sadness, "here I--die." Even therad
iance of his face, although he smiled, dimmed a little on that finalword. "I can help where I belong--not here." The light returned, themusic came back into the amazing voice.
"The daisy," whispered Fillery, joy rising in him strangely.
"Nature," floated through the air like music, "is my place. With humanbeings I cannot work. It is too much, and I only should destroy. Theyare not ready yet, for our great rhythms injure them, and they cannotunderstand."
Trembling with emotions he could neither define nor control, Filleryled him to the window.
"Even in this little back-garden of a London house," he murmured,"among, so to speak, the humble buttercups and daisies of our life! Thecreative Intelligences at work, building, ever building the best formsthey can. You re-make a broken daisy"--his voice rose, as the greatshining face so close lit with its flaming smile--"you re-make as wellour broken minds. In the subconscious hides our creative power that youstimulate. It is with that and that alone you work. It hides in all ofus, though the artist alone perceives or can use it. It is with thatyou work----"
"With you, dear Fillery, I can work, for you help me to remember. Youfeel the big rhythms that we bring."
Dr. Fillery started, peered about him, listened hard. Was it thetrees, shaking in the morning wind, that rustled? Was it a voice? Thedancing leaves reflected the sunshine from a thousand facets. The soundaccompanied, rather than interrupted, his own speech. He turned back to"N. H." with passionate enthusiasm.
"Using beauty--the artists--the creative powers of the Race," he wenton, "we shall create together a new body, a new vehicle, through whichyour powers can express themselves. The intellect cannot serve you ...it is the creative imagination of those who know beauty that you seek.You are inarticulate in this wretched body. We shall make a new one----"
"They have come for me and I must go----"
"We will work together. Oh, stay--stay with me----!"
"I have found the way. I have remembered. I must go back----"
The wind died down, the leaves stopped rustling, the sunshine seemedto pale as though a cloud passed over the sky. The words he had heardresolved themselves into the morning sounds, the singing of the birds.Had they been words at all? Bewilderment, like a pain, rushed over him.He knew himself suddenly imprisoned, caught.
"I have remembered," he heard in quiet tones, but the voice dead, noresonance, no music in it. And across the room he saw suddenly PaulDevonham just inside the door, returned from his inspection. Beside himstood--LeVallon.
An extraordinary reaction instantly took place in him. A lid wasraised, a shutter lifted, a wall fell flat. He hardly knew how todescribe it. Was it due to the look of anxiety, of tenderness, ofaffectionate, of protective care he saw plainly upon his colleague'sface? He could not say. He only knew for certain in that instant thatPaul Devonham's main preoccupation was with--himself; that the latterregarded him exactly as he regarded any other--yes, that was the onlyword--any other patient; that he looked after him, tended, guarded,cared for him--and that this watchful, experienced observation had beengoing on now for a long, long time.
The authority in his manner became abruptly clear as day. Devonhamwatched over him; also he watched him. For days, for weeks, this hadbeen his attitude. For the first time, in this instant, as he saw himlead away LeVallon into his own room and close the door, Fillery nowperceived this. He experienced a violent revulsion of mind. In a flasha hundred details of the recent past occurred to him, chief amongthem the fact that, more and more, the control of the Home and itsoccupants had been taken over, Fillery himself only too willing, by hisassistant. A moment of appalling doubt rose like a black cloud....
He heard Paul telling LeVallon to begin his breakfast, just as the doorclosed, and he noted the authoritative tone of voice. The next minutehe and his colleague were alone together.
"Paul," said the chief quickly, but with a calm assurance thatanticipated a favourable answer, "_they_, at any rate, are all right?"
Devonham nodded his head. "No harm done," he replied briefly. "In fact,as you know, he rather stimulates them than otherwise."
"I know."
He felt, for the first time in their years of close relationship, abreath of suspicion enter him. There was a look upon his colleague'sface he could not quite define. It baffled him.
"Of course, I know----"
He stopped, for the undecipherable look had strengthened suddenly. Hethought of a gaoler.
"Paul," he said quickly, "what's the matter? What's wrong with you?"
He drew back a pace or two and watched him.
"With me--nothing, Edward. Nothing at all." The tone was grave withanxiety, yet had this new authority in it.
A feeling of intolerable insecurity came upon him, a sensation asthough he balanced on air, yet its cause, its origin, easily explained:the support of his colleague's mind was taken from him. Paul's attitudewas clear as day to him. He _was_ a gaoler.... He recalled again therecent detail, brightly significant--that Nurse Robbins had turned toPaul, rather than to himself.
"With--_me_, then--you think?" His voice hardly sounded like his own.He looked about him for support, found an arm-chair, sat down in it."You're strange, Paul, very strange," he whispered. "What do you meanby 'there's something wrong with _me_'?"
Devonham's expression cleared slightly and a kindly, sympatheticsmile appeared, then vanished. The grave look that Fillery dislikedreappeared.
"What d'you mean, Paul Devonham?" came the repetition, in a louder,more challenging voice. "You're watching me--as though I were"--helaughed without a trace of mirth--"a patient." He leaned forward."Paul, you've been watching me for a long time. Out with it, now. Whatis it?"
Devonham, who had kept silent, drew some papers from his pocket, abundle of rolled sheets.
"Of course," he said gently, "I always watch you. For that's how Ilearn. I learn from you, Edward, more than from anybody I know."
But Dr. Fillery, his eyes fixed upon the sheaf of papers, hadrecognized them. His own writing was visible along the uneven edges.They were the description he had set down of his adventure on FlowerHill, of the scenes between "N. H." and Lady Gleeson, between "N. H."and Nayan, the autobiographical description with "N. H." and NurseRobbins soon after his arrival, when Fillery had so amazingly found hisown mind--as he believed--identified with his patient's.
Devonham snapped off the elastic band that held the sheaf together."Edward, I've read them. We have no secrets, of course. I've read themcarefully. Every word--my dear fellow."
"Yes, yes," replied the other, while something in him wavered horribly."I'm glad. They were meant for you to read, for of course we have nosecrets. I--I do not expect you to agree. We have never quite seen eyeto eye--have we?" His voice shook. "You terrible iconoclast," he added,betraying thus the nature of the fear that changed his voice, thenrecognizing with vexation that he had done so. "You believe nothing.You never will believe anything. You cannot understand. With joy youwould destroy what I and others believe--wouldn't you, Paul----?"
The deep sadness, the gravity on the face in front of him stopped thetirade.
"I would save you, Edward," came the earnest, gentle words,"from yourself. The powers of auto-suggestion, as we know in ourpractice--don't we?--are limitless. If you call that destroying----"
From the adjoining room the clatter of knives and forks was audible.Dr. Fillery listened a moment with a smile.
"Paul," he asked, his voice firm and sure again, "is your chief patientin that room," indicating the door with his head, "or--in this?"
"In this," was the reply. "A wise man is always his own patient and'Physician, heal thyself' his motto." He sat down beside his chief.His manner changed; there was affection, deep solicitude, somethingof passionate entreaty even in voice and eyes and gestures. "Thereare features here," he said in lowered tones, "Edward, we have notunderstood, perhaps even we can never understand; but we have not, Ithink, sufficiently guarded against one thing--auto-suggestion. Therole it plays in life is immense,
incalculable; it is in everythingwe do and think, above all in everything we believe. It is peculiarlypowerful and active in--er--unusual things----"
"The sound--the sounds--you've heard them yourself," broke in hiscompanion.
Devonham shrugged his thin shoulders. "He sings--in a peculiar way." Asan aside, he said it, returning to his main sermon instantly. "Let usleave details out," he cried; "it is the principle that concerns us.Edward, your complex against humanity lies hard and rigid in you still.It has never found that full recognition by yourself which can resolveit. Your work, your noble work, is but a partial expression. The kernelof this old complex in you remains unrelieved, undischarged--becausestill unrecognized. And, further, you are continually adding to therepression which"--even Devonham paused a second before using such aword to such a man--"is poisoning you, Edward, poisoning you, I repeat."
"You saw--you saw the rebuilding of--the daisy"--an odd whisper ofinsecurity ran through the quiet words, a statement rather than aquestion--"you realize, at any rate, that chance has brought us intocontact with Powers, creative Powers, of a new order----"
"Let us omit all details just now," interrupted the other, a troubled,indecipherable look on his face. "The undoubted telepathy between yourmind and mine nullifies any such----"
"----powers of which we all have some faint counterpart, at any rate,in our subliminal selves." Fillery had not heard the interruption."Powers by means of which we may build for the Race new forms,new mental bodies, new vehicles for life, for God, to manifestthrough--more perfect, more receptive----"
Devonham had suddenly seized both his hands and was leaning closer tohim. Something compelling, authoritative, peculiarly convincing for amoment had its undeniable effect, again stopping the flow of hurried,passionate, eager words.
"There is one new form, new body," and the intensity in voice and eyesdrove the meaning deep, deep into his listener's mind and heart. "Iwish to see you build. One, and one only--physical, mental, spiritual.But you cannot build it, Edward--alone!"
"Paul!" The other held up a warning hand; the expression in his eyeswas warning too. Their effect upon Devonham, however, was nil. He wastalking with a purpose nothing could alter.
"She is still waiting for you," he went on with determination, "andalready you have kept her waiting--overlong." In the tone, in the hardclear eyes as well, lay a suggestion almost of tears.
He opened the door into the breakfast-room, but Fillery caught hisarm and stopped him. They could hear Nurse Robbins speaking, as sheattended as usual to her patient's wants. Coffee was being poured out.There was a sound of knives and plates and cups.
"One minute, Paul, one minute before we go in." He drew him aside. "Andwhat, _Doctor_ Devonham, may I ask, would you prescribe?" There was acurious mixture of gentle sarcasm, of pity, of patient tolerance, yetat the same time of sincere, even anxious, interest in the question.The face and manner betrayed that he waited for the answer withsomething more than curiosity.
There was no hesitancy in Devonham. He judged the moment ripe, perhaps;he was aware that his words would be listened to, appreciated,understood certainly, and possibly, obeyed.
"Expression," he said convincingly, but in a lowered voice. "Thefullest expression, everywhere and always. Let it all come. Accept thelot, believe the lot, welcome the lot, and thus"--he could not concealthe note of passionate entreaty, of deep affection--"avoid every atomof _repression_. In the end--in the long run--your own best judgment_must_ prevail."
They smiled into each other's eyes for a moment in silence, while,instinctively and automatically, their hands joined in a steady clasp.
"Bless you, old fellow," murmured the chief. "As if I didn't know! It'sthe treatment you've been trying on me for weeks and months. As if Ihadn't noticed!"
As they entered the breakfast-room, Nurse Robbins, with flushed faceand sparkling eyes, was pouring out the coffee, leaning close over herpatient's shoulder as she did so. Fresh roses were in her cheeks aswell as on the table.
"This is its touch upon the blossomed maid," whispered Fillery, withthe quick hint of humour that belongs only to the sane. At the sametime the light remark was produced, he well knew, by a part of himselfthat sought to remain veiled from recognition. Any other trivialitywould have done as well to cloak the sharp pain that swept him, andto lead his listener astray. For in that instant, as they entered, hesaw at the table not "N. H.," but LeVallon--the backward, ignorant,commonplace LeVallon, an empty, untaught personality, yet so receptivethat anything--_anything_--could be transferred to him by a strong,vivid mind, a mind, for instance, like his own....
The sight, for a swift instant, was intolerable and devastating. Hebalanced again on air that gave him no support. He wavered, almostswayed. "N. H.," in that horrible and painful second, did not exist,and never had existed. The unstable mind, he comforted himself,experiences dislocating extremes of attitude ... for, at the same timeas he saw himself shaking and wavering without solid support, he sawthe figure of Paul Devonham, big, important, authoritative, dominatingthe uncertainties of life with calm, steady power.
In a fraction of a second all this came and went. He sat down besideLeVallon, his eyes still twinkling with his trivial little joke.
"'N. H.,'" he whispered to Devonham quickly, "has--escaped at last."
"LeVallon," came the whispered reply as quickly, "is cured at last."And, to conceal an intolerable rush of pain, of loss, of lonelinessthat threatened tears, he pointed to the dropped eyes and blushingcheeks of the pretty nurse across the table.