MINDS there are of a psychic quality which seem to anticipate events. John Endor had this sort of mind. It hardly surprised him, therefore, when, on the morning after his resolve had been made, he found among his letters one summoning him to a meeting of the Council of Seven. His inner consciousness, it almost seemed, had grown aware that some such ukase was on its way.
The time and place appointed were the Sunday following at an old house in Kent. Roland Holles was the owner of the house. And in the name of the Society, he urged upon Endor in a private note the supreme importance of the occasion. In no circumstances must he fail to appear.
It so happened that Endor had another week-end engagement. But with everything at stake, there was but one thing to do. The prior engagement, of importance in its way, simply had to be broken. Helen, therefore, had to go to Cloudesley alone; she had, moreover, to make the best excuses she could for the eleventh hour default of her eminent husband. And this was the more unfortunate because a number of political and social big-wigs were foregathering at this famous week-end trysting place in the Midlands in the hope of meeting the new Home Secretary.
The odd circumstances of the case forbade any explanation. And in the face of Endor’s general evasiveness, it needed all the clear-headed loyalty of a newly married wife to avert a first rift in the lute. Beyond a few vague reasons which bore no analysis, this sudden and unpardonable desertion had to be left undefended. Not a hint could be given of the tragic coil in which he was involved. It was indeed a test of Helen’s faith to go forth alone among strangers with a hastily improvised excuse for the nonappearance of her husband.
On Sunday morning Endor motored down into Kent. He was in a state of mental darkness as great perhaps as any through which he had yet passed. Bitterly he realized his folly. He was in a terrible morass. Now that he was his true self, he saw that this Society, to which he was bound by a most solemn oath of allegiance, was itself a menace to the world. No matter what the abuses it set out to destroy, to a mind of perfect balance it hardly admitted of question that the nostrum was at least as bad as the disease.
During a two hours’ journey into the Weald of Kent, he gave furious thought to the problem before him. At all hazards he must free himself from the toils of those whom he now felt to be inimical to society itself. But was it possible to get free? From the note of urgency in the summons it was clear that great decisions were about to be taken. And by the oath that bound him he would have to accept a full share of responsibility for those decisions whatever they might be.
Busshe Court was Endor’s destination. A wonderful old house, set in the very heart of “the garden of England,” this first visit must have interested him deeply had it taken place at another time. In the half-light of a winter noon the place had an air of medieval romance and mystery. Before a low stone portico stood the owner of the house, who, without a hat and in a suit of country tweeds, looked a typical and singularly handsome English squire. Common report said that Roland Holles wore more than one large bee in his bonnet. So it might be, yet there was no denying the picturesque force, the rather sinister attraction, of a rare personality.
Endor met with a cordial welcome. The company differed from the one gathered at Rose Carburton’s eight weeks before. No women were there. Reckoning Endor and his host, the company assembled at the luncheon with which the proceedings began consisted of seven men. Lien Weng and Bandar Ali, representative of the immemorial East, were of the number; and in the persons of George Hierons, Felix de Tournel and Amadeo Negretti, there were also represented America, France and Italy.
The talk at table in English was grave and copious and informed. In agreeable contrast to the rather embarrassed restraint of eight weeks before, when women were of the company, there was now the freedom usually to be found among men of a like way of thought. The presence of servants in the room acted as a check, it was true. Until they retired it was impossible to approach the real business of that gathering, but the talk, spontaneous and yet weighty, sustained, moreover, by choice fare, did not flag.
Endor himself, an accomplished man of the world, felt before this meal was half through that the men about him had a depth of thought, a play of ideas, a range, an authority beyond any he had met with. Had he had a mind at ease it would have been a delightful experience. Here it almost seemed, in the stimulus of the hour, was gathered the salt of the earth. Yet, in spite of the talk, the wine and the food, not for an instant could he forget the terrible problem which confronted him.
At the end of the meal, as soon as coffee and cigars had been handed, the servants left the room. The host, thereupon, called at once upon Lien Weng formally to constitute the Court and open the session. This proved a quite simple proceeding. These men, all more or less familiar with the world of high affairs, well understood the valuable art of dispensing with preliminaries. So easy of manner was the President and so adept were his methods that Endor to his deep chagrin allowed himself to be taken by surprise. With sharp annoyance he grew aware that the business was actually under way before he had even begun to attempt to define his own position.
It was not a moment for hesitation. At the risk of discourtesy Endor sprang to his feet. “I am truly sorry to interrupt,” he said to Lien Weng, “but before these proceedings are carried a step farther, please allow me to say this. I have come here, not to transact business, but to sever my connection with this Society.”
The speech, brief as it was, had the effect of a thunderbolt. Every face around the table was anxious, startled, incredulous. Lien Weng, alone, kept a perfect impassiveness. He lifted his right hand delicately and without a glance at the others, he said in his sweet, cooing voice, “Sir, that is impossible. Believe me, sir, it is quite—quite—quite impossible.”
Endor had foreseen even this blunt and final non possumus. It did not deter him, therefore, from stating fully his attitude. He admitted frankly that he had entered into his vows at a time of mental and moral overthrow; but now that his mind was established once more on the plane of reason, he was not prepared to go on with a thing that had lost the sanction of his conscience.
“I fear you cannot be allowed to withdraw, sir,” said Lien Weng, softly. “Your vows were made on the clear understanding that on no grounds conceivable must they ever be broken. Once a member of the Society of the Friends of Peace, always a member.”
An undercurrent of stern approval from those seated round the table drove the plain words home.
“All that you say, sir, I recognized at the time,” said Endor. “So much I freely own. But as I now wish to make clear, owing to a cause which in a measure was physical I was then suffering from an eclipse of the moral judgment.”
Lien Weng shook his head gently. There was a brief pause. And then with the peculiar amenity of a deep mind at grips with destiny itself, he went on as if nothing had occurred, to expound the position the Society had now reached in the matter of Saul Hartz and the Universal Press.