on
theory, and suddenly to come face to face with practice. I tell you I'm
starving for facts." He stepped forward quickly and dropped into a chair
that faced his companion's.

"Out with it all! To begin, who is the master-spirit? You know what I
mean. The master-spirit in the true sense. Poor old blind Arian doesn't
stand for much."

The Precursor looked meditatively at his empty glass.

"No," he said, thoughtfully. "You touch truth there! Michael Arian is
the cipher; Bale-Corphew's the meaning. Bale-Corphew is an interesting
man, John--I had almost said a dangerous man--"

The Prophet's lip curled slightly.

"Dangerous!"

"Yes; dangerous in a sense. In the sense that a personality always is
dangerous. Among the six Arch-Mystics there is, to my thinking, only one
_man_, and he interests me. He interests me, does Horatio
Bale-Corphew!"

The Prophet leaned forward in his chair.

"I think I catch your meaning," he said. "Something of the same idea
occurred to me when he rose from his seat to-night. While we spied upon
them in the last six months, he always struck me as curiously
un-English, with that sleek exterior and those flashing eyes of his. But
in the chapel to-night he was almost aggressively alien. When he touched
my arm I could literally feel him bristle."

The other nodded.

"You've said it!" he cried. "Horatio bristles! His whole queer soul is
in this business--every fibre of it. He attempts no division of
allegiance--except, perhaps, in the matter of the heart--"

The Prophet glanced up and smiled.

"The heart? Do my faithful Watchers permit themselves hearts? The
Scitsym makes no provision for such frail organs."

The Precursor laughed again.

"Oh, we Elect are by no means free from little saving weaknesses! That's
where we become dramatic. You can't have effect without contrast.
Horatio, for instance, is instinctively dramatic."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. Oh yes! I know what I'm saying. I've studied them all. More than
once, when my Soul has been communing with your August Spirit, I have
watched Horatio's dramatic contrast from the corner of my eyes."

Again the Prophet smiled.

"The contrast frequents the chapel then?"

"Frequents? Undoubtedly. Horatio has literally swept her into the fold.
She was here to-night to bend the knee to you."

A look of recollection crossed the Prophet's eyes.

"To-night?" he said. "Not the woman who sat beside him? The woman with
the big eyes? She and Bale-C