Part 2

The beautiful eyes had grown sad and thoughtful. They rested on the eager wondering face before her, yet seemed to look through and beyond it, as the eyes of one who sees a vision that is mere airy nothingness to the surrounding crowd.

"It will come right," she went on slowly and dreamily, "but not as men think, and not because the religion of earth teaches fear of punishment and hope of reward as the basis of spiritual faith. No. Something higher and holier and deeper than any motive of self-safety will perfect what is best in man and eliminate what is vile."

"If that is so," interposed Mrs Jefferson, glibly, as she rose from her chair to proceed to the Second Room—"I guess man will want a pretty long time to `perfect' in. I don't see how he's going to do it here."

"I did not say `here,'" answered the stranger, in her slow, calm way, as she, too, rose and prepared to follow the little American. "For what, think you, are the ages of Eternity intended?—sleep and dreams?"

Mrs Jefferson gave a little shudder. "I surmise we're getting a little too deep," she said. "Let's keep to Gladstone and the Irish Question while the thermometer's at 110."

CHAPTER TWO.

THE SECOND ROOM.

The second room differed in no way from the first, except in the matter of heat.

The beautiful stranger floated in—her face all the lovelier for the faint rosy flush that glowed through the clear skin. If Mrs Ray Jefferson's admiration was envious, at least it was genuine. She had never really believed in perfect feminine beauty before—beauty that shone supreme without the aid of dress and frippery—but here it was—a glowing and palpable fact. The simple white drapery with its border of scarlet floated with the grace of its own perfect simplicity around that perfect form, and never was royal mantle more splendid than the rippling hair that crowned her head and fell in its luxuriance of curls and waves to her feet. As they again seated themselves side by side, Mrs Jefferson remembered that she was not yet acquainted with the nationality of the stranger. She hastened to repair the error of such ignorance.

"You speak English wonderfully for a foreigner," she said; "it would puzzle anyone to make out where you were raised—Russian, I surmise?"

"No," said the stranger, quietly, "though I have lived there a great deal. It was my husband's country."

Mrs Jefferson looked radiant. She was married, then. That was something to have learnt. "Was,"—she said quickly, "Is he not living then?"

"No." The beautiful face grew a shade paler. "I would rather not talk about it," she said. "His death was very tragic and terrible."

"I'm sorry," said the little American, with ready contrition; "don't think I'm curious," she added, suddenly, "but one doesn't see a woman like you every day. I surmise you'll make a sensation in the hotel."

"I have my own private rooms here," was the quiet response. "I shall not mix with the other visitors."

"Oh," cried Mrs Jefferson, her face clouding, "I call that cruel. There are really some very good people here—titles, if you like them— money, if you care for that—one or two geniuses—a musician and a poet who are working for a future generation, because they can't get appreciated here—and the usual crowd of mediocrities. Oh, you really must come to our evenings; they'd amuse you immensely. We're quite dependent on ourselves for society. This is the dullest of dull holes, still we manage to get a bit spry not and then. Now, you—why, if you'd only show yourself to be looked at, you'd be doing the whole hotel a good turn."

The stranger shook her head. "Society never amuses me," she said. "It has nothing to offer that can rival the charms of books, art, and solitude. I possess all three."

Mrs Jefferson opened her eyes wide. "The first and the last," she said, "are comprehensible as travelling companions, but what about the middle one?"

"In my train I have a blind musician, whose equal I have never met, and a boy sculptor whose genius will one day astonish the world. For myself, I paint and I write, and I have a store of books that will outlast the longest limit of companionship. Can you tell me what better things the world will give?"

Mrs Ray Jefferson murmured something vaguely about amusement and distraction. She was growing more and more perplexed about this beautiful Mystery. Anyone who travelled about with a train of attendants must surely be a princess at the very least.

"Amusement!"—the stranger smiled. "Does society ever really give us that? We have to smile when we are bored—to tell polite falsehoods every hour—to eat and drink when we would rather fast—to awake all sorts of evil passions in other people's minds if we are better-looking or better dressed, or more admired; and have them aroused in our own if we are not? Does a ball amuse? Does a dinner-party? Does even a comedy, after the first quarter of an hour? I can answer for myself in the negative, at all events."

"Gracious!" exclaimed Mrs Jefferson wonderingly. "You must be a strange person, and you look so young. Why, I should have thought you were just the age for society? Don't you care to be admired?"

"Not in the least. I have learnt the value of men's passions. A quiet life is more wholesome and infinitely more contenting than anything society can offer."

"For a time, perhaps; but it would become dull and monotonous, I should think."

"Never, if you have the mind to appreciate it. The companionship I value will always come to me. I do not need to seek it in the world."

"You are fortunate," said Mrs Jefferson, somewhat sarcastically. "Ordinary mortals have to take what they can get. Still, I suppose such things are only a matter of personal disposition. If one has the mood for enjoyment, one can find it anywhere; if not—well, a funeral or a comedy would be equally amusing."

"I suppose," said the stranger, quietly, "you have the mood."

"Well, I'm blessed with a pretty fair capacity for enjoying all that comes in my way," said the little American, frankly. "I like studying human nature, even though I'm not clever enough to describe it. It's like the critics, you know, who find it so powerful easy to cut up a book, yet couldn't write one themselves to save their lives. Phew-ew! how hot it is here! How do you contrive to look so cool?"

"I can stand a great deal of heat," answered the other, tranquilly. "I have Eastern blood in my veins, on my mother's side. Is that the hottest room?" she added, nodding in the direction of the third doorway.

"Yes. I suppose you won't go there? I never dare put my nose inside. It's enough to scorch the skin off you."

"I don't suppose it can be hotter than the rooms in the East," answered the stranger, as she rose and moved towards it. She stood for a moment looking in, then turned back and smiled at her late companion. "Oh, I can bear it," she said, and disappeared from sight.

The little American pouted and looked disturbed. "What a shame! I had ever so many more things to ask her," she said, "and to think, after all, I don't know her name, or even to what country she belongs, and I did so want the whole story pat for the table d'hote dinner to-night... Ready to be shampooed?—oh, yes, Morrison; I'm just about `done through;' I'm glad you can take me first."

She rose abruptly and followed the attendant past the flushed and perspiring groups who were still comparing notes as to different ailments and degrees of moisture, occasionally holding out their arms for mutual inspection.

"I wonder," she said to herself, "how that one woman manages to look so different. Why, we get uglier and uglier, and she only more and more beautiful. Perhaps she's a Rosicrucian!"

CHAPTER THREE.

THE COOLING ROOM.

A long room, down the centre of which ran a row of couches; on either side were the dressing-rooms, curtained off from the main apartment by curtains of dark Oriental blue, bordered with dull red. In the large bay window stood the dressing-tables and mirrors.

Mrs Ray Jefferson had it all to herself, as, wrapped in an enormous sheet of Turkish towelling, she emerged from the processes of shampooing and douche. She laid herself down on one of the couches, and the attendant, Morrison, threw another Turkish wrap over her, and left her to the enjoyment of the coffee she had ordered, and which was placed on one of the numerous small tables scattered about.

According to all rules of the baths, she should have rested calmly and patiently on that couch, until such time as she was cool enough to don her ordinary attire, but the little American, was of a restless and impatient disposition, and of all things hated to be inactive.

The attendant had scarcely left the room before she raised herself to a sitting position, and took a survey of her appearance in one of the mirrors. It did not appear to be very satisfactory. She turned abruptly away and reached some magazines from an adjoining table. Armed with these she once more sought her couch, and after tossing two or three contemptuously aside, she at last seemed to find one periodical that interested her. She grew so absorbed in its contents, that she scarcely heard the entrance of the beautiful woman who had so interested her, and who now took the next couch to her own, and lay down in an attitude of indolent grace that was quite in keeping with her appearance.

"You seem interested," she remarked, as she glanced at the absorbed face of her neighbour.

Mrs Jefferson looked up sharply. "Well," she said, turning the magazine round to read its title. "This is about the queerest story I ever read. I wish people wouldn't write improbabilities that no one can swallow."

"The question is rather what is an improbability?" answered her companion. "It is only a matter of the capacity of the age to receive what is new. A few years ago electricity was improbable, yet look at the telegraph and the telephone. Still further back, who would have believed that railways would exist above ground and under ground, and mock at the difficulties of rivers and mountains? What have you discovered strange enough to be called `improbable'?"

"Oh! it's a story of a man who gets out of his own body and does all sorts of queer things, and then goes back to it again, just when he pleases. Finally, he falls in love with a woman as queer as himself, and finding he has a rival, he just gets rid of him by force of will-power. However, the day they are to be married, the woman is found dead in her bed. It appears that she also could get out of her body when she felt inclined, but she did it once too often, and couldn't get back in time, so they buried her, at least they buried one of her bodies; as far as I can make out she had two."

"And you think that improbable?" questioned the stranger calmly.

Her beautiful deep eyes were looking straight into the flushed excited face beside her. Mrs Ray Jefferson met their gaze, and was conscious of an odd little unaccountable thrill.

"Certainly I do," she said. "Who could believe that anyone can jump in or out of their skin just as the fancy takes them?"

The stranger's beautiful lips grew scornful. "Oh!" she said, "if you like to put the subject in that light, it may well look ridiculous and impossible. Ignorance is always more or less arrogant. It is man's habit to fancy that all creation was made for him. There are few things of which he is so utterly ignorant, and of which he thinks so little, as that mystery of himself incarnated in the temporary prison-house of flesh and blood. Did he once realise what he might be—did he ever raise his eyes from the glow-worm light of earth to the stupendous glories of the sun of wisdom, he would know better than to cavil at what you call `improbable.' For in nature all things are possible, but man has neither time nor patience to trace out their mysteries, or seek in their development the key to those mysteries."

"Gracious sakes," muttered Mrs Jefferson to herself in alarm. "I'm sure she's a Rosicrucian or something of that sort. It's interesting, but uncanny. I'm quite out of my depth. I don't know what she means. Do you really mean to say," she added aloud, "that this story might be true; that you have two bodies and can slip from one to the other?"

A dark frown crept over the beautiful face. "You talk as foolishly as a child," she said with contempt. "You know nothing of the subject you are discussing, therefore anything I might say would sound incomprehensible. The grossness of the flesh stifles and kills the subtle workings of the spirit. To you life is only a pleasure ground, and the more your own personal satisfaction is obtainable, the more you cling to its spurious enjoyments. If you once cut yourself adrift from such follies, your eyes would be opened, your senses quickened, and you would recognise possibilities and marvels that now are no more to you than sunlight to the blind worm that burrows in the ground." She stretched out her hand and took the book from the passive hand of her astounded companion, and glanced rapidly over its pages.

"`Light in Darkness.' Ah, truly it is needed," she said, her eyes kindling, her face glowing, until her beauty seemed more than mortal. "But we shall never reach it till we learn to master the senses, to cut the chains of worldly prejudice and conventionalism. They are bold teachers, these," and she tossed the magazine back to the still silent critic of its contents. "You would do well," she said, "to make yourself acquainted with some of these subjects. I think you would find them more interesting than ball-rooms and Paris toilettes."

Mrs Jefferson recovered her tongue at that slight to her beloved vanities.

"Tastes differ," she said coolly. "I'm very well content with the world as it is and with myself as I am. I don't believe any good ever comes of prying into subjects we're not intended to know anything about."

"I might ask you," said the stranger, with visible contempt, "how you are so surely convinced of what we are intended to know, and what not? There is no hard and fast rule laid down for us that I am aware of."

"Oh!" stammered Mrs Jefferson, with some confusion, "I'm sure the Bible says that somewhere. `Thus far shalt thou go and no further,' you know. It is arrogant to attempt to penetrate the mysteries of the other world. When we go there we shall know them soon enough."

"How glibly you nineteenth-century Christians talk of the `other world,'" cried the beautiful woman, with contempt. She tossed back the weight of her rich hair and sat up, looking like an inspired prophetess. "Yet you acknowledge you know nothing of it. Your priests cannot explain it, so they take refuge in the plea that inquiry is presumptuous. Science cannot explain it. Reason falters at the threshold before the stumbling-block of its long-cherished ignorance whose only legacy has been Fear. And it is all because you live in falsehood—because you are false to your inner life, and think only of the outer; because you are all in chains of superstition—of worldly bondage, of family prejudices, and, above all, of self-delusion."

"Have you come to preach to us, then?" asked the little American superciliously. "There is little use in decrying a private or national disease unless you are provided with a remedy."

"If an angel from Heaven came down to preach you would not believe!" said the stranger, growing suddenly calm as she sank back on her pillow. "No, I have no mission. I am only one who has looked out on life and learnt its bitter truths, and seen its vanity and folly repeated, with scarce a variation, in countless human lives."

"Well," said the American, "the fact of that repetition seems rather as if it were a law of human lives, don't it? We find ourselves in this world, and we must do as others do, and live as others live. Of course, I've read of people giving up all sorts of pleasures and comforts in this life for sake of another, but to me it seems only a mild form of madness. For instance, there's this new sect that's sprung up, who are going to revolutionise all creation—well, I've read heaps of their books, I've spoken even to some of their members, but I confess Theosophy seems as much of a jumble as any other creed. Look at their priests, their yogis, and chelas, and such-like humbugs! They say their Buddha is as divine as our Christ. Maybe he is—to them! But what strikes me is the absurdity of trying to get into another life while one has to live this. Fasting and sitting under a tree, and starving out all fleshly desires and impulses until the human body, instead of being handsome and muscular as Nature intended it to be, becomes a withered skeleton, subsisting on a few beans and a cup of water. Why, anybody could see visions and dream dreams, that lived a life like that even for a year! But I want to know what's the good of it? I suppose if we get out of our natural life before our time, our place can't be ready for us in our next Karma, or whatever they call it. So we would martyrise ourselves to no purpose. These sort of people seem to me to be trying to steal a march over others, wanting to get a stage further on the road before the natural term of earth-life is over. A nice world this would be if we were all at that game."

"You have certainly read to some purpose," said the stranger ironically. "It is interesting to hear the deepest philosophy that has ever occupied the human mind summed up and dismissed as ridiculous. Let me, however, first point out a few mistakes in your judgment of this new `sect' as you call it. In the first place it is not a sect in the common acceptation of the word, but rather a universal philosophy embracing all creeds, ranks, and denominations of men. It lays not the slightest stress on any of its followers martyrising their bodies as you so glibly describe. You might just as well say that the Christian religion is only carried out by monks and nuns, because certain enthusiasts prefer to cut themselves adrift from the vanities of life. In all ages and in all religions there have been such enthusiasts. Even the prophets in your own Bible were men of this description, living in caves, subsisting only on the fruits and seeds of the earth, and giving themselves up to visions and dreams. What else have your canonised Saints done? Yet they are worshipped by a vast community of apparently sensible beings, as holy. It only shows that there are certain minds capable of penetrating the uselessness of a purely worldly existence, and finding it too hard to live a double life, that is to say, spiritual and material (a life only possible to the modern clergy), they seek refuge in seclusion and leave that outer life to those whom it satisfies and suits. As to the selfishness of such isolation, that is a matter no alien mind can quite determine, for the greatest Example of the religious life was strangely indifferent to human ties, nor ever displayed the weakness of human affection for earthly relatives, thus seeming to show that it is no sin to sacrifice earthly ties for a higher and holier existence. The disciples of the great Brotherhood are voluntary enthusiasts, free from the claims of human relationship, and offering themselves simply as disciples. They wrong no one by their choice. As for your last remark about endeavouring to steal a march on our fellow-men by seeking a higher place in the next state of existence, before we have done with this, I can only ask you to study something of the laws and doctrines of theosophical philosophy before deciding such an event is possible."

"Do you know much about them?" asked Mrs Jefferson curiously.

"I know that they teach man the truest sense of his own responsibility. They prove to him an inexorable law by which he may lift himself from the level of the brute to the majesty of the God he now blindly worships."