first”—I answered gaily—“I daresay I seem to you selfish,—you are philanthropic I know; I am not.”
He still regarded me steadily.
“You might help your fellow-workers in literature…”
I interrupted him with a decided gesture.
“That I will never do, my friend, though the heavens should crack! My fellow-workers in literature have kicked me down at every opportunity, and done their best to keep me from earning a bare livelihood,—it is my turn at kicking now, and I will show them as little mercy, as little help, as little sympathy as they have shown me!”
“Revenge is sweet!” he quoted sententiously—“I should recommend your starting a high-class half-crown magazine.”
“Why?”
“Can you ask? Just think of the ferocious satisfaction it would give you to receive the manuscripts of your literary enemies, and reject them! To throw their letters into the waste-paper basket, and send back their poems, stories, political articles and what not, with ‘Returned with thanks’ or ‘Not up to our mark’ type-written on the backs thereof! To dig knives into your rivals through the medium of anonymous criticism! The howling joy of a savage with twenty scalps at his belt would be tame in comparison to it! I was an editor once myself, and I know!”
I laughed at his whimsical earnestness.
“I daresay you are right,”—I said—“I can grasp the vengeful position thoroughly! But the management of a magazine would be too much trouble to me,—too much of a tie.”
“Don’t manage it! Follow the example of all the big editors, and live out of the business altogether,—but take the profits! You never see the real editor of a leading daily newspaper you know,—you can only interview the sub. The real man is, according to the seasons of the year, at Ascot, in Scotland, at Newmarket, or wintering in Egypt,—he is supposed to be responsible for everything in his journal, but he is generally the last person who knows anything about it. He relies on his ‘staff’—a very bad crutch at times,—and when his ‘staff’ are in a difficulty, they get out of it by saying they are unable to decide without the editor. Meanwhile the editor is miles away, comfortably free from worry. You could bamboozle the public in that way if you liked.”
“I could, but I shouldn’t care to do so,” I answered—“If I had a business I would not neglect it. I believe in doing things thoroughly.”
“So do I!” responded Rimânez promptly. “I am a very thorough-going fellow myself, and whatever my hand findeth to do, I do it with my might!—excuse me for quoting Scripture!” He smiled, a little ironically I thought, then resumed—“Well, in what, at present does your idea of enjoying your heritage consist?”
“In publishing my book,” I answered. “That very book I could get no one to accept,—I tell you, I will make it the talk of London!”
“Possibly you will”—he said, looking at me through half-closed eyes and a cloud of smoke,—“London easily talks. Particularly on unsavoury and questionable subjects. Therefore,—as I have already hinted,—if your book were a judicious mixture of Zola, Huysmans and Baudelaire, or had for its heroine a ‘modest’ maid who considered honourable marriage a ‘degradation,’ it would be quite sure of success in these days of new Sodom and Gomorrah.” Here he suddenly sprang up, and flinging away his cigar, confronted me. “Why do not the heavens rain fire on this accursed city! It is ripe for punishment,—full of abhorrent creatures not worth the torturing in hell to which it is said liars and hypocrites are condemned! Tempest, if there is one human being more than another that I utterly abhor, it is the type of man so common to the present time, the man who huddles his own loathly vices under a cloak of assumed broad-mindedness and virtue. Such an one will even deify the loss of chastity in woman by the name of ‘purity,’—because he knows that it is by her moral and physical ruin alone that he can gratify his brutal lusts. Rather than be such a sanctimonious coward I would openly proclaim myself vile!”
“That is because yours is a noble nature”—I said—“You are an exception to the rule.”
“An exception? I?”—and he laughed bitterly—“Yes, you are right; I am an exception among men perhaps,—but I am one with the beasts in honesty! The lion does not assume the manners of the dove,—he loudly announces his own ferocity. The very cobra, stealthy though its movements be, evinces its meaning by a warning hiss or rattle. The hungry wolf’s bay is heard far down the wind, intimidating the hurrying traveller among the wastes of snow. But man gives no clue to his intent—more malignant than the lion, more treacherous than the snake, more greedy than the wolf, he takes his fellow-man’s hand in pretended friendship, and an hour later defames his character behind his back,—with a smiling face he hides a false and selfish heart,—flinging his pigmy mockery at the riddle of the Universe, he stands gibing at God, feebly a-straddle on his own earth-grave—Heavens!”—here he stopped short with a passionate gesture—“What should the Eternities do with such a thankless, blind worm as he!”
His voice rang out with singular emphasis,—his eyes glowed with a fiery ardour; startled by his impressive manner I let my cigar die out and stared at him in mute amazement. What an inspired countenance!—what an imposing figure!—how sovereignly supreme and almost god-like in his looks he seemed at the moment;—and yet there was something terrifying in his attitude of protest and defiance. He caught my wondering glance,—the glow of passion faded from his face,—he laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
“I think I was born to be an actor”—he said carelessly—“Now and then the love of declamation masters me. Then I speak—as Prime Ministers and men in Parliament speak—to suit the humour of the hour, and without meaning a single word I say!”
“I cannot accept that statement”—I answered him, smiling a little—“You do mean what you say,—though I fancy you are rather a creature of impulse.”
“Do you really!” he exclaimed—“How wise of you!—good Geoffrey Tempest, how very wise of you! But you are wrong. There never was a being created who was less impulsive, or more charged with set purpose than I. Believe me or not as you like,—belief is a sentiment that cannot be forced. If I told you that I am a dangerous companion,—that I like evil things better than good,—that I am not a safe guide for any man, what would you think?”
“I should think you were whimsically fond of under-estimating your own qualities”—I said, re-lighting my cigar, and feeling somewhat amused by his earnestness—“And I should like you just as well as I do now,—perhaps better,—though that would be difficult.”
At these words, he seated himself, bending his steadfast dark eyes full upon me.
“Tempest, you follow the fashion of the prettiest women about town,—they always like the greatest scoundrels!”
“But you are not a scoundrel;”—I rejoined, smoking peacefully.
“No,—I’m not a scoundrel, but there’s a good deal of the devil in me.”
“All the better!” I said, stretching myself out in my chair with lazy comfort—“I hope there’s something of him in me too.”
“Do you believe in him?” asked Rimânez smiling.
“The devil? of course not!”
“He is a very fascinating legendary personage;”—continued the prince, lighting another cigar and beginning to puff at it slowly—“And he is the subject of many a fine
