to, speak of his
transactions with Freedham, he would be abashed by my gaze. He
rested his elbows on his knees, and began to tie knot after knot in
a piece of string.

"Freedham's an extraordinary creature," he proceeded. "He first got
hold of me when I was at the Nursery. He would get me in a dark
corner, and alternately pet and bully me. I remember his once
holding me in a frightful grip and saying: 'You're so--' (I'm only
telling you what he said, Rupert)--'You're so pretty that I'd love
to see you cry.' He's _that_ type, you know."

For a while Doe, whose cheeks and neck were crimson, knotted his
string in silence.

"Then he used to give me money to encourage me to like him, and dash
it, Ray! I _do_ like him. He's got such weird, majestic ideas that
are different from anyone else's,--and he attracts me. His great
theory is that Life is Sensation, and there must be no sensation--a
law, or no law--which he has not experienced. I believed him to be
right (as I do still, in part) and we--we tried everything together.
We--we got drunk on a beastly occasion in his room. We didn't like
it, but we pushed on, so as to find out what the sensation was. And
then--oh! I wish I'd never started telling you all this--"

He tied a knot with such viciousness that few would have had the
patience to untie it.

"Go on, old chap," I said encouragingly. I was proud of playing the
sympathetic confidant; but, less natural than that, a certain
abnormality in the conversation had stimulated me; I was excited to
hear more.

"Well, he told me that years before he had wanted to see what taking
drugs was like, and he had been taking them ever since. He was mad
keen on the subject and had read De Quincey and those people from
beginning to end. I've tried them with him.... There are not many
things we haven't done together."

Doe tossed the string away.

"I know I might have done well in cricket, but Freedham used to say
that excelling in games was good enough for Kipling's 'flannelled
fools' and 'muddied oafs.' We thought we were superior, chosen
people, who would excel in mysticism and intellectualism."

As he said it, Doe looked up and smiled at me, while I sat, amazed
to discover how far he, with his finer mind, had outstripped me in
the realms of thought. I had no idea what mysticism was.

"And I still think," he pursued, "that Freedham's got hold of the
Truth, only perverted; just as he himself is a perversion. Life _is_
what f