AFTER dinner, in the privacy of an inner drawing room, Saul Hartz sought Helen again. It was agony almost for her to be with him, to hear his strange voice clothe yet stranger words; and yet it was a form of experience that no constructive mind would ever willingly forego. She was a woman of strong will, a woman sound in heart and brain, but of a sudden there returned upon her the memory of that night of subtle fear, some two months back, when she had paid a surprise visit to Carlton House Terrace—that unforgettable night of his dealing the man she loved a felon’s blow. Not then had she known him for the thing he was. For her, at least, his purpose was still masked. But now everything was clear. The hood had lifted, the veil was rent. He stood forth, open and declared, an enemy of mankind.
The knowledge filled Helen with curious emotion. She now felt the challenge of his nature in a way that frightened her. Beside her sat the very genius of negation. Was not she, too, just a poor silly gnat? The sense of his sheer animal power made her almost long at this moment to feel his arms about her; with his sorcery upon her she half wished that his lips would crush out her life. And she knew that she was powerless. As he sat very close to her in that cushioned nook, she might have been under the spell of a fabulous monster. Shivering with fear, she began to realize that her defenses were failing. Raised to this pitch, such a creature was all that had been, all that could ever be. Somehow she felt that the old prophecies were true. The living, sentient being whose hand now held hers was the incarnation of Evil.
Was he, to whom in the past she owed so much, about to amuse himself in the rôle of Don Juan? Pray heaven he would be content to-night with that of Lucifer! Oh, why had she come to this house? Oh, why had she come there alone?
She felt the touch of a cool palm on her lightly clad knees. It brought riot to her brain a hint of madness. She tried to free herself, but laughingly he pinned her down. If she could but get away! Held by his will she could hardly move or breathe. Was it possible, despite all she could do, that he was about to make good his vile boast of two months back? Where was the God in whom she believed? One part of her mind besought that Friend who for her had always been at the back of everything, while the other part glimpsed the joys of surrender to one who had declared war upon authority.
With an insight which she felt to be terrifying, the Colossus was able to read her thought. To him the human mind was an open page. Looking deep into those honest eyes he smiled at the naked terror that he saw there. With a softness more than feline he began to stroke the delicate fabric of crêpe de chine that so inefficiently covered her. “If I ask you to put your arms about my neck and kiss me, what will you do?” Not by the lips was that speech uttered, but by eyes that glowed and burned like those which glow and burn in jungle grass.
She tried again to get away. But with the flick of a paw he cast her back to her cushions and held her. “One can never understand,” he purred with an odd gentleness whose effect upon her was as wine and music, “why a creature of your intelligence, and particularly a woman, should ever truly believe that Right must triumph and Wrong must fail.”
“One does believe it, all the same.”
His laugh drove the blood from her heart. “And that is so amazing! Look at this horrible world we live in for our sins, and tell me quite honestly if there is any evidence at all of a power more benign than an impersonal, blind, animal force? The wind blows, the clouds rain, the stars shine. Some of us who are geared high smoke big cigars and own newspapers; some of us, geared not so high, are women broken in body and soul, whose daughters are on the streets and whose sons have been condemned by the State to the battue. So much, my dear girl, for this God of yours! On this little planet, you can’t tell me, He is making any headway at all.”
She felt as if he had hit her in the face. “I do believe,” she gasped. “And—and—no matter what happens”—his grip was on her shrinking knees—“to me—or to mine—I shall go on believing.”
“And I shall go on disbelieving.” He chuckled softly. “All the same, I like your pluck!” The father was speaking again to a favorite daughter. Helen shivered at the intolerable memories wrought by that tone. “How well you fight with your back to the wall.” He raised her hand in his and pressed his lips upon it lightly. “I respect your courage.” Voice and smile grew even more paternal. “And between ourselves, that is the only thing in the life one knows that one does respect. Courage. That alone is sacred. Courage. No matter when, no matter where one meets that, one pays homage.”
Smiling at his thoughts, he got up from the sofa on which they sat. As he stood before her in the arrogance of his mental and physical power, she could not kill a sense, try to stifle it as she would, that here perhaps was the noblest thing on which her eyes had looked.
He still kept close track of her mind. “Bless you, dear child!” She felt his eyes pass through her like a sword, and she bit her lip in an agony that had a touch of ecstasy. And then came terror again. She fought against a sob she could not control. Hearing it, he sighed tenderly. “One mustn’t hurt you too much,” he said, half to himself. “You’ve always been a particularly nice girl. I have always liked you.” His voice had grown gentle, charming, whimsical. “Good luck. Bon voyage. You are a good woman. Your husband is a good man. And I am a very, very bad one. But please remember that it is against all experience to suppose that the bad people don’t come out on top. Believe me, they always do—and they always must.”