I admit I had the heartiest abhorrence for the man. But this fiercely bitter denunciation of one who was evidently a close friend of two of the world's greatest artists, did not make his case look blacker. I was not impressed, frankly, with Mrs. Webster as an authority on other people's conduct.
" O Thou Dragon-prince of the air, that art drunk on the blood of the sunsets ! I adore Thee, Evoe! I adore Thee, I A O! "
A wild pang of jealousy stabbed me. It was a livid, demoniac spasm. For some reason or other I had connected this verse of Lou's mysterious chant with the personality of King Lamus.
Gretel Webster understood. She insinuated another dose of venom.
" Oh yes, Mr. Basil King Lamus is quite the ladies' man. He fascinates them with a thousand different tricks. Lou is dreadfully in love with him."
Once again the woman had made a mistake. I resented her reference to Lou. I don't remember what I answered. Part of it was to the effect that Lou didn't seem to have been very much injured. Mrs. Webster smiled her subtlest smile.
" I quite agree," she said silkily, " Lou is the most beautiful woman in London to-night."
" O Thou fragrance of sweet flowers, that art wafted over blue fields of air! I adore Thee, Evoe! I adore Thee, I A O! "
The state of the girl was extraordinary, It was as if she possessed two personalities in their fullest possibilities-the divine and the human. She was intensely conscious of all that was going on around her, absolute mistress of herself and of her environment ; yet at the same time she was lost in some unearthly form of rapture of a kind which, while essentially unintelligible to me, reminded me of certain strange and fragmentary experiences that I had had while flying.
I suppose every one has read The Psychology of Flying by L. de Giberne Sieveking. All I need do is to remind you of what he says :
" All types of men who fly are conscious of this very obscure, subtle difference that it has wrought in them. Very few know exactly what it is. Hardly any of them can express what they feel. And none of them would admit it if they could.... One realises without any formation into words how that one is oneself, and that each one is entirely separate and can never enter into the recesses of another, which are his foundation of individual life."
One feels oneself out of all relation with things, even the most essential. And yet one is aware at the same time that everything of which one has ever been aware is a picture invented by one's own mind. The Universe is the looking-glass of the soul.
In that state one understands all sorts of nonsense.
" O Thou foursquare Crown of Nothing, that circlest the destruction of Worlds ! I adore Thee, Evoe ! I adore Thee, I A O ! "
I flushed with rage, understanding enough to know what Lou must be feeling as she rolled forth those passionate, senseless words from her volcanic mouth. Gretel's suggestion trickled into my brain.
" This beastly alcohol brutalises men. Why is Lou so superb ? She has breathed the pure snow of Heaven into her nostrils."
" O Thou snow-white chalice of Love, that art filled up with the red lusts of man! I adore Thee, Evoe ! I adore Thee, I A O ! "
I tingled and shivered as she sang; and then something, I hardly know what, made me turn and look into the face of Gretel Webster. She was sitting at my right ; her left hand was beneath the table, and she was looking at it. I followed her glance.
In the little quadrilateral of the veins whose lower apex is between the first and middle fingers, was a tiny heap of sparkling dust. Nothing I had ever seen before had so attracted me. The sheer bright infinite beauty of the stuff! I had seen it before of course, often enough, at the hospital ; but this was quite a different thing. It was set off by its environment as a diamond is by its setting. It seemed alive. It sparkled intensely. It was like nothing else in Nature, unless it be those feathery crystals, wind-blown, that glisten on the lips of crevasses.
What followed sticks in my memory as if it were a conjurer's trick. I don't know by what gesture she constrained me. But her hand slowly rose not quite to the level of the table ; and my face, hot, flushed, angry and eager, had bent down towards it. It seemed pure instinct, though I have little doubt now that it was the result of an unspoken suggestion. I drew the little heap of powder through my nostrils with one long breath. I felt even then like a choking man in a coal mine released at the last moment, filling his lungs for the first time with oxygen.
I don't know whether this is a common experience. I suspect that my medical training and reading, and hearing people talk, and the effect of all those ghoulish articles in the newspapers had something to do with it.
On the other hand, we must make a good deal of allowance, I think, for such an expert as Gretel Webster. No doubt she was worth her wage to the Boche. No doubt she had picked me out for part of " Die Rache." I had downed some pretty famous flyers.
But none of these thoughts occurred to me at the time. I do not think I have explained with sufficient emphasis the mental state to which I had been reduced by the appearance of Lou. She had become so far beyond my dreams-the unattainable.
Leaving out of account the effect of the alcohol, this had left me with an intolerable depression. There was something brutish, something of the baffled rat, in my consciousness.
" O Thou vampire Queen of the Flesh, wound as a snake around the throats of men ! I adore Thee, Evoe! I adore Thee, I A O ! "
Was she thinking of Gretel or of herself ? Her beauty had choked me, strangled me, torn my throat out. I had become insane with dull, harsh lust. I hated her. But as I raised my head ; as the sudden, the instantaneous madness of cocaine swept from my nostrils to my brain-that's a line of poetry, but I can't help it-get on !-the depression lifted from my mind like the sun coming out of the clouds.
I heard as in a dream the rich, ripe voice of Lou
" O Thou fierce whirlpool of passion, that art sucked up by the mouth of the sun ! I adore Thee, Evoe ! I adore Thee, I A O ! "
The whole thing was different-I understood what she was saying, I was part of it. I recognised, for one swift second, the meaning of my previous depression. It was my sense of inferiority to her Now I was her man, her mate, her master !
I rose to catch her by the waist but she whirled away down the floor of the club like an autumn leaf before the storm. I caught the glance of Gretel Webster's eyes. I saw them glitter with triumphant malice ; and for a moment she and Lou and cocaine and myself were all inextricably interlocked in a tangled confusion of ruinous thought
But my physical body was lifting me. It was the same old, wild exhilaration that one gets from rising from the ground on one's good days. I found myself in the middle of the floor without knowing how I had got there. I, too, was walking on air. Lou turned, her mouth a scarlet orb, as I have seen the sunset over Belgium, over the crinkled line of shore, over the dim blue mystic curve of sea and sky; with the thought in my mind beating in tune with my excited heart. We didn't miss the arsenal this time. I was the arsenal too. I had exploded. I was the slayer and the slain And there sailed Lou across the sky to meet me.
"O Thou outrider of the Sun, that spurrest the bloody flanks of the wind ! I adore Thee, Evoe! I adore Thee, I A O ! "
We came into each other's arms with the inevitableness of gravitation. We were the only two people in the Universe-she and I. The only force that existed in the Universe was the attraction between us. The force with which we came together set us spinning, We went up and down the floor of the club; but, of course, it wasn't the floor of the club, there wasn't the club, there wasn't anything at all except a delirious feeling that one was everything, and had to get on with everything. One was the Universe eternally whirling. There was no possibility of fatigue ; one's energy was equal to one's task.
"O Thou dancer with gilded