The Sixth Sense

WITH

w what I see...? ... I see your soul.

taxi till it disappeared down Pall Mall and the Ser

anti-climax to have supper with

, tramp up and down by myself, and think-think cal

tion of the Club, "if you nailed me down like a Strasburg goose, I don

eep you from thinking. Wait a minute; I

s on heroic remedies to retain the average Englishman's horror of what he calls "drugs." At the same time I do not like to see boys of six

asked, as we came

ed it often, but I'm ra

y, and the hand that paid for the powde

right at din

me time ago,

dmirably; there's been

abruptly, as we mounte

be surprised, as silence was the Seraph's normal state, and my mind was far too full of other things to discuss the ordin

bout?"

yth

ing you're thinking

O

ree months generally, and the p

carry me ver

lights and lay back in h

u can't drive out of your mind the vision of a girl you've not seen for twenty years. Shall I go on? You've just had a new thought; you were thinking I was impertinent, that I oughtn't to talk like this, that you ought to be angry.... Then you decided you couldn't be, because I was right." He paused, and then exclaimed quickly, "Now, now there's another new thought! Yo

e, tracing his initials with the end of a matc

now," he said at last. "B

ose i

rs gave a s

I just wanted to

e lamp again so that

" I said, "do you suggest that I always

the w

ou

ot more than

what everybody

th a good

wom

ok his

. They think in fits and starts-j

o you

u'll find the expression is always changing, never t

nged if

hirt, you wonder if you'll have time to go back and change into a clean one, and if so, how late you'll be. You're annoyed that any one should throw mud at you, you're flabbergasted that I should be the person. You're impotently angry. Gradually a desire for revenge overcomes every other feeling; you're going to hurt me. A little thought springs up, and you wonder whether I s

t over very

see those thoughts succeeding

his head in pol

uced. You got pictures of horses galloping, and people solemnly assured yo

account for

fferent from other p

wer in the abstract rather than in relatio

g else?"

rofound silence. Then I heard him imitating a fa

I asked, not quite ce

hose voice that w

thur Roden

"Just leavi

and ran in

en in the Club?" I

s moment, sir,

sat down oppos

t this," I said. "I'm beg

ok his

t?" I p

t understand it, there's a lot more th

el

n't like to see me taking drugs. I wanted

that! Why don't you d

ch

your min

will stand," he answered as we left the d

new the grey-white powder would be called in aid that night. He was in a state of acute nervous excitement; the arm that linked itself in mine trembled appreciabl

e sight of the theatres gave

aid with the easy abruptness one employs

t ab

he power? If you look at the rot that gets published, the rot that gets produced at the theatres, my question answers itself. At the present day there aren't six psychologists above the mediocre in all England; barring Henry James there's

ight

what tha

answered. "I pay a lot of

I said with a

, in Morocco, you gav

aiting to se

ve se

do you

te a book, I wrote

my s

ope

never so much as see

write in m

and pseudonym?

d, and then sh

you," he murmur

any further

ant even y

t no secrets. At

rance to the Savoy, but neith

e to the Wellington Street crossing and were waiting for

of Gretchen,'

David Copperfie

on't believe me

ll-known: get hold of a book th

published over

yne,'" I said, "w

n't kno

s we drove down to the th

ver met him,"

ibble," I

inction. Do you know an

ed for a smile of incredulity. He met my gaze unfalteringly. S

xplain the whole m

as jumpy at the theatre to-nigh

we had reached Ludgate Circus and turned down New Bridge

blishers under an assumed name through the medium of a solicitor. We three alone were acquainted with the carefully guarded secret. His subsequent books appeared in th

slice torn ruthlessly out of the Seraph's own life. An altered setting, the marriage of Rupert and Kathleen, were two out of a dozen variations from the actual; but the touching, idyllic boy and girl romance, with its shattering termination, ha

e to avow your own

t in the swaggering, self-advertising twentieth century it seemed incredible that I ha

egan, but he shoo

I'm in your hands. 'Gordon Tremayne' di

am Sharp using the same th

ness," he went on in self-defence.

each day, Seraph," I sugges

that-altogether.

going to

hat," he answered, "you woul

ut his natural shyness even with friends was so great that you could see him balancing an idea for minutes at a time before he found courage to put it into words. I was always

" he asked as we passed Cleopatra's N

t, I have the greatest difficulty in knowing what I do or do not believe. On the rare occ

t on. "One of these days you may see it in t

record of the facts. At the close of the previous winter he had found himself in attendance at a costume ball, muffled to the eyes in the cerements of an Egyptian mummy. The dress was too hot for dancing, and he was wandering through the ball-

oyard peasant-girl. Their conversation was desultory, but the words spoken by the girl fixed a careless, frank, self-confid

and the face wore an expression of restless, rebellious energy.... Once their eyes met, but the mummy wrappings were discouraging. The girl continued her walk, and the Seraph returned to his mirror. Whatever his mission, the Crusader was unduly long away; hi

e Savoyard peasant; their conversation was always interrupted, suddenly and brutally, as though she had been snatched away. Gradually-like sunlight breakin

end of Middle Temple Lane he dragged his arm abruptly out of mine, planted his elbows on the parapet of the Emb

've caught that one glimpse of her. Yet night after night. And it's so real, I often don't know whether I'm awake or asleep. I've never felt s

you w

front of his eyes, and lin

it's just to satisfy curiosity and find out who she is. But there's something more, there's some big catastr

for a drink. He refused on the score of lateness, though I

ink I imagine it's all fancy if I tell you to change your ideas, change your work, chang

the abrupt cont

eting people,

own showing I shall be submerged in politics if there i

, alternately crushing his opera

t," he sa

be my sa

it, for wha

I cried in mod

sure I'm mad," he answered, turning aw

y entrusted to my care. The scene of reconciliation between her father and myself was most affecting. In the old days when Brian toiled at his briefs and I sauntered away the careless happy years of my youth, there is little doubt that I was held out as an example not to be followed. We need not go into

hope to become by playing the Industrious Apprentice at the English Common Law Bar. More charitable than the Psalmist-from whom indeed he differs in all material respects-Brian could not bring himself to believe that any one who flourished like

e. I was face to face with a great responsibility.... I suppose it was inevitable, and I did my best to appear patient, but in common fairness a judge has no more right than a shopwalker to import a trade

means of a code contrived for the occasion. I remember a great many birds figured among the code-words: "Penguin" meant "She has taken a slight chill, but I have had the doctor in, and she is in bed with a hot water-bottle"; "Linnet" meant "Scarlatina"; "Bustard" "Appendicitis, operation successfully performed, going on well." Being neither ornithologist nor physician, I had

h for a better ward. During the weeks that I was her foster father, circumstances brought me in contact with some two or three hundred girls of similar age and position. They were

er to the responsibilities of the drab, workaday world. She had none of Joyce Davenant's personality, her reckless courage and obstinate, fearless devilry; none of Sylvia Roden's passionate fire, her icy reserve and imperious temper. Side by side with either, Gladys would seem indeterminate, characterless; but she was the only one of the three I would have

n our return to Pont Street I found a letter of instructions to guide us in our forth

thought it must be for me," w

tly back to some enigmatic words of Seraph's: "Is Phil going to be there?".