That night it was as usual near to midnight when the High Priest finished his daily routine of work. Incessant meetings, incessant functions of some kind or other, kept him busy, month in, month out--and yet the hard lips never grumbled, never complained outwardly against this treadmill of Fate. He had given a great deal for it--its greatest value being that other people thought it more than what it really was, to him at least.
So the big stable clock was striking twelve as the fine bay horses swung round to the Palace steps and the High Priest alighted. He passed at once to his own private rooms--brightly lighted, warm, luxurious--yet with the chill, silent shadow settling there--unperceived except in that occasional weariness that of late oppressed him oftentimes.
Supper was laid for two--a repast to please epicures. And waiting him was that guest of the morning--sitting comfortably beside the blazing fire, with little curls of smoke, like little serpents, wreathing from his lips--the room filled with a delicious perfume passing even the finest aroma of cigars.
“Is it possible,” said he languidly, “that you never get back here till this infernal hour?”
“Often it is later; I count myself fortunate to-night to be here as the clock strikes twelve. Have you been in long?”
“Just about twenty minutes. I took a stroll through the city. It hasn’t altered much. That is its greatest charm. None of those absurd electric toys about yet?”
“Not yet, but there is talk of them. It’s strange, but to-night I envy you that quiet walk through the streets, St Armand. How many years is it since I walked the streets alone? Never since I took up quarters here, I think.”
“How many years is that?”
“Almost twenty-five. They were in favour of a young High Priest. I was, myself.” (Here they both laughed.) “Now I think there is some wisdom in an older man. He has less years of----”
“Of celibacy.”
“Oh no; not that. I never had any great weakness for the society of women. He has less years of the very soul of vanity!”
“They say outside you are the most successful man they’ve had for ages. They call you great, learned, even wise--the last and greatest of distinctions!”
“Ah! yes--they--they chatter like magpies. It’s a pleasure to them to hear themselves talk. In the day-time it pleases me, but at night we are different!”
“Still, with a chef like yours, and such cellars, you can afford to stand a little tedium outside.”
“Of late my appetite has gone, and even wine has lost its flavour. I am becoming, I fancy, rather quickly either a dyspeptic or an aged man.”
“Dreadful things those, Alphonso! You must cure them! ‘Youth to the end!’ One of the mottoes of the Gods! Badly carried out by mortals, but still--ah! of course I forgot you are mortal yourself. So am I--so am I; for the moment I forgot!”
The High Priest neither smiled nor commented; the pallor of extreme weariness was on his features--the weariness of work and years. So once more St Armand continued.
“I came back by Greensward Avenue to-night. There’s a building there rather took my fancy, though it was too dark to see it properly except with a pair of highly-polished glasses I possess. Black marble--red blinds--aggressively red, seeing I consider that colour my monopoly--the western windows brightly lit--the eastern ones dark.”
Alphonso looked up at him across the polished silver vessels and costly china, and the expression on his face was more attentive.
“Marble house lit up in the western wing! It has been empty for years!”
“Indeed! how many would you say?”
“Nine, at the least. Let me see. Barringcourt went back to Fairy Sky just after my installation. Eloped with a girl who--why do you smile?”
“Nothing! Nothing, I assure you. The frivolity of an elopement, I suppose, in these days when women may be had so cheaply!”
“Be that as it may, he was the most fascinating companion I ever knew. I think if I ever came near to loving any one it was he. And yet we quarrelled, over a girl too.”
“That is not uncommon.”
“Indeed, it was more uncommon than you’d think. She had committed sacrilege, and should have suffered imprisonment for life. Had I had my way, she should have been in prison yet. But he, for no reason, suddenly developed an interest in her, behaved like a fool on more than one occasion, and ended up by running off with her in the teeth of the law.”
“Exactly as his parents did. It runs in the spirit--damn it! I mean the blood.”
“You knew him?” asked the High Priest with surprised interest.
“Only by hearsay--purely by that. He was wealthy. That’s enough, you know--Lucifram’s a small place.”
“Yes, he was wealthy. But his wealth was the least thing about him,” and suddenly the High Priest stretched his arms out on the table.
“I don’t know how it was, but, when he went, all my youth, all my real life, went. And others have remarked the same thing in themselves. With him there came a brilliancy. I felt when he was gone how much of it had all been borrowed. This perhaps sounds strange to you, a stranger to these parts. But he was young, easy, free, generous to a fault, or so it seemed till near the end. And now, when I look back, I wonder if it is not the dream of years since. For it seems often there was something dark in that visage--something hard behind the merry laugh--something sinister under the fascinating smile--some fierce temper behind the contrary outbursts of youth.”
The big black eyes were fixed on him, listening to every word.
“Then this man--Barringcourt--leaves other than pleasant recollections with you?”
“He leaves the memory of a time when life was life. That surely is bitter pleasantness enough. Perhaps that bitterness has now pervaded everything--moths and perpetual rust.”
“Was he a believer in the Serpent?”
Alphonso smiled almost indulgently.
“He is the only unbeliever I would have spared the rack. I can almost excuse him, High Priest as I am, believing solely in himself. Yet he attended the Temple regularly, and gave large donations often privately. And he had the three sacred tails incrusted with jewels at his own expense. ’Twas marvellously beautifully done by some workers brought by him from Fairy Sky.”
“And his character? Was that above reproach?”
“I never enquired into it; I fear I was busy with my own affairs just then. He never confessed to nor confided much in me. I believe it was the other way about.”
“And after he left--who were the next tenants?”
“It remained empty three years. Then a foreign nobleman and his wife rented it. She died about nine years since, and he soon followed her. Unsatisfactory people, I believe. They worshipped some flimsy unseen fetish--nothing definite or concrete. But then Marble House is cursed, you know. It was built sacrilegiously--the strongest foundationed house in the city. No one has lived in it since.”
“Has it stood empty since the foreigner’s death?”
“Yes. There was some talk of pulling it down a little while since; the grounds were all overgrown, and no one could get entrance into the house. It was brought up before Parliament--to be turned into a museum; but a curt note arrived from Mr Barringcourt--I saw the handwriting, so can vouch that it was his--asking them to kindly leave his property alone till he was good enough to die. That shows he is still somewhere; though, so far as any one could make out, the note might have dropped from Heaven.”
“What is the meaning of the lights to-night?”
“That is one of the mysteries. In the dark hours of early morning it is often lit up thus--at least, the people say so. I have never seen it, nor have I believed the gossip till now you speak of it. All kinds of curious tales have been afloat of late. That Geoffrey Todbrook was seen looking out of an eastern window. That at midnight all the eastern windows are lit up with a weird dusky blue. That on stormy nights piercing shrieks and hollow moans are heard from the same quarter; and that one day a lad fond of adventures and climbing, scaled the high slippery garden wall, and was found lying, later on, on the pavement, in a pool of blood, his neck broken. Taken on the whole, such stories are not lively, their only redeeming feature being that they are false.”
“You know them to be false?”
“All except the boy. But that was a natural accident.”
“I see. You attach no importance then to my seeing the lights to-night?”
“It is the first time I have given the story any credence. I should not think you were troubled much with imagination?”
“No; I distinctly saw lights in the west part of the house. To-morrow I shall walk round again and enquire further.”
“Twenty-five years ago! By now he will be middle-aged--and I am growing old. I wonder if we should find one another greatly altered?”
