The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance Part 13

"I suppose you have grown old more quickly, father," she said--"Perhaps Mr. Santoris has not lived at such high pressure."

Santoris, standing by the saloon centre table tinder the full blaze of the electric lamp, looked at her with a kindly interest.

"High or low, I live each moment of my days to the full, Miss Harland,"--he said--"I do not drowse it or kill it--I LIVE it! This lady,"--and he turned his eyes towards me--"looks as if she did the same!"

"She does!" said Mr. Harland, quickly, and with emphasis--"That's quite true! You were always a good reader of character, Santoris! I believe I have not introduced you properly to our little friend"--here he presented me by name and I held out my hand. Santoris took it in his own with a light, warm clasp--gently releasing it again as he bowed. "I call her our little friend, because she brings such an atmosphere of joy along with her wherever she goes. We persuaded her to come with us yachting this summer for a very selfish reason--because we are disposed to be dull and she is always bright,--the advantage, you see, is all on our side! Oddly enough, I was talking to her about you the other night--the very night, by the by, that your yacht came behind us off Mull. That was rather a curious coincidence when you come to think of it!"

"Not curious at all,"--said Santoris--"but perfectly natural. When will you realise that there is no such thing as 'coincidence' but only a very exact system of mathematics?"

Mr. Harland gave a slight, incredulous gesture.

"Your theories again," he said--"You hold to them still! But our little friend is likely to agree with you,--when I was speaking of you to her I told her she had somewhat the same ideas as yourself. She is a sort of a 'psychist'--whatever that may mean!"

"Do you not know?" queried Santoris, with a grave smile--"It is easy to guess by merely looking at her!"

My cheeks grew warm and my eyes fell beneath his steadfast gaze. I wondered whether Mr. Harland or Catherine would notice that in his coat he wore a small bunch of the same kind of bright pink bell-heather which was my only 'jewel of adorning' that night. The ice of introductory recognition being broken, we gathered round the saloon table and sat down, while the steward brought wine and other refreshments to offer to our guest. Mr. Harland's former uneasiness and embarra.s.sment seemed now at an end, and he gave himself up to the pleasure of renewing a.s.sociation with one who had known him as a young man, and they began talking easily together of their days at college, of the men they had both been acquainted with, some of whom were dead, some settled abroad and some lost to sight in the vistas of uncertain fate. Catherine took very little part in the conversation, but she listened intently--her colourless eyes were for once bright, and she watched the face of Santoris as one might watch an animated picture.

Presently Dr. Brayle and Mr. Swinton, who had been pacing the deck together and smoking, paused near the saloon door. Mr. Harland beckoned them.

"Come in, come in!" he said--"Santoris, this is my physician, Dr.

Brayle, who has undertaken to look after me during this trip,"--Santoris bowed--"And this is my secretary, Mr. Swinton, whom I sent over to your yacht just now." Again Santoris bowed. His slight, yet perfectly courteous salutation, was in marked contrast with the careless modern nod or jerk of the head by which the other men barely acknowledged their introduction to him. "He was afraid of his life to go to you"--continued Mr. Harland, with a laugh--"He thought you might be an illusion--or even the devil himself, with those fiery sails!" Mr.

Swinton looked sheepish; Santoris smiled. "This fair dreamer of dreams"--here he singled me out for notice--"is the only one of us who has not expressed either surprise or fear at the sight of your vessel or the possible knowledge of yourself, though there was one little incident connected with the pretty bunch of bell-heather she is wearing--why!--you wear the same flower yourself!"

There was a moment's silence. Everyone stared. The blood burned in my veins,--I felt my face crimsoning, yet I knew not why I should be embarra.s.sed or at a loss for words. Santoris came to my relief.

"There's nothing remarkable in that, is there?" he queried, lightly--"Bell-heather is quite common in this part of the world. I shouldn't like to try and count up the number of tourists I've lately seen wearing it!"

"Ah, but you don't know the interest attaching to this particular specimen!" persisted Mr. Harland--"It was given to our little friend by a wild Highland fellow, presumably a native of Mull, the very morning after she had seen your yacht for the first time, and he told her that on the previous night he had brought all of the same kind he could gather to you! Surely you see the connection?"

Santoris shook his head.

"I'm afraid I don't!" he said, smilingly. "Did the 'wild Highland fellow' name me?"

"No--I believe he called you 'the shentleman that owns the yacht.'"

"Oh well!" and Santoris laughed--"There are so many 'shentlemen' that own yachts! He may have got mixed in his customers. In any case, I am glad to have some little thing in common with your friend--if only a bunch of heather!"

"HER bunch behaves very curiously,"--put in Catherine--"It never fades."

Santoris made no comment. It seemed as if he had not heard, or did not wish to hear. He changed the conversation, much to my comfort, and for the rest of the time he stayed with us, rather avoided speaking to me, though once or twice I met his eyes fixed earnestly upon me. The talk drifted in a desultory manner round various ordinary topics, and I, moving a little aside, took a seat near the window where I could watch the moon-rays striking a steel-like glitter on the still waters of Loch Scavaig, and at the same time hear all that was being said without taking any part in it. I did not wish to speak,--the uplifted joy of my soul was too intense for anything but silence. I could not tell why I was so happy,--I only knew by inward instinct that some point in my life had been reached towards which I had striven for a far longer period than I myself was aware of. There was nothing for me now but to wait with faith and patience for the next step forward--a step which I felt would not be taken alone. And I listened with interest while Mr.

Harland put his former college friend through a kind of inquisitorial examination as to what he had been doing and where he had been journeying since they last met. Santoris seemed not at all unwilling to be catechised.

"When I escaped from Oxford,"--he said--but here Mr. Harland interposed.

"Escaped!" he exclaimed--"You talk as if you had been kept in prison."

"So I was"--Santoris replied--"Oxford is a prison, to all who want to feed on something more than the dry bones of learning. While there I was like the prodigal son,--exiled from my Father's House. And I 'did eat the husks that the swine did eat.' Many fellows have to do the same. Sometimes--though not often--a man arrives with a const.i.tution unsuited to husks. Mine was--and is--such an one."

"You secured honours with the husks," said Mr. Harland.

Santoris gave a gesture of airy contempt.

"Honours! Such honours! Any fellow unaddicted to drinking, with a fair amount of determined plod could win them. The alleged 'difficulties' in the way are perfectly childish. They scarcely deserve to be called the pothooks and hangers of an education. I always got my work done in two or three hours--the rest of my time at college was pure leisure,--which I employed in other and wiser forms of study than those of the general curriculum--as you know."

"You mean occult mysteries and things of that sort?"

"'Occult' is a word of such new coinage that it is not found in many dictionaries,"--said Santoris, with a mirthful look--"You will not find it, for instance, in the earlier editions of Stormonth's reliable compendium. I do not care for it myself; I prefer to say 'Spiritual science.'"

"You believe in that?" asked Catherine, abruptly.

"a.s.suredly! How can I do otherwise, seeing that it is the Key to the Soul of Nature?" "That's too deep for me!" said Dr. Brayle, pouring himself out a gla.s.s of whisky and mixing it with soda-water--"If it's a riddle I give it up!"

Santoris was silent. There was a moment's pause. Then Catherine leaned forward across the table, looking at him with tired, questioning eyes.

"Could you not explain?" she murmured.

"Easily!" he answered--"Anyone can understand it with a little attention. What I mean is this,--you know that the human body outwardly expresses its inward condition of health, mentality and spirituality--well, in exactly the same way Nature, in her countless varying presentations of beauty and wisdom, expresses the Soul of herself, or the spiritual force which supports her existence.

'Spiritual science' is the knowledge, not of the outward effect so much as of the inward cause which makes the effect manifest. It is a knowledge which can be applied to the individual daily uses of life,--the more it is studied, the more reward it bestows, and the smallest portion of it thoroughly mastered, is bound to lead to some discovery, simple or complex, which lifts the immortal part of a man a step higher on the way it should go."

"You are satisfied with your researches, then?" asked Mr. Harland.

Santoris smiled gravely.

"Do I look like a man that has failed?" he answered.

Mr. Harland studied his handsome face and figure with ill-concealed envy.

"You went abroad from Oxford?" he queried.

"Yes. I went back to the old home in Egypt--the house where I was born and bred. It had been well kept and cared for by the faithful servant to whom my father had entrusted it--as well kept as a Royal Chamber in the Pyramids with the funeral offerings untouched and a perpetual lamp burning. It was the best of all possible places in which to continue my particular line of work without interruption--and I have stayed there most of the time, only coming away, as now, when necessary for a change and a look at the world as the world lives in these days."

"And"--here Mr. Harland hesitated, then went on--"Are you married?"

Santoris lifted his eyes and regarded his former college acquaintance fixedly.

"That question is unnecessary"--he said--"You know I am not."

There was a brief awkward pause. Dr. Brayle looked up with a satirical smile.

"Spiritual science has probably taught you to beware of the fair s.e.x"--he said.

"I do not entirely understand you"--answered Santoris, coldly--"But if you mean that I am not a lover of women in the plural you are right."

"Perhaps of the one woman--the one rare pearl in the deep sea"--hinted Dr. Brayle, unabashed.

"Come, you are getting too personal, Brayle," interrupted Mr. Harland, quickly, and with asperity--"Santoris, your health!"

He raised a gla.s.s of wine to his lips--Santoris did the same--and this simple courtesy between the two princ.i.p.als in the conversation had the effect of putting their subordinate in his proper place.

"It seems superfluous to wish health to Mr. Santoris," said Catherine then--"He evidently has it in perfection."