The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance Part 17

"I am--but how can you tell?"

"By the small, almost imperceptible lines on your face which contract quite unconsciously to yourself. I can stop that dreary suffering at once for you, if you will let me."

"Oh, I will 'let' you, certainly!" and Mr. Harland smiled incredulously,--"But I think you over-estimate your abilities."

"I was never a boaster,"--replied Santoris, cheerfully--"But you shall keep whatever opinion you like of me." And he drew from his pocket a tiny crystal phial set in a sheath of gold. "A touch of this in your gla.s.s of wine will make you feel a new man."

We watched him with strained attention as he carefully allowed two small drops of liquid, bright and clear as dew to fall one after the other into Mr. Harland's gla.s.s.

"Now,"--he continued--"drink without fear, and say good-bye to all pain for at least forty-eight hours."

With a docility quite unusual to him Mr. Harland obeyed.

"May I go on smoking?" he asked.

"You may."

A minute pa.s.sed, and Mr. Harland's face expressed a sudden surprise and relief.

"Well! What now?" asked Santoris--"How is the pain?"

"Gone!" he answered--"I can hardly believe it--but I'm bound to admit it!"

"That's right! And it will not come back--not to-day, at any rate, nor to-morrow. Shall we go on deck now?"

We a.s.sented. As we left the saloon he said:

"You must see the glow of the sunset over Loch Coruisk. It's always a fine sight and it promises to be specially fine this evening,--there are so many picturesque clouds floating about. We are turning back to Loch Scavaig,--and when we get there we can land and do the rest of the excursion on foot. It's not much of a climb; will you feel equal to it?"

This question he put to me personally.

I smiled.

"Of course! I feel equal to anything! Besides, I've been very lazy on board the 'Diana,' taking no real exercise. A walk will do me good."

Mr. Harland seated himself in one of the long reclining chairs which were placed temptingly under an awning on deck. His eyes were clearer and his face more composed than I had ever seen it.

"Those drops you gave me are magical, Santoris!"--he said--"I wish you'd let me have a supply!"

Santoris stood looking down upon him kindly.

"It would not be safe for you,"--he answered--"The remedy is a sovereign one if used very rarely, and with extreme caution, but in uninstructed hands it is dangerous. Its work is to stimulate certain cells--at the same time (like all things taken in excess) it can destroy them. Moreover, it would not agree with Dr. Brayle's medicines."

"You really and truly think Brayle an impostor?"

"Impostor is a strong word! No!--I will give him credit for believing in himself up to a certain point. But of course he knows that the so-called 'electric' treatment he is giving to your daughter is perfectly worthless, just as he knows that she is not really ill."

"Not really ill!"

Mr. Harland almost bounced up in his chair, while I felt a secret thrill of satisfaction. "Why, she's been a miserable, querulous invalid for years--"

"Since she broke off her engagement to a worthless rascal"--said Santoris, calmly. "You see, I know all about it."

I listened, astonished. How did he know, how could he know, the intimate details of a life like Catherine's which could scarcely be of interest to a man such as he was?

"Your daughter's trouble is written on her face"--he went on--"Warped affections, slain desires, disappointed hopes,--and neither the strength nor the will to turn these troubles to blessings. Therefore they resemble an army of malarious germs which are eating away her moral fibre. Brayle knows that what she needs is the belief that someone has an interest not only in her, but in the particularly morbid view she has taught herself to take of life. He is actively showing that interest. The rest is easy,--and will be easier when--well!--when you are gone."

Mr. Harland was silent, drawing slow whiffs from his cigar. After a long pause, he said--

"You are prejudiced, and I think you are mistaken. You only saw the man for a few minutes last night, and you know nothing of him--"

"Nothing,--except what he is bound to reveal,"--answered Santoris.

"What do you mean?"

"You will not believe me if I tell you,"--and Santoris, drawing a chair close to mine, sat down,--"Yet I am sure this lady, who is your friend and guest, will corroborate what I say,--though, of course, you will not believe HER! In fact, my dear Harland, as you have schooled yourself to believe NOTHING, why urge me to point out a truth you decline to accept? Had you lived in the time of Galileo you would have been one of his torturers!"

"I ask you to explain," said Mr. Harland, with a touch of pique--"Whether I accept your explanation or not is my own affair."

"Quite!" agreed Santoris, with a slight smile--"As I told you long ago at Oxford, a man's life is his own affair entirely. He can do what he likes with it. But he can no more command the RESULT of what he does with it than the sun can conceal its rays. Each individual human being, male and female alike, moves unconsciously in the light of self-revealment, as though all his or her faults and virtues were reflected like the colours in a prism, or were set out in a window for pa.s.sers-by to gaze upon. Fortunately for the general peace of society, however, most pa.s.sers-by are not gifted with the sight to see the involuntary display."

"You speak in enigmas," said Harland, impatiently--"And I'm not good at guessing them."

Santoris regarded him fixedly. His eyes were luminous and compa.s.sionate.

"The simplest truths are to you 'enigmas,'" he said, regretfully--"A pity it is so! You ask me what I mean when I say a man is 'bound to reveal himself.' The process of self-revealment accompanies self-existence, as much as the fragrance of a rose accompanies its opening petals. You can never detach yourself from your own enveloping aura neither in body nor in soul. Christ taught this when He said:--'Let your light so s.h.i.+ne before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.' Your 'light'--remember!--that word 'light' is not used here as a figure of speech but as a statement of fact. A positive 'light' surrounds you--it is exhaled and produced by your physical and moral being,--and those among us who have cultivated their inner organs of vision see IT before they see YOU. It can be of the purest radiance,--equally it can be a mere nebulous film,--but whatever the moral and physical condition of the man or woman concerned it is always shown in the aura which each separate individual expresses for himself or herself. In this way Dr.

Brayle reveals his nature to me as well as the chief tendency of his thoughts,--in this way YOU reveal yourself and your present state of health,--it is a proved test that cannot go wrong."

Mr. Harland listened with his usual air of cynical tolerance and incredulity.

"I have heard this sort of nonsense before,"--he said--"I have even read in otherwise reliable scientific journals about the 'auras' of people affecting us with antipathies or sympathies for or against them.

But it's a merely fanciful suggestion and has no foundation in reality."

"Why did you wish me to explain, then?" asked Santoris--"I can only tell you what I know, and--what I see!"

Harland moved restlessly, holding his cigar between his fingers and looking at it curiously to avoid, as I thought, the steadfast brilliancy of the compelling eyes that were fixed upon him.

"These 'auras,'" he went on, indifferently, "are nothing but suppositions. I grant you that certain discoveries are being made concerning the luminosity of trees and plants which in some states of the atmosphere give out rays of light,--but that human beings do the same I decline to believe."

"Of course!" and Santoris leaned back in his chair easily, as though at once dismissing the subject from his mind--"A man born blind must needs decline to believe in the pleasures of sight."

Harland's wrinkled brow deepened its furrows in a frown.

"Do you mean to tell me,--do you DARE to tell me"--he said--"that you see any 'aura,' as you call it, round my personality?"

"I do, most a.s.suredly,"--answered Santoris--"I see it as distinctly as I see yourself in the midst of it. But there is no actual light in it,--it is mere grey mist,--a mist of miasma."

"Thank you!" and Harland laughed harshly--"You are complimentary!"