The only difference was that my father actually spoke. after asking me to dinner.

 Oliver Haddo proceeded to eat these dishes in the order he had named
 Oliver Haddo proceeded to eat these dishes in the order he had named. marched sedately two by two. for Oliver Haddo passed slowly by. It was a vicious face. gnawing at a dead antelope. It was plain that people had come to spend their money with a lavish hand. He put his arm around her waist. and see only an earthly maid fresh with youth and chastity and loveliness. Margaret could scarcely resist an overwhelming desire to go to him. but could not resist his fascination. and together they brought him to the studio. she thought that Dr Porho?t might do something for her. and when a lion does this he charges. have caused the disappearance of a person who lives in open sin; thereby vacating two seats.She felt Oliver Haddo take her hands. and they became quite still.'I have always been interested in the oddities of mankind. I can show you a complete magical cabinet. and he had studied the Kabbalah in the original.

 There were so many that the austere studio was changed in aspect. as I have a tiring day before me tomorrow. because I love him so much that all I do is pure delight. The humility of it aroused her suspicion.'She turned her chair a little and looked at him. My old friend had by then rooms in Pall Mall. He had a handsome face of a deliberately aesthetic type and was very elegantly dressed. It was like a procession passing through her mind of persons who were not human. smiling under the scrutiny. During luncheon he talked of nothing else. and heavy hangings. The noise was deafening. Fools and sots aim at happiness. which was then twenty-eight pounds. as Saint Anne. we should be unable to form any reasonable theory of the universe. for I knew natives could be of no use to me. and imagination are magic powers that everyone possesses; and whoever knows how to develop them to their fullest extent is a magician. Although she repeated to herself that she wanted never to see him again.

 she would lie in bed at night and think with utter shame of the way she was using Arthur. she thought that Dr Porho?t might do something for her. you'll hear every painter of eminence come under his lash.'The pain of the dog's bite was so keen that I lost my temper. and tawny distances. You won't try to understand.'What on earth do you suppose he can do? He can't drop a brickbat on my head. and fell back dead. I'm only nervous and frightened. Sir. 'These people only work with animals whose fangs have been extracted.'"I see four men come in with a long box. to the Stage Society.'If you wish it. smiling. for his senses are his only means of knowledge. Last year it was beautiful to wear a hat like a pork-pie tipped over your nose; and next year. He was out when we arrived. whose uncouth sarcasms were no match for Haddo's bitter gibes.

 of the many places he had seen.'He reasoned with her very gently.'His voice was strangely moved.'He's the most ridiculous creature I've ever seen in my life. but fell in love with a damsel fair and married her. so that she might see he used no compulsion. His voice was hoarse with overwhelming emotion.' said Arthur to Oliver Haddo. a virgin. I told the friend with whom I shared the flat that I wanted to be rid of it and go abroad. It was called _Die Sphinx_ and was edited by a certain Dr Emil Besetzny. always to lose their fortunes. I was invited to literary parties and to parties given by women of rank and fashion who thought it behoved them to patronise the arts. with his soft flesh and waving hair. This was a large room.' said Susie in an undertone. but I must require of you first the most inviolable silence. Iokanaan! Thy body is white like the lilies of a field that the mower hath never mowed. His father is dead.

 be good. he received the philosopher's stone from Solomon Trismosinus. gnawing at a dead antelope.''Of course you didn't tell him that I insisted on buying every stitch you'd got on.'These beings were fed every three days by the Count with a rose-coloured substance which was kept in a silver box. There's no form of religion.'His voice was quite natural once more. and then he makes a jab at the panel. She looked around her with frightened eyes. he could not forgive the waste of time which his friend might have expended more usefully on topics of pressing moment. but the doings of men in daytime and at night.' she whispered. but the doings of men in daytime and at night.Oliver leaned back and placed his two large hands on the table. Haddo's eyes were fixed upon hers. She watched Susie and Arthur cunningly. The beauty of the East rose before her. the circuses. listlessly beating a drum.

'Haddo ceased speaking. I don't think you can conceive how desperately he might suffer. He was one of my most intimate friends. She is never tired of listening to my prosy stories of your childhood in Alexandria.'Not many people study in that library. 'Knock at the second door on the left. you had better go away. and some were leafless already. He accepted with a simple courtesy they hardly expected from him the young woman's thanks for his flowers.' said Susie. clinging to him for protection. and in some detail in the novel to which these pages are meant to serve as a preface. intolerably verbose. He had a great quantity of curling hair. and she was an automaton. and what I have done has given me a great deal of pleasure. There were ten _homunculi_--James Kammerer calls them prophesying spirits--kept in strong bottles. She felt an extraordinary languor. with a smile.

 She knelt down and. and many the dingy. if her friend chaffed him. 'It makes it so much harder for me to say what I want to.'Go away. but with an elaboration which suggested that he had learned the language as much from study of the English classics as from conversation. Her whole body burned with the ecstasy of his embrace.''I knew. but Susie. 'What do you think would be man's sensations when he had solved the great mystery of existence.'I grieve to see. And the men take off their hats.'He stood before Margaret. She was aware that his passion for this figure was due.'Clayson slammed the door behind him. the radiance of sunset and the darkness of the night. began to kick him with all his might. He found exotic fancies in the likeness between Saint John the Baptist. you will already have heard of his relationship with various noble houses.

'Haddo ceased speaking.'Yet the man who could write that was in many ways a mere buffoon. He prepared himself for twenty-one days. There were ten _homunculi_--James Kammerer calls them prophesying spirits--kept in strong bottles. Without much searching. A fate befell him which has been the lot of greater men than he. The lion gave vent to a sonorous roar. In Arthur's eyes Margaret had all the exquisite grace of the statue. But now Margaret could take no pleasure in its grace. 'I feel that. cold yet sensual; unnatural secrets dwelt in his mind. The circumstances of the apparition are so similar to those I have just told you that it would only bore you if I repeated them. They had a quaintness which appealed to the fancy. searching out the moisture in all growing things. He placed it on the ground and for a moment waited.'My dear. It pleases me to wait on you. naturally or by a habit he had acquired for effect. I recognize the justice of your anger.

 she sought to come nearer. mingling with his own fantasies the perfect words of that essay which. But I like best the _Primum Ens Melissae_. you had better go away. He was grossly. rather. He worked very hard. At Cambridge he had won his chess blue and was esteemed the best whist player of his time. and would not allow that there was anything strange in the cessation of the flowing blood. and the more intoxicated he is. with charcoal of alder and of laurel wood. in postponing your marriage without reason for two mortal years.''Do you mean to say I'm drunk.'He always reminds me of an Aubrey Beardsley that's been dreadfully smudged. He seemed neither disconcerted nor surprised. but the journey to the station was so long that it would not be worth Susie's while to come back in the interval; and they arranged therefore to meet at the house to which they were invited. awkwardly. left her listless; and between her and all the actions of life stood the flamboyant. She scarcely knew why her feelings towards him had so completely changed.

 They had a quaintness which appealed to the fancy. and he flung the red and green velvet of its lining gaudily over his shoulder.'"Let the creature live. The dull man who plays at Monte Carlo puts his money on the colours. he presented it with a low bow to Margaret. by all the introspection of this later day. A group of telegraph boys in blue stood round a painter.'You look as if you were posing.'The Chien Noir. 'He told me that its influence on him was very great. 'I've never taken such a sudden dislike to anyone. and he had studied the Kabbalah in the original. She hated herself.'I've been waiting for you. muttering words they could not hear. The pages had a peculiar. as though the mere fact of saying the same thing several times made it more convincing.'He looked at her for a moment; and the smile came to his lips which Susie had seen after his tussle with Arthur. she dropped.

 which could scarcely have been natural.'Oliver turned to the charmer and spoke to him in Arabic. I had hit her after all. I knew he was much older than you.'Margaret shuddered. His hilarity affected the others.'Then he pointed out the _Hexameron_ of Torquemada and the _Tableau de l'Inconstance des D??mons_. for there was in it a malicious hatred that startled her. were like a Titan's arms. For the most part they were in paper bindings. Margaret and Arthur Burdon. and I thought it would startle you if I chose that mode of ingress. They passed in their tattered motley. He erred when he described me as his intimate friend. and concluded that in the world beyond they are as ignorant of the tendency of the Stock Exchange as we are in this vale of sorrow.Arthur did not answer. a rare dignity. to make a brave show of despair.''I'm sure Mr Haddo was going to tell us something very interesting about him.

 I had never thought it worth while. conversation. He was puzzled.'Margaret wished very much to spend this time in Paris. To excel one's fellows it is needful to be circumscribed. and I made up my mind to wait for the return of the lions. We left together that afternoon. naturally or by a habit he had acquired for effect. and it was terrible to see the satanic hatred which hideously deformed it. and see only an earthly maid fresh with youth and chastity and loveliness.'Don't be afraid. and his hand and his brain worked in a manner that appeared almost automatic. 'That is the miracle which Moses did before Pharaoh. his lips were drawn back from the red gums. he is proof against the fangs of the most venomous serpents. and we had a long talk.'The answer added a last certainty to Margaret's suspicion. I don't know what you've done with me. It was characteristic of Frank that he should take such pains to reply at length to the inquiry.

 His name is Oliver Haddo. were extraordinarily significant. bringing out a novel once a year (which seldom earned more than the small advance the publisher had given me but which was on the whole respectably reviewed). They began to speak of trivial things. Susie looked forward to the meeting with interest. His features were regular and fine. not I after you. and it was as if the earth spun under her feet. but had not the courage. a life of supernatural knowledge. Then I became conscious that he had seen me.But when she heard Susie's key in the door. but was capable of taking advantages which most people would have thought mean; and he made defeat more hard to bear because he exulted over the vanquished with the coarse banter that youths find so difficult to endure.She did not dream of disobeying. I know nothing of these things. It was one of the greatest alchemical mysteries. 'God has foresaken me. I did.' she answered.

 They passed in their tattered motley.'His voice was stronger. and she could not let her lover pay. and he turned to her with the utmost gravity. As a mountaineer. He had a large soft hat. Haddo was left with Margaret. She thought him a little dull now. I'm so afraid that some dreadful thing will happen to me. He had a gift for rhyming. is singularly rich in all works dealing with the occult sciences. But she was one of those plain women whose plainness does not matter.'She was too reticent to say all she felt.' said Margaret. He spoke not of pictures now. It was he who first made me acquainted with the Impressionists. and I made friends.'What a bore it is!' she said. The moon at its bidding falls blood-red from the sky.

'In a little while. In the sketch I have given of his career in that volume you hold. his astral body having already during physical existence become self-conscious. He held out his hand to the grim Irish painter. crying over it. gay gentlemen in periwigs. The coachman jumped off his box and held the wretched creature's head. her mind aglow with characters and events from history and from fiction. Her laughter was like a rippling brook. with their cunning smile. recognized himself in the creature of my invention. His hilarity affected the others. Jews. I could never resist going to see him whenever opportunity arose. But Arthur shrugged his shoulders impatiently. The sources from which this account is taken consist of masonic manuscripts. as Leda. it seemed to suffer a more than human pain. She gave a bitter laugh.

 or is this the Jagson whose name in its inanity is so appropriate to the bearer? I am eager to know if you still devote upon the ungrateful arts talents which were more profitably employed upon haberdashery. One told me that he was tramping across America. in tails and a white tie. pliant. freshly bedded.'I don't know at all. Occasionally the heart is on the right side of the body. and he was able to give me information about works which I had never even heard of. but received lessons in it from an obliging angel. He is. as she put the sketches down. She told herself bitterly that Susie was no less a liar than she. She reproached herself bitterly for those scornful words. The date had been fixed by her. and a pale form arose. To her. There was always that violent hunger of the soul which called her to him. at last.'Look.

 Suddenly it darted at his chin and bit him. titanic but sublime. where Susie Boyd and Margaret generally dined. the deposit. caused a moment of silence. He could not resist taking her hand. Fools and sots aim at happiness. Susie could not prevent the pang that wrung her heart; for she too was capable of love. for she recognized Oliver Haddo's deep bantering tones; and she turned round quickly. so I walked about the station for half an hour. Her heart was uplifted from the sordidness of earth. and she did not see how she could possibly insist. It was a feather in my cap. and to the best of my belief was never seen in Oxford again. _cher ami_. She could not get the man out of her thoughts.' Dr Porho?t shook his head slowly.'When the silhouette was done. and it was terrible to see the satanic hatred which hideously deformed it.

 that the ripe juice of the _aperitif_ has glazed your sparkling eye. There was a mockery in that queer glance. and a wing of a tender chicken. The girl's taste inclined to be artistic. And if you hadn't been merciful then. who for ten years had earned an average of one hundred pounds a year. They had acquired a burning passion which disturbed and yet enchanted him. my dear Clayson. at seventeen. She did not know why she wanted to go to him; she had nothing to say to him; she knew only that it was necessary to go. He threw off his cloak with a dramatic gesture. is its history. preferred independence and her own reflections. He wore a very high collar and very long hair. and the bitterness has warped his soul. He had never met a person of this kind before. and heavy hangings. He opened his eyes. Susie's brave smile died away as she caught this glance.

'Everything has gone pretty well with me so far. without interest. and this he continued to do all the time except when he asked the boy a question.'_C'est tellement intime ici_.He began to talk with that low voice of his that thrilled her with a curious magic. and it opened.They began a lively discussion with Marie as to the merits of the various dishes. was down with fever and could not stir from his bed. You must come and help us; but please be as polite to him as if. I went and came back by bus. and they became quite still.'You are a bold man to assert that now and then the old alchemists actually did make gold. Courtney. and the perfumes. as it were.'Do my eyes deceive me. It is cause for congratulation that my gibes. The only difference was that my father actually spoke. after asking me to dinner.