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CHAPTER 41

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS

Christmas Eve in a little village of Northern New York—a white Christmas, clear and cold. In the dark, blue-black of the sky the glittering stars were spread thick; the brilliant moon poured down its silver light over the whiteness of the sloping roof-tops, and upon the ghostly white, silently drooping trees. A heaviness hung in the frosty air—a stillness broken only by the tinkling of sleigh-bells or sometimes by the merry laughter of the passers-by.

At the outskirts of the village, a little back from the road, a farmhouse lay snuggled up between two huge apple-trees—an old-fashioned, rambling farmhouse with a steeply pitched roof, piled high now, with snow. It was brilliantly lighted this Christmas Eve, its lower windows sending forth broad yellow beams of light over the whiteness of the ground outside.

In one of the lower rooms of the house, before a huge, blazing log-fire, a woman and four men sat talking. Across the room, at a table, a little boy was looking at a picture-book by the light of an oil-lamp.

The woman made a striking picture as she sat back at ease before the fire. She was dressed in a simple black evening-dress such as a lady of the city would wear. It covered her shoulders, but left her throat bare. Her features, particularly her eyes, had a slight Oriental cast, which the mass of very black hair coiled on her head accentuated. Yet she did not look like an Oriental, nor indeed like a woman of any race of this earth. Her cheeks were red—the delicate diffused red of perfect health. But underneath the red there lay a curious mixture of other colours, not only on her cheeks but particularly noticeable on her neck and arms. Her skin was smooth as a pearl; in the mellow firelight it glowed, with the iridescence of a shell.

The four men were dressed in the careless negligee of city men in the country. They were talking gaily now among themselves. The woman spoke seldom, staring dreamily into the fire.

A clock in another room struck eight; the woman glanced over to where the child sat, absorbed with the pictures in his book. The page at which he was looking showed a sleigh loaded with toys, with a team of reindeers and a jolly, fat, white-bearded, red-jacketed old man driving the sleigh over the chimney tops.

“Come Loto, little son,” the woman said. “You hear—it is the time of sleep for you.”

The boy put down his book reluctantly and went over to the fireplace, standing beside his mother with an arm about her neck.

“Oh, mamita dear, will he surely come, this Santa Claus? He never knew about me before; will he surely come?”

Lylda kissed him tenderly. “He will come, Loto, every Christmas Eve; to you and to all the other children of this great world, will he always come.”

“But you must be asleep when he comes, Loto,” one of the men admonished.

“Yes, my father, that I know,” the boy answered gravely. “I will go now.”

“Come back Loto, when you have undressed,” the Chemist called after him, as he left the room. “Remember you must hang your stocking.”

When they were left alone Lylda looked at her companions and smiled.

“His first Christmas,” she said. “How wonderful we are going to make it for him.”

“I can remember so well,” the Big Business Man remarked thoughtfully, “when they first told me there was no Santa Claus. I cried, for I knew Christmas would never be the same to me.”

“Loto is nearly twelve years old,” the Doctor said. “Just imagine—having his first Christmas.”

“We’re going to make it a corker,” said the Banker. “Where’s the tree? We got one.”

“In the wood-shed,” Lylda answered. “He has not seen it; I was so very careful.”

They were silent a moment. Then: “My room is chock full of toys,” the Banker said reflectively. “But this is a rotten town for candy canes—they only had little ones.” And they all laughed.

“I have a present for you, Lylda,” the Chemist said after a moment.

“Oh, but you must not give it until tomorrow; you yourself have told me that.”

The Chemist rose. “I want to give it now,” he said, and left the room. In a moment he returned, carrying a mahogany pedestal under one arm and a square parcel in the other. He set the pedestal upright on the floor in a corner of the room and began opening the package. It was a mahogany case, cubical in shape. He lifted its cover, disclosing a glass-bell set upon a flat, mahogany slab. Fastened to the center of this was a handsome black plush case, in which lay a gold wedding-ring.

Lylda drew in her breath sharply and held it; the three other men stared at the ring in amazement. The Chemist was saying: “And I decided not to destroy it, Lylda, for your sake. There is no air under this glass cover; the ring is lying in a vacuum, so that nothing can come out of it and live. It is quite safe for us to keep it—this way. I thought of this plan, afterwards, and decided to keep the ring—for you.” He set the glass bell on the pedestal.

Lylda stood before it, bending down close over the glass.

“You give me back—my world,” she breathed; then she straightened up, holding out her arms toward the ring. “My birthplace—my people—they are safe.” And then abruptly she sank to her knees and began softly sobbing.

Loto called from upstairs and they heard him coming down. Lylda went back hastily to the fire; the Chemist pushed a large chair in front of the pedestal, hiding it from sight.

The boy, in his night clothes, stood on the hearth beside his mother.

“There is the stocking, mamita. Where shall I hang it?”

“First the prayer, Loto. Can you remember?”

The child knelt on the hearth, with his head in his mother’s lap.

“Now I lay me—” he began softly, halting over the unfamiliar words. Lylda’s fingers stroked his brown curly head as it nestled against her knees; the firelight shone golden in his tousled curls.

The Chemist was watching them with moist eyes. “His first Christmas,” he murmured, and smiled a little tender smile. “His first Christmas.”

The child was finishing.

“And God bless Aura, and Jack, and—”

“And Grandfather Reoh,” his mother prompted softly.

“And Grandfather Reoh—and mamita, and—” The boy ended with a rush—“and me too. Amen. Now where do I hang the stocking, mother?”

In a moment the little stocking dangled from a mantel over the fireplace.

“You are sure he will come?” the child asked anxiously again.

“It is certain, Loto—if you are asleep.”

Loto kissed his mother and shook hands solemnly with the men—a grave, dignified little figure.

“Good night, Loto,” said the Big Business Man.

“Good night, sir. Good night, my father—good night, mamita; I shall be asleep very soon.” And with a last look at the stocking he ran out of the room.

“What a Christmas he will have,” said the Banker, a little huskily.

A girl stood in the doorway that led into the dining-room adjoining—a curious-looking girl in a gingham apron and cap. Lylda looked up.

“Oh, Eena, please will you say to Oteo we want the tree from the wood-shed—in the dining-room.”

The little maid hesitated. Her mistress smiled and added a few words in foreign tongue. The girl disappeared.

“Every window gets a holly wreath,” the Doctor said. “They’re in a box outside in the wood-shed.”

“Look what I’ve got,” said the Big Business Man, and produced from his pocket a little folded object which he opened triumphantly into a long serpent of filigree red paper on a string with little red and green paper bells hanging from it. “Across the doorway,” he added, waving his hand.

A moment after there came a stamping of feet on the porch outside, and then the banging of an outer door. A young man and girl burst into the room, kicking the snow from their feet and laughing. The youth carried two pairs of ice-skates slung over his shoulder; as he entered the room he flung them clattering to the floor.

The girl, even at first glance, was extraordinarily pretty. She was small and very slender of build. She wore stout high-laced tan shoes, a heavy woollen skirt that fell to her shoe-tops and a short, belted coat, with a high collar buttoned tight about her throat. She was covered now with snow. Her face and the locks of hair that strayed from under her knitted cap were soaking wet.

“He threw me down,” she appealed to the others.

“I didn’t—she fell.”

“You did; into the snow you threw me—off the road.” She laughed. “But I am learning to skate.”

“She fell three times,” said her companion accusingly.

“Twice only, it was,” the girl corrected. She pulled off her cap, and a great mass of black hair came tumbling down about her shoulders.

Lylda, from her chair before the fire, smiled mischievously.

“Aura, my sister,” she said in a tone of gentle reproof. “So immodest it is to show all that hair.”

The girl in confusion began gathering it up.

“Don’t you let her tease you, Aura,” said the Big Business Man. “It’s very beautiful hair.”

“Where’s Loto?” asked the Very Young Man, pulling off his hat and coat.

“In bed—see his stocking there.”

A childish treble voice was calling from upstairs. “Good night, Aura—good night, my friend Jack.”

“Good night, old man—see you tomorrow,” the Very Young Man called back in answer.

“You mustn’t make so much noise,” the Doctor said reprovingly. “He’ll never get to sleep.”

“No, you mustn’t,” the Big Business Man agreed. “Tomorrow’s a very very big day for him.”

“Some Christmas,” commented the Very Young Man looking around. “Where’s the holly and stuff?”

“Oh, we’ve got it all right, don’t you worry,” said the Banker.

“And mistletoe,” said Lylda, twinkling. “For you, Jack.”

Eena again stood in the doorway and said something to her mistress. “The tree is ready,” said Lylda.

The Chemist rose to his feet. “Come on, everybody; let’s go trim it.”

They crowded gaily into the dining-room, leaving the Very Young Man and Aura sitting alone by the fire. For some time they sat silent, listening to the laughter of the others trimming the tree.

The Very Young Man looked at the girl beside him as she sat staring into the fire. She had taken off her heavy coat, and her figure seemed long and very slim in the clothes she was wearing now. She sat bending forward, with her hands clasped over her knees. The long line of her slender arm and shoulder, and the delicacy of her profile turned towards him, made the Very Young Man realize anew how fragile she was, and how beautiful.

Her mass of hair was coiled in a great black pile on her head, with a big, loose knot low at the neck. The iridescence of her skin gleamed under the flaming red of her cheeks. Her lips, too, were red, with the smooth, rich red of coral. The Very Young Man thought with a shock of surprise that he had never noticed before that they were red; in the ring there had been no such color.

In the room adjoining, his friends were proposing a toast over the Christmas punch bowl. The Chemist’s voice floated in through the doorway.

“To the Oroids—happiness to them.” Then for an instant there was silence as they drank the toast.

Aura met the Very Young Man’s eyes and smiled a little wanly. “Happiness—to them! I wonder. We who are so happy tonight—I wonder, are they?”

The Very Young Man leaned towards her. “You are happy, Aura?”

The girl nodded, still staring wistfully into the fire.

“I want you to be,” the Very Young Man added simply, and fell silent.

A blazing log in the fire twisted and rolled to one side; the crackling flames leaped higher, bathing the girl’s drooping little figure in their golden light.

The Very Young Man after a time found himself murmuring familiar lines of poetry. His memory leaped back. A boat sailing over a silent summer lake—underneath the stars—the warmth of a girl’s soft little body touching his—her hair, twisted about his fingers—the thrill in his heart; he felt it now as his lips formed the words:

“The stars would be your pearls upon a string,

The world a ruby for your finger-ring,

And you could have the sun and moon to wear,

If I were king.”

“You remember, Aura, that night in the boat?”

Again the girl nodded. “I shall learn to read it—some day,” she said eagerly. “And all the others that you told me. I want to. They sing—so beautifully.”

A sleigh passed along the road outside; the jingle of its bells drifted in to them. The Very Young Man reached over and gently touched the girl’s hand; her fingers closed over his with an answering pressure. His heart was beating fast.

“Aura,” he said earnestly. “I want to be King—for you—this first Christmas and always. I want to give you—all there is in this life, of happiness, that I can give—just for you.”

The girl met his gaze with eyes that were melting with tenderness.

“I love you, Aura,” he said softly.

“I love you, too, Jack,” she whispered and held her lips up to his.

THE SILVER VEIL (1921)

Originally published in Munsey’s Magazine, May 1921.

I

He was one of those unusual charac­ters whom it has always been my pleasure to make and hold as friends. I had not seen him for several years when, quite by chance, I came upon him again in New York—three thousand miles from the city where I had first made his acquaintance.

He was what you might call a seer—a professional mystic, whose powers over the occult, even in those old days in San Fran­cisco, when he was beginning his career, brought many a trusting believer to his feet, and many a dollar of their money into his pocket.

Perhaps you may think him merely a charlatan, playing upon a credulous public with the cleverness of a born trickster. Un­doubtedly he was that, to a degree; and yet the line of demarkation between his chicanery and his true psychic power was always, to me, quite indistinguishable. I was sure the trickery was there. Indeed, he once laughingly admitted as much when I accused him; yet never could I separate the dross from the gold, or determine the proportion of each.

But whether seer or trickster, he was likable enough to be any man’s friend. When I met him in New York, he was about thirty-five years old, tall and lean—thin, almost—but wiry with an unconscious, lithe grace. He was smooth-shaven; his skin was unusually white—a pallor, however, that suggested nothing of ill-health. His features were masculinely strong, yet of al­most a feminine delicacy of mold. He wore his black, wavy hair a trifle long; his dark eyes looked out through lashes heavy as a girl’s.

The strong feeling of friendship we had built up during those former years sprang readily into the hearts of both of us at this chance meeting. He insisted on taking me immediately to his studio on Central Park South; and I could see, even before I reached the luxurious rooms where he both lived and conducted his business, that the man had prospered.

“Life is evidently treating you very kindly, Dorian,” I said.

He smiled one of his rare smiles.

“You shall see,” he answered, a boyish note of pride in his voice. “Things are somewhat different from the old days, Carl!”

We entered his somber, dimly lighted reception room. Luxury and refinement showed on every hand. That always was Dorian’s way. There never had been about him or his methods a hint of the garish, of the cheap and melodramatic striving for effect that is so often characteristic of the professed mystic.

My eager questions about his work met with ready response.

“For years, Carl, I have been in daily contact with one great desire of the human mind—the desire to look into the future. It is a universal desire—you know that as well as I. Every human being feels it at one time or another. To know what the future holds—to lift its silver veil and stand face to face with destiny—who has not longed for that?”

I remembered his crystal-gazing, the fortune-telling of his earlier years, and all those other devices and methods of fore­telling the future that he and others of his profession must of necessity put to con­stant use. I mentioned them.

“Of course,” he exclaimed. “But neither I nor anyone else has ever done more, by crystal-gazing or any other method that you name, than to draw back a corner of the veil for an instant. That is not what I mean. I mean looking into the future from the present moment to the very instant of death itself; spreading out the remaining span of life like a panorama to be examined in detail, so that one’s des­tiny need no longer remain an unfathom­able secret of nature.”

For the moment he seemed to be carried away by the thoughts his words inspired. He spoke almost as a crusader of the Mid­dle Ages might have spoken of his holy wars of conquest.

To some, Carl, this desire to look into the future comes only as an idle wish, idly dwelt upon, forgotten with a sigh of resig­nation; but to others—and these others are the ones who come to me—it becomes an obsession. It causes the greatest mental anguish, and in these extreme cases it must be satisfied. Can’t you understand that, man? It must be satisfied, or it will destroy. Why, Carl, I know of many a sui­cide who hurried forward into eternity be­cause he was afraid to face the coming of death at its appointed but unknown hour!”

I knew he presented a true picture. He had named a desire which no human heart has escaped.

“Can you really satisfy that desire, Dorian?”

I met his eyes squarely, and I thought I saw in them the impish light of mockery.

“Frankly, Carl, you want me to show you exactly what I am doing, don’t you?”

“Frankly I do,” I answered. “What you say interests me tremendously.”

I think I half expected him to lead me back into his inner rooms, but he made no move to rise. He was looking at me thoughtfully.

“I’m wondering how I can show you best,” he said after a moment. Then, with a sudden thought, he glanced at his watch. “By Jove, two o’clock! I had forgotten. My—my office hours are just beginning.” He smiled as he phrased it that way. “I hope you’ve had lunch—I’ve let you sit here—”

“I have,” I assured him.

“Good! Then I’ll—” He stopped ab­ruptly. I could see him pondering some­thing. “You sit over there, Carl, for an hour or two.” He indicated a chair in an inconspicuous corner of the room. “I have only two appointments this afternoon.”

Dorian had risen and was standing over me. I think I had never seen his face so inscrutable.

“You can listen to what they say as they come and go; and then, if you wish, I will take you in and show you just exactly what I am doing.”

I do not know why his words should have had an ominous sound; but I felt my heart chilled with sudden fear, as if I sensed some nameless danger impending. I forced myself to smile.

“I shall be all curiosity,” I said.

The doorbell rang.

“Sit over there, Carl.”

He did not wait for me to rise, but dis­appeared immediately into an inner room of the apartment.

II

I heard soft footsteps in the hall. From my secluded seat, partially behind a screen and shaded from the soft light that filtered through the window curtains, I could see perfectly every part of the room, but I felt that if I remained quiet my presence would pass unnoticed.

I had barely become settled when the door of the room opened and a woman entered, followed by Dorian’s Japanese attendant. The man made a punctilious little bow.

“If madame will be seated, I shall tell my master she is here.”

He left silently.

Whatever were my expectations regard­ing this first client of Dorian’s, certainly the woman at whom I was now gazing at­tentively measured up to none of them. She was a type unmistakable in almost any part of the world. I need not name it. Her cheap, garish clothes; her straw-col­ored hair; the rouge on her pasty cheeks; her bowed lips and heavily beaded lashes; a certain defiance in her bearing, recogniz­able even now, when she believed herself alone—all these stamped her for what she was. Only a few years before she might have been pretty with the freshness of youth; but that was gone now, and the artificial touches that she had assumed only accentuated its absence.

As the Japanese boy withdrew, she crossed to one of the windows and glanced out of it idly. Then, dropping the curtain to its place, she seated herself in a nearby chair. After a moment she picked up a magazine, turned its leaves abstractedly, then tossed it back among its fellows on the table. I could see that she was restless, nervous, overwrought.

A sudden pity for her sprang up in my heart. This girl who had come to face her destiny—what would she meet? What could the coming years hold for such as she? Health drained away in the cups of dis­sipation; youth gone; middle age skipped in a day, and old age laying its icy hand upon her with pre­mature haste. What family ties could she build for the future? What husband, what children, would minister with tenderness and devotion to the wants of her declining years? What, indeed, could the future hold for her?

A light step sounded at the door. The woman turned hastily and rose as Dorian entered. He spoke no words of greeting, only the low question:

“You are ready?”

I shuddered at the ominous portent of his icy tone.

“Yes,” she answered. She spoke almost in a whisper. Her figure stiffened. I saw her lips press tightly together, as if to for­tify her wavering courage. “Yes—I am ready.”

He bowed gravely, standing aside to let her pass. As he followed her out of the room, the swift glance he threw back at me was unmistakably sardonic.

The door closed softly behind them. Their footsteps died away and left me alone in the heavy silence of the room. I do not know what I anticipated might be taking place behind that closed door, but I felt a chill of dread settling upon me.

What mystery was this I was facing? What trifling with the secrets of nature had this strange man found possible? Was the future—so jealously guarded since the be­ginning of time—to be a secret no longer? Or was I indeed wholly mistaken? Was this only another of Dorian’s tricks—more subtle, more ingenious, but only a trick nevertheless?

The minutes dragged slowly past. The silence of the room, high above the street, oppressed me; the heavy incense in the air choked my lungs. And then, after what seemed an eternity, I heard the murmur of voices. The door of the room reopened; the woman entered, with Dorian, grave and imperturbable as before, following close be­hind her.

They passed me and stopped near the center of the room, where she turned to face him. I could see that she had passed through some tremendous ordeal. Tears hung in her eyes; her slack lips quivered. She was trembling unrestrainedly now.

“If I only knew how to thank you!” she said softly. Relief and gratitude wrere mingled in her tone; but Dorian’s face remained as in­scrutable as ever.

“You forget you paid me yesterday,” he said evenly.

It seemed so crude that I wondered at his saying it.

“Money! What little money I have to give—”

“I could ask no more.”

Was it a spirit of mockery led him to say that?

The woman laid her hand upon his arm.

“If only I had known! How easy it is now to face the future I have been fearing so long!” A look almost of exaltation was on her face. “You have done so much for me today—you will let me thank you?”

As if in answer, he shook off her tremu­lous hand on his arm, and, stepping to the outer door, flung it wide. In the hall his attendant stood waiting, motionless.

“You have thanked me, madam.” The gesture he made was plainly one of dismis­sal. Then, as she neared him, he suddenly smiled frankly, and, extending his hand, added: “And I am very glad—very glad indeed—that I have been able to help you.”

III

The door closed, and Dorian and I were again alone. I leaped to my feet.

“Good God, man! Will you show me what you are doing, and how you did that? What does all this mean?”

He stepped back, as if startled at my sudden outburst, but the easy smile on his face remained.

“Oh, hello, Carl! I’d almost forgotten you were there.”

He dropped into a chair, lighting a ciga­rette with easy grace.

“Will you tell me what all this means?” I asked again, as I stood looking down at him.

He raised his eyebrows questioningly at my tone. I think this was the first time he had really nettled me.

“Is this some trickery, Dorian?” I demanded.

His eyes narrowed to little glittering slits.

“Trickery?”

His tone was cold, uncompromising as steel. My glance shifted before his; I re­gretted the bluntness of my words.

“I understand nothing of what I have seen or heard, Dorian. The thing is natu­rally so inexplicable, so—”

“If it were trickery, do you suppose I would trouble myself to talk to you about it as I have?” He had risen from his chair and stood fronting me, his figure drawn to its full height. Instinctively I shrank be­fore him. “It is not trickery,” he added curtly.

Before I could reply, he had swung about and left the room.

For a moment I stood undecided. A lit­tle bell lay on the table. Should I summon an attendant and send for Dorian? Per­haps I had overstepped the bounds of friendship and owed him an apology.

I had reached no decision when, abrupt­ly as he had left, Dorian returned. He smiled amusedly as he saw me standing there.

“Sit down, Carl! Our second visitor is waiting for me in another room. Sadji will show him in here in a moment.”

He seemed quite to have lost his anger, if indeed it were anger that he had felt.

“Not over there,” he added, as I started for my secluded chair. “Here—by me. You can talk with him also.”

I seated myself in the chair he indicated.

“It may interest you, Carl, to know that from this gentleman whom we are about to meet I am to receive, this afternoon, the largest single amount that anyone has ever paid me.” Dorian flicked his cigarette ash musingly. “That is, if my services are satisfactory.”

I watched him silently as he sat ab­stractedly staring at the floor.

“A very decent little fee—fifty thousand dollars.”

“Fifty thousand dollars!” I ejaculated.

“If my services are satisfactory,” he re­peated calmly.

It seemed preposterous.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“His name is Roger Burton.” He had named a financier whose reputation was na­tion-wide. “What is the matter, Carl? May not I, Dorian Merlier, aspire to such a height?”

“Why, yes, I—I suppose you may,” I stammered.

“You looked so shocked! But never mind, we will—dispose of him quickly.” He seemed to choose the word deliberately. “Then I will take you in and show you—all that you wish to see!”

I had no time to recover from my sur­prise, or to read a meaning into these last words, before the door leading into the hall opened again. The Japanese attendant stood aside deferentially to allow the visitor to pass.

Dorian and I rose to our feet. The man coming toward us was perhaps in his early seventies—small and frail, with smooth-shaven face, thin and deeply furrowed. In his hand he carried his gray soft hat and a gold-topped walking-stick. He seemed wholly self-possessed, quite at his ease, as he advanced, smiling genially and extend­ing a hand to Dorian.

I wondered how Dorian would greet him. I expected, I think, a renewal of that air of mystery which had characterized his meeting with the girl; but nothing of the sort occurred. Dorian shook the proffered hand cordially, and presented his distin­guished visitor to me. The little man drew off his gloves and handed them, with his hat and cane, to the obsequious Japanese.

As the attendant withdrew, Dorian drew up chairs and we sat down together near one of the windows.

“I trust, Mr. Merlier, that you are not about to disappoint my expectations,” the financier began.

His tone was friendly, but crisp and businesslike. Dorian met him on his own ground.

“That, sir, is a result I do not anticipate, All that I have promised I am prepared to fulfill.”

The cleverness of the man was superb; his manner carried conviction. The visitor nodded.

“Then you will find me quite ready to carry out my part of the agreement. I as­sume that my word on that point is suf­ficient?” He glanced at me significantly. “Or perhaps you wish me to name the amount to this gentleman?”

I felt myself flush at this last suggestion; but Dorian’s face remained unchanged.

“I think, Mr. Burton, I have already said that your terms were quite satisfactory to me,” he answered calmly. “I require no witness to an agreement when I have the word of a gentleman.”

The little financier rubbed his hands together.

“Then that is settled. We may as well start—if you are ready?”

“At your convenience, sir.”

The visitor pondered a moment.

“Perhaps I should first say this, Mr. Merlier—I want you to realize that I am entering upon this experiment with no silly idea of looking into the future for senti­mental reasons. If I were able to forecast certain business transactions—if you could predict what will occur in certain—”

Dorian frowned.

“You will please understand me, Mr. Burton. I am no fortune-teller; I predict nothing. I am about to lay bare before you all the allotted span of life you have left to live. I shall make it clear to you in every detail. When you leave this house this afternoon, your future will be to you as your past—a memory from which you can pick and choose, gleaning such facts as you desire; but that is all I can do. I can­not show you one thing and blot out an­other. Nor can you stop, once you start, until the very end is reached.”

Dorian spoke slowly. I thought I had never seen his gaze so piercing. It seemed to be measuring the effect of his words with infinite care.

“There is no half-way, Mr. Burton,” he added. “It is all or nothing.”

The financier shifted his glance, gazing fixedly across the room. After a moment he seemed to shake himself together. He rose to his feet.

“That—if you can do it—should be quite satisfactory,” he said. “Shall we start now, Mr. Merlier—if you are ready?”

As they left the room, Dorian lingered behind.

“When we return, Carl, you will be sit­ting there,” he said softly, indicating the darkened corner of the room behind the screen.

The door closed upon him, and I was again alone.

IV

I paced the room nervously, pondering all I had heard in these two widely differ­ent interviews. As before, I felt that om­inous sense of dread come over me. I could not believe that Dorian was wholly sincere; and yet I think that perhaps it was the very dread of his sincerity that frightened me, for there seemed to be something al­most sinister about the necromancy that could wrest from nature so vital a secret.

I had been pacing back and forth perhaps fifteen minutes when I suddenly remem­bered Dorian’s last words. I immediately dropped into the secluded seat behind the screen, although 1 had no expectation that he and his client would return in so short a time.

Hardly was I settled when the sound of a voice became audible. I heard a door slam; there followed the soft tread of footsteps. Then the door before me swung open.

“This way, Mr. Burton. We will rest out here a few moments more before you leave.”

The change in the financier was the most amazing thing I had yet seen in this ex­traordinary series of incidents. Scarcely a quarter of an hour had passed since he left the room a composed, self-possessed man of business, ready to put to the test the claims of one in whose sincerity I knew he had only half believed. He returned stripped of all that had made him before a dominant figure. His composure, his self­-possession, completely gone, he came wa­vering through the doorway, half supported by Dorian, and sank trembling into the nearest chair.

“You’ll be all right in a moment, Mr. Burton,” said my friend soothingly.

The mellow light from the window fell full on the financier’s face. The look he gave Dorian was the look of a frightened child just awakened from a nightmare.

Dorian laid his hand gently on the little man’s forehead.

“A drop of brandy to steady you?”

He opened a cellarette at the side of the room, which I had not noticed before, and poured a little liquor. The financier grate­fully drank it and the water Dorian proffered.

“I’m—I think I’m all right now.” He put his hand over his face for an instant as if to shut out some terrifying vision. “I shouldn’t have—I did not understand—if only I had known!”

The woman’s very words!

“God’s ways are sometimes inscrutable,” Dorian said gently; “but they are always very just.”

He stood with almost tender solicitude beside the man’s chair, waiting for him to recover his composure. There was a long silence.

“If only I had known!” repeated the financier finally. “You have done me a very great—a very wonderful service, Mr. Merlier.”

He seemed now to have partially re­gained his self-possession. Dorian bowed gravely. I could see his manner changing to keep pace with that of his client.

“If you really feel that you have—bene­fited,” he said slowly, “I am very glad—very glad indeed; though, as I have said, I am ready to show—”

He paused at the man’s involuntary shudder.

There was another silence. Then the visitor rose unsteadily to his feet, a little black oblong book in his hand. I felt, rather than saw, Dorian’s figure relax. It was as if inaudibly he were breathing a sigh of relief.

“The desk is here, Mr. Burton,” he said evenly.

He stood motionless at the financier’s elbow while Burton wrote his check. I felt myself holding my breath; but the hand that Dorian extended to take the check did not waver. His demeanor was calm and courteous.

“I thank you, sir,” he said simply.

Burton rose to his feet.

“I never break my word,” he said. “You have earned that money, and I shall never forget what you have so unexpected­ly made me realize today.”

Dorian rang the little bell. Almost in­stantly the attendant appeared with the financier’s hat, gloves, and cane; and a moment later the door closed upon him.

I was still sitting quiet when Dorian came back into the center of the room. Evidently he had for the moment forgotten my existence. He sank into a chair and closed his eyes. He seemed almost at the point of exhaustion, as if he had used to the limit his reserve of nervous energy.

I left my seat and crossed the room to­ward him. He rose instantly—vibrant, full of life, self-possessed as before.

“Congratulate me, Carl!” The little white slip of paper fluttered in his fingers. “A good afternoon’s work for any man!”

We sat down together and talked. He seemed enthusiastic as a boy over his suc­cess; but nothing that he said, and nothing that I could lead him to say, made the af­fair more understandable to me than it had been.

“It’s your turn now, Carl,” he said, when I would let him stand me off no long­er. “Come! What I have promised, I do. I said you shall see—whatever you wish.”

He had risen and was standing over me. His bantering eyes seemed impishly weav­ing a jest into his words. I felt myself shiver with a vague thrill of fear.

“What are we going to do?”

“I am going to show you every detail of your future life—just as I have those others.”

I stood beside him.

“I shall be all curiosity,” I said; but the tone was forced.

V

The adjoining room, into which we now passed, proved to be nearly equal in size to the one we had left. Rich Turkish rugs covered its floor, and its windowless walls were shrouded with heavy, dark-colored draperies. A cluster of evil-looking knives and simitars ranged along one side, under­neath which stood a broad divan with many pillows. From the ceiling depended a huge wrought-iron lantern—the only light in the room—whose broad amber beam reflected a score of sinister glints from the naked steel on the wall. The air was heavy with a cloying incense; the whole effect was de­pressing in the extreme.

“Let us stop here a moment,” said Do­rian. “There are some things I should like to say to you before we—begin.” He pulled me down beside him on the couch. “You have called me a trickster.” He ig­nored the protesting hand I raised. “Per­haps you will take that back—before we finish!”

I started to speak, but he silenced me with a swift gesture. I stared at him blankly. This measured, careful tone I had never heard from him before.

“I have told you what I am about to do. What I told you was the simple truth. I know you did not believe it. You do not believe it now, do you?”

The dull yellow light on his face made it ghastly and unreal. My wits seemed to scatter before his burning gaze.

“I—I don’t know,” I faltered.

No shadow of a smile crossed his face.

“You do not believe me now—though you will in a moment. But you do under­stand me, do you not?”

“Yes,” I said.

The word seemed to come almost invol­untarily from my lips. His blazing eyes held mine. The vague thought came to me that he was trying hypnotism, but an in­stant later his gaze swung idly away.

A little copper bell stood on a tabouret at his elbow. He rang it softly. Almost before its tones died away, a slender, brown-skinned, white-turbaned youth stood before us.

“Prepare—at once,” said his master.

A flash of white teeth, a low bow, and the young Hindu was gone. Dorian turned back to me.

“To look into the future—it is almost trite when you say it that way; but I some­times believe it the most solemn thought that words can create. We live in the fu­ture, most of us—the golden age toward which we are always looking, but which we have never seen; the future that is lighted by the radiant colors of hope. Curious that we should all be so eager to pale those beautiful colors in the white glare of knowl­edge!” He laughed cynically. “It is cu­rious, Carl—don’t you think so?”

“Why yes, I—it is a human curiosity we all have, I suppose.”

“Not all of us, Carl. Our motives are many and various. Curiosity is only one of them.” He rose to his feet, still regard­ing me intently. “Are you quite ready—quite prepared?”

I felt my nerves steadying.

“Why, yes,” I said; “whenever you are.”

He led me down a dim, narrow hallway, lighted at intervals by soft-colored lights; our footsteps fell soundlessly on the heavy nap of its carpet. A breath of cool air came down it; the sickening sensation I had felt a few moments before left me.

I determined now to retain full posses­sion of my faculties, if I could. I had no idea what I was about to see—what expe­rience I was to undergo—but I understood thoroughly that Dorian was treating me now as he had those others—that he would try to make me see what they had seen, feel as they had felt; and that if, at the end, I did not understand, he would mere­ly laugh at me for one who could be fooled as easily as they. I felt that he was bring­ing every art, every power, he possessed to bear upon me; and whether his powers were in truth supernatural or not, I was de­termined now at last to find out.

“This way, Carl.”

We turned a sharp angle and emerged abruptly into a broad, open space. My first feeling was that I was outdoors, but I remembered it was now mid afternoon, and the beautiful scene that lay spread out be­fore me was lighted by soft moonlight. At my feet lay a little shimmering pool of water, its stone edges bordered with flow­ers. Palms stood about, rustling softly in a gentle breeze that gratefully fanned my flushed face.

A second glance showed me that I was in a room, larger and much higher than either of the others. Its blue ceiling, thirty feet or more above me, was dotted with tiny lights that blinked and twinkled like myriad stars. Beyond the palms I could see the mirror walls of the room reflecting the graceful fronds into an infinity of distance. The scent of the flowers perfumed the air; from far off somewhere came the faint sound of music.

“Let us sit here,” said Dorian, and he pulled me down upon a little marble bench at the edge of the pool. “I want you to understand exactly what I am about to do, so that there will be no confusion in your mind.”

He seemed to speak quite frankly, quite unaffectedly now.

“You have been scoffing at me in your heart—you have believed nothing I have said—nothing I have promised have you expected I could fulfill.”

He gripped me suddenly by the shoul­ders, forcing me around to face him. In the pale light, I could see that the white­ness of his cheeks was tinged with a flush of red. I looked squarely into his eyes as his hands held me, and in them I saw noth­ing but the light of sincerity and truth.

“The time for evasion has passed,” he went on earnestly. “Don’t you understand that, Carl? I could not evade now if I wished—the moment of action is at hand.”

I had expected, at this last moment, no such directness from Dorian; and suddenly I found myself believing wholly in his sin­cerity. He was speaking the truth—he could indeed perform the promised miracle!

He released me, and, raising his arm, sharp-etched in the moonlight, pointed across the little pool. In the shadows of its far side, among the palms, I saw the vague out­lines of a ghostly rectangle—what might have been a diaphanous silver veil, or se­ries of veils, hung one behind the other.

“I shall be near you,” he said. “When you are quite ready and have given me the word, there will appear over there—behind that sil­ver veil—the images of scenes in your life that are to come. You will not mistake them. Some hidden sense that we can­not understand will make their meaning perfectly clear to your mind. They will flash be­fore you faster than any pictures have ever flashed before. The events of a year will pass in a moment, yet each will impress itself indelibly on your memory.” He rose and stepped backward out of the light into the deep shadow be­hind me.

“You are at the brink of eternity, Carl.” His low, solemn voice min­gled with the mu­sic, which I real­ized was growing steadily louder. “Death can no longer hold for you its mysterious dread, for now you will see it approach—you will know exactly when and how it comes. You are, in very truth, fac­ing your destiny.”

The sound of chiming bells came faintly from the distance—soft, sweet, ethereal—like a silver carillon pealing out its anthem from some ancient belfry.

“Death is a very solemn thing, Carl, when we meet it face to face.” His voice came lower than before, as if he had moved farther away. “But it should inspire us with awe, not fear. A great poet has said that the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man dies but once. Those are very true words, Carl. This death of yours can come but once. You need never fear it again, for now you shall see its form—you shall know the very hour, the very mo­ment, it is destined to enfold you in its sable shroud.”

A menacing note raised his voice from its drab monotone as he add­ed cynically:

“You will have destroyed hope; but what of that, since you will have replaced it with knowledge?”

VI

I sat silent, staring out across that shining little stretch of water. The swaying outlines of the silver veil seemed clearer now. I won­dered if it were because the moon­light had crept up to it. The mu­sic seemed all about me, still soft and ineffably sweet. Somewhere in the distance the silver-tongued bells still rang out their chimes.

Face to face with my destiny!

I could not doubt that now. Dorian and his possible trickery had faded away. I saw nothing, thought of nothing, but that glowing silver veil and what it was to dis­close to me.

The events of tomorrow—of all those tomorrows that made up my remaining span of life—what would they be?

I had always hoped that I might live to old age. Hope! At the thought that came to me my heart grew suddenly cold. Sup­pose I were to die tomorrow? Then to­night, like a criminal condemned, I must sit through an eternity of suffering and watch the coming of dawn—the last on earth for me. And yet not like a criminal, either, for in his breast would be that little warming spark of hope, while in mine it would be utterly extinguished, leaving only the chill of the death I was awaiting.

The silver veil seemed growing steadily brighter. Vaguely I thought I saw shad­ows taking form behind it. Was it about to lift? What was it Dorian had said? He would wait for my word—would wait until I was ready. I had given no word—I was not ready. Where was Dorian?

I must have half turned in sudden fear, for instantly his soft voice said gently:

“You have nothing to fear, Carl. You will know your destiny in a moment.”

I turned back, relieved by the sound of his soothing voice, and stared again at the shining veil. How foolish of me to think such things! I was not to die tomorrow; I should probably live many years.

“I am waiting, Carl, for your word,” said the voice of Dorian once more. “Surely you are not afraid of these things you long to see?”

I did not answer. Did I dare destroy forever the hope which I knew had sus­tained me through every trouble, every crisis of my life? An invalid, perhaps, in later years—could I bear the burden of pain that might rack me month and year unceasing, if I knew that at the end lay only death? Was not this, in very truth, a sinister, diabolical knowledge I was seeking?

Again I heard Dorian’s quiet voice.

“I can wait no longer, Carl. The time has come. You need not try to leave your seat or close your eyes—you cannot shut it out. You must face it now.”

The music suddenly ceased; the bells were stilled; a hush fell over the shimmer­ing scene. I stared wide-eyed at the veil. A faint glow of pink crept up behind it. The shadows I had seen before grew denser. They seemed to move; I saw them begin to take form. My future was about to be enacted before me!

My wildly beating heart seemed smoth­ering to me. I was trembling violently; cold beads of sweat stood out on my forehead. A solemn, deep-throated bell began tolling its hollow knell.

I could stand it no longer. At last I knew that I dared not face this terrible knowledge. I did not want to look into the future. I was afraid; and I thanked God for His mercy in having withheld it from me.

I leaped to my feet and cried aloud in terror:

“Stop, Dorian! Stop! You must not! I can’t stand it! I don’t want this knowl­edge—I’m afraid—afraid—”

I felt his protecting arm about my shoul­ders—heard his calm voice in my ear.

“It’s all right, Carl—it’s all right. Come in here with me and rest. You’ll be all right in a moment.”

I stumbled through a doorway into a cool, airy room with the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows. Un­resisting, I let him lead me to a couch upon which I sank, covering my face with my hands.

He stood before me.

“You made a very wise choice, Carl,” he said quietly. “God’s ways are always just. He holds the future from us—and now you know it is best that He should. Human life has no surer friend than hope; the knowledge you sought would make a very poor substitute.”

There followed a moment of silence. I looked up at him; he stood with arms fold­ed, regarding me musingly. The irony gleaming in his eyes showed as plainly as in the smile that curved his lips.

“You are like all the others, Carl. If you, like them, had really craved a knowl­edge of your future, you would be glad—and would gladly pay me for this realiza­tion that God’s way is best. The knowl­edge which you all think you want, you dare not face. I can but offer you om­niscience—I cannot make you accept it.”

He shrugged, and the gesture was more expressive than all his words.

THE FIRE PEOPLE (1922)

Originally published in Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 21 through November 18, 1922.