cialistic party. There was
a certain James Hibbault, who was a great power, and Peter, who was
not so heavy a power in those days, employed the wisdom of the serpent
to crush him. He came up to London and offered me a chance of new
amusement in abetting his plans. The Hibbaults were middle class
people without middle class virtues. They lived a scrambling, noisy
life propagating their crude ideas and sowing broadcast the seeds of a
greater power than they knew. They were, however, a real force to be
reckoned with, they and their party, because of certain truths hidden
in their wildest creeds--truths which did not suit Peter's creed in
the least. He made their acquaintance, and he introduced me to them.
They were sufficiently new to amuse me, but I should have probably
have tired of them soon had it not been for your mother."

He paused a moment. "Do you remember her, Christopher?"

Christopher nodded.

"Elizabeth Hibbault," went on Aymer slowly, "was extraordinarily
beautiful, with the beauty of grace rather than of feature. She was as
distinct from the rest of her clamorous family as a pearl from
pebbles. She was an enthusiast, a dreamer, passionately sincere,
passionately pitiful. She recognised truth as a water diviner finds
water. She was brought up in a labyrinth of theories, creeds of
equality, in hatred for the rich, and out of all the jargon she
gathered some eternal truths which she made her own. She did not live
with her people: she had rooms of her own and she was a
black-and-white artist. But she was often at the Hibbaults. Peter
probably knew her accustomed days. She used to speak of her faiths. It
was like one note of gold in the discordant babble. Men came and
listened to her and she never knew it was not for her words but for
her magnetic wonderful unknown self that they came. She might, and
probably did, impress men who were dreamers or fanatics already, but
those to whom all her beliefs were childish nonsense went just the
same, Peter and I with them."

He stopped a moment and shot a glance at Christopher, who never
moved.

"I lost my interest in Peter's schemes and he ceased to explain them
to me, but I still visited Elizabeth at her own rooms when I was
allowed. She was very anxious to convert Peter and myself, more
especially Peter. I was not in love with her, Christopher, yet, but
she fascinated me. I speculated as to how it would be with her if all
the fire and devotion she brought to a mer