The most fragile, exquisite beauty ! To touch her was to profane her. I had a sudden nauseating sense of the bestiality of marriage.
I had no idea at the time that this sudden revulsion of feeling was due to a mysterious premonition of the physiological effects of heroin in destroying love. Definitely stimulating things like alcohol, hashish and cocaine give free range to Cupid. Their destructive effect on him is simply due to the reaction. One is in debt, so to speak, because one has outrun the constable.
But what I may call the philosophical types of dope, of which morphine and heroin are the principal examples, are directly inimical to active emotion and emotional action. The normal human feelings are transmuted into what seem on the surface their spiritual equivalents. Ordinary good feeling becomes universal benevolence ; a philanthropy which is infinitely tolerant because the moral code has become meaningless for it. A more than Satanic pride swells in one's soul. As Baudelaire says: " Hast thou not sovereign contempt, which makes the soul so kind ? "
As we drove up the Butte Montmartre towards the Sacre' Coeur, we remained completely silent, lost in our calm beatitude. You must understand that we were already excited to the highest point. The effect of the heroin had been to steady us in that state.
Instead of beating passionately up the sky with flaming wings, we were poised aloft in the illimitable ether. We took fresh doses of the dull soft powder now and again. We did so without greed, hurry or even desire. The sensation was of infinite power which could afford infinite deliberation. Will itself seemed to have been abolished. We were going nowhere in particular, simply because it was our nature so to do. Our beatitude became more absolute every moment.
With cocaine, one is indeed master of everything; but everything matters intensely.
With heroin, the feeling of mastery increases to such a point that nothing matters at all. There is not even the disinclination to do what one happens to be doing which keeps the opium smoker inactive. The body is left to itself so perfectly that one is not worried by its natural activities.
Again, despite our consciousness of infinity, we maintained, concurrently, a perfect sense of proportion in respect of ordinary matters.
Chapter V.
A Heroin Heroine
I stopped the taxi in the Place du Tertre. We wanted to walk along the edge of the Butte and let our gaze wander over Paris.
The night was delicious. Nowhere but in Paris does one experience that soft suave hush ; the heat is dry, the air is light, it is quite unlike anything one ever gets in England.
A very gentle breeze, to which our fancy attributed the redolence of the South, streamed up from the Seine. Paris itself was a blur of misty blue ; the Pantheon and the Eiffel Tower leapt from its folds. They seemed like symbols of the history of mankind ; the noble, solid past and the mechanical efficient future.
I leant upon the parapet entranced. Lou's arm was around my neck. We were so still that I could feel her pulses softly beating.
" Great Scott, Pendragon !"
For all its suggestion of surprise, the voice was low and winsome. I looked around.
Had I been asked, I should have said, no doubt, that I should have resented any disturbance ; and here was a sudden, violent, unpleasant disturbance; and it did not disturb me. There was a somewhat tentative smile on the face of the man who had spoken. I recognised him instantly, though I had not seen him since we were at school together. The man's name was Elgin Feccles. He had been in the mathematical sixth when I was in the lower school.
In my third term he had become head prefect ; he had won a scholarship at Oxford-one of the best things going. Then, without a moment's warning, he had disappeared from the school. Very few people knew why, and those who did pretended not to. But he never went to Oxford.
I had only heard of the man once since. It was in the club. His name came up in connection with some vague gossip about some crooked financial affair. I had it in my mind, vaguely enough, that that must have had something to do with the trouble at school. He was not the sort of boy to be expelled for any of the ordinary reasons. It was certainly something to do with the subtlety of his intellect. To tell you the truth, he had been a sort of hero of mine at school. He possessed all the qualities I most admired-and lacked-in their fullest expansion.
I had known him very slightly ; but his disappearance had been a great shock. It had stuck in my mind when many more important things had left no trace.
He had hardly changed from when I had last seen him. Of middle height, he had a long and rather narrow face. There was a touch of the ecclesiastic in his expression. His eves were small and gray; he had a trick of blinking. the nose was long and beaked like Wellington's ; the mouth was thin and tense ; the skin was fresh and rosy. He had not developed even the tiniest wrinkle.
He kept the old uneasy nervous movement which had been so singular in him as a boy. One would have said that he was constantly on the alert, expecting something to happen, and yet the last thing that any one could have said about him was that he was ill at ease. He possessed superb confidence.
Before I had finished recognising him, he had shaken hands with me and was prattling about the old days.
" I hear you're Sir Peter now, by the way," he said. Good for you. I always picked you for a winner."
" I think I've met you," interrupted Lou. " Surely, it's Mr. Feccles."
" Oh, yes, I remember you quite well. Miss Laleham, isn't it ? "
" Please let's forget the past," smiled Lou, taking my arm.
I don't know why I should have felt embarrassed at explaining that we were married.
Feccles rattled off a string of congratulations. " May I introduce Mademoiselle Haide' Lamoureux? "
The girl beside him smiled and bowed.
Haide' Lamoureux was a brilliant brunette with a flashing smile and eyes with pupils like pin-points. She was a mass of charming contradictions. The nose and mouth suggested more than a trace of Semitic blood, but the wedge-shaped contour of the face betokened some very opposite strain. Her cheeks were hollow, and crows' feet marred the corners of her eyes. Dark purple rims suggested sensual indulgence pushed to the point of weariness. Though her hair was luxuriant, the eyebrows were almost non-existent. She had pencilled fine black arches above them. She was heavily and clumsily painted. She wore a loose and rather daring evening dress of blue with silver sequins, and a yellow sash spotted with black. Over this she had thrown a cloak of black lace garnished with vermilion tassels. Her hands were deathly thin. There was something obscene in the crookedness of her fingers, which were covered with enormous rings of sapphires and diamonds.
Her manner was one of vivid languor. It seemed as if she always had to be startled into action, and that the instant the first stimulus had passed she relapsed into her own deep thoughts.
Her cordiality was an obvious affectation ; but both Lou and myself, as we shook hands, were aware of a subtle and mysterious sympathy which left behind it a stain of inexpressible evil.
I also felt sure that Feccles understood this unspoken communion, and that for some reason or other it pleased him immensely. His manner changed to one of peculiarly insinuating deference, and I felt that he was somehow taking command of the party when he said -
" May I venture to suggest that you and Lady Pendragon take supper with us at the Petit Savoyard ?"
Haide' slipped her arm into mine, and Lou led the way with Feccles.
" We were going there ourselves," she told him, " and it will be perfectly delightful to be with friends. I see you're quite an old friend