The Moving Finger Part 16

"Why trouble to teach them?" she asked, a little scornfully. "What of Huntley? Have you seen him? How have they done to-day?"

"It goes well," he answered. "It always goes well."

She moved her head slowly.

"Yet to-night you are not thinking of it," she said. "For many nights you have not counted your earnings. You are thinking of other things,"

she declared harshly. "Don't look away from me. Look into my eyes."

"It is true," he answered. "To-night I have been with clever men. I have measured my wits against theirs. I have pushed into their consciousness things which they were unwilling to believe. I have made them believe. There were many people there who felt, I believe, for the first time, that they were ignorant."

The woman looked at him scornfully. There was no softening in her face, and yet she had taken his hand in hers and held it.

"What do we gain by that?" she asked harshly. "What we want is gold, gold all the time. You ought to know that, you, who have been so near to starvation. Are you a fool that you don't realize it?"

"I am not a fool," Saton answered calmly, "but there is another side to the whole matter. A meeting such as to-night's gives an immense fillip on the part of society to what they are pleased to call the supernatural. It is only the fear of ridicule which keeps half the people in the world from flooding our branches, every one of them eager to have their fortunes told. A night like to-night is a great help. Clever men, men who are believed in, have accepted the principle that there are laws which govern the future so surely as the past in its turn has been governed. One needs only to apprehend those laws, to reduce them to intelligible formulae. It is an exact study, an exact science. This is the doctrine which I have preached. When people once believe it, what is to keep them from coming in their thousands to those who know more than they do?"

The woman shook her head derisively.

"No need to wait for those days," she answered. "The world is packed full of fools now. No need to wrestle with nature, to wear oneself inside out to give them truth. Give them any rubbish. Give them what they seem to want. It is enough so long as they bring the gold. How much was taken to-day altogether?"

Saton pa.s.sed on to her the papers which the man Huntley had given him in the cafe.

"There is the account," he said. "You see it grows larger every day."

"What becomes of the money?" she asked.

"It is paid into the bank, and the banker's receipt comes to me each morning. There is no chance for fraud. I must make some more investments soon. Our balance grows and grows."

The woman's eyes glittered.

"Bring me some money to-morrow," she begged, grasping his other hand.

"I like to have it here in my hands. Money and you, Bertrand, my son--they are all I care for. Banks and investments are well enough. I like money. Kiss me, Bertrand."

He laughed tolerantly, and kissed her cheek.

"My dear Rachael," he said, "you have already bagsful of gold about the place."

"They are safe," she a.s.sured him, "absolutely safe. They never leave my person. I feel them as I sit. I sleep with them at night. I am going to bed now. Bertrand!"

"Well?" he asked.

She pointed to him with long forefinger, a forefinger aflame with jewels.

"Look! We play with no fortune-telling here. What is there in your face? What is there in your life you are not telling me of? Is it a woman?"

"There are many women in my life," he answered. "You know that."

"I do," she answered. "Poor fools! Play with them all you will, but remember--the one whom you choose must have gold!"

He nodded.

"I am not likely to forget," he said.

She left the room with a farewell caress. There was something almost tigress-like about the way in which her arms wound themselves around him--some gleam of the terrified victim in his eyes, as he felt her touch. Then she left the room. Saton sank back into an easy-chair, and gazed steadfastly into the fire through half-closed eyes.

CHAPTER XII

A CALL ON LADY MARRABEL

Saton, after the reading of his paper before the members of the London Psychical Society, established a certain vogue of which he was not slow to avail himself. His picture appeared in several ill.u.s.trated papers. His name was freely mentioned as being one of the most brilliant apostles of the younger school of occultism. He subscribed to a newspaper cutting agency, and he read every word that was written about himself. Whenever he got a chance, he made friends with the press. Everything that he could possibly do to obtain a certain position in a certain place, he sedulously attempted. He was always carefully dressed, and he was quite conscious of the fact that his clothes were of correct pattern and cut. His ties were properly subdued in tone. His gloves and hat were immaculate.

Yet all the time he lacked confidence in himself. The word charlatan clung to him like a pestilential memory. His hair was cropped close to his head. He had shaved off his moustache. He imitated almost slavishly the attire and bearing of those young men of fashion with whom he was brought into contact. Yet he was somehow conscious of a difference. The women seemed never to notice it--the men always.

Was it jealousy, he wondered, which made them, even the most unintelligent, treat him with a certain tolerance, as though he were a person not quite of themselves, whom they scarcely understood, but were willing to make the best of?

With women it was different always. His encounter with Pauline Marrabel at the conversazione had given him the keenest pleasure. He had at once fixed a day sometime ahead upon which he would take to her the books he had spoken of. The day had arrived at last, but he had first another engagement. Early in the afternoon he turned into Kensington Gardens, and walked up and down the broad path, glancing every now and then toward one of the entrances. He saw at last the person for whom he was waiting.

Lois, in a plain white muslin gown, and a big hat gay with flowers, came blithely towards him, a little Pomeranian under one arm, and a parasol in the other hand.

"I do hope I'm not too dreadfully late!" she exclaimed, setting the dog down, and taking his hand a little shyly. "It seems such an age since I saw you last. Where can we go and talk?"

"You are not frightened at me any more, then?"

"Of course not," she answered. "We spoke about that at Beauleys. I do not want to think any more of that evening. It is over and done with.

What a clever person you are becoming!" she went on. "I saw your name one day last week in the _Morning Post_. You read a paper before no end of clever men. And do you know that your photograph is in two or three of the ill.u.s.trated papers this week?"

His cheeks flushed with pleasure. He was unreasonably glad that she appreciated these things. His vanity, which had been a trifle ruffled by some incident earlier in the day, was effectually soothed.

"These things," he said, "are absolutely valueless to me except so far as they testify to the importance of my work. Before long," he went on, "I think that there will be many other people like you, Miss Lois.

They will believe that there is a little more in life than their dull eyes can see. You were one of those who understood from the first. But there are not many."

She sighed.

"I don't think I am a bit clever," she admitted.

"Cleverness," he answered, "is not a matter of erudition. It is a matter of instinct, of capacity for grasping new truths. You have that capacity, dear Lois, and I am glad that you are here. It is good to be with you again."

"You really are the most wonderful person," she declared, poking at her little dog with the end of her fluffy parasol. "You make me feel as though I were something quite important, and you know I am really a very unformed, very unintelligent young person. That is what my last governess said."

"Cat!" he answered laughing. "I can see her now. She wore a _pince-nez_ and a bicycling skirt. I am sure of it. Come and sit down here, and I will prove to you how much cleverer I am than that ancient relic." ...

They parted at the gates, an hour or so later. Saton resented a little her evident desire to leave him there, and her half frightened refusal of his invitation to lunch, but he consoled himself by taking his mid-day meal alone at _Prince's_, where several people pointed him out to others, and he was aware that he was the object of a good deal of respectful interest.

Later in the day, with several books under his arm, he rang the bell at 17, Cadogan Street. He was committed now to the enterprise, which had never been out of his thoughts since the night of the conversazione.

Pauline kept him waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour. When at last she entered, he found himself lost in admiration of the marvelous simplicity of her muslin gown and her perfect figure. There was about her some sort of exquisite perfection, a delicacy of outline and detail almost cameolike, and impossible of reproduction.