legs and arms as if we were born cripples and sick slaves. But I
was free-born, Mr. Flambeau! People only think they need these things
because they have been trained in fear instead of being trained in power
and courage, just as the silly nurses tell children not to stare at the
sun, and so they can't do it without blinking. But why among the stars
should there be one star I may not see? The sun is not my master, and I
will open my eyes and stare at him whenever I choose."

"Your eyes," said Flambeau, with a foreign bow, "will dazzle the sun."
He took pleasure in complimenting this strange stiff beauty, partly
because it threw her a little off her balance. But as he went upstairs
to his floor he drew a deep breath and whistled, saying to himself: "So
she has got into the hands of that conjurer upstairs with his golden
eye." For, little as he knew or cared about the new religion of Kalon,
he had heard of his special notion about sun-gazing.

He soon discovered that the spiritual bond between the floors above and
below him was close and increasing. The man who called himself Kalon was
a magnificent creature, worthy, in a physical sense, to be the pontiff
of Apollo. He was nearly as tall even as Flambeau, and very much better
looking, with a golden beard, strong blue eyes, and a mane flung back
like a lion's. In structure he was the blonde beast of Nietzsche,
but all this animal beauty was heightened, brightened and softened by
genuine intellect and spirituality. If he looked like one of the great
Saxon kings, he looked like one of the kings that were also saints. And
this despite the cockney incongruity of his surroundings; the fact that
he had an office half-way up a building in Victoria Street; that the
clerk (a commonplace youth in cuffs and collars) sat in the outer room,
between him and the corridor; that his name was on a brass plate,
and the gilt emblem of his creed hung above his street, like the
advertisement of an oculist. All this vulgarity could not take away from
the man called Kalon the vivid oppression and inspiration that came
from his soul and body. When all was said, a man in the presence of
this quack did feel in the presence of a great man. Even in the loose
jacket-suit of linen that he wore as a workshop dress in his office he
was a fascinating and formidable figure; and when robed in the white
vestments and crowned with the golden circlet, in which he daily saluted
the sun, he really looked so splend