“I doubt it,” Marsden replied slowly. “He’s been faithless to many of his ideas, but he’s always stuck to one of them. And it makes him interested in everyone to some extent.”
“And what’s that?”
“It’s rather uncanny. He’s convinced that man contains the potentiality of a new being. I’ll repeat that in order to emphasise it. He’s convinced
Rendell made some reply—but Trent did not hear it. To remain an instant longer suddenly became impossible.
He rose unsteadily, hesitated for a moment, then left the tavern unobserved by Marsden and Rendell.
The character of the fog had altered. It no longer drifted through the streets like pestilence made visible, but infested certain areas with a static and pall-like gloom. Everywhere was dripping desolation. The City had become its own caricature.
Trent stood irresolute for some moments, surprised to discover that all trace of physical weakness had vanished. He began to walk rapidly, unconscious of direction, aware only of a necessity for movement. Ten minutes later he found himself on the Embankment.
Again he hesitated. Sentences from the conversation he had just overheard drifted through his mind, but they seemed to relate to a stranger. He felt that a new consciousness possessed him—a luminous awareness hitherto unknown. Thought, emotion, and will had attained a flame-like unity which illuminated new and mysterious horizons. The landscape of his old life was vanishing.
Almost immediately, however, fear captured him. He rebelled against the dominion of this consciousness which reduced all experience to a dream. It must be the herald of illness, and he would combat it by clinging to the concrete and the known.
He walked on quickly.
In order to re-establish the normal, he began to recapitulate his plans. He was on his way to the Frazers. For many months he would live in his rooms, converting night into day, while he wrote the novel which had challenged his imagination for nearly a year. He would cease to be Ivor Trent. He would become the instrument of that mysterious power which could create a world more real than that of actuality. This was his programme. And yet, the more he analysed it, the less substantial it became. It was what he had planned, but it was not what was destined to be. He had reached a final frontier. Either he would never write again—or he would write a book different in kind from any he had written.
He made an angry gesture. Why did every thought turn traitor to his plans? What was happening to him? It was perilous to surrender to weakness. If illness menaced him, he must confront it with the whole might of his will. But, now, he must be patient. The first essential was to escape from these spectral streets into the seclusion of his rooms.
He looked round in search of a taxi, but the Embankment was deserted, and after a few moments’ hesitation he hurried on in the direction of Chelsea. More than once he entered a region of deeper darkness, emerging later into relative clarity, but—as he approached his destination—the fog’s dominion became more generally established, and it was only intimate knowledge of this part of the Embankment which enabled him to identify it. Finally, he stopped opposite the street leading to the Frazer’s house.
He leaned over the low Embankment wall and gazed into the vapoury void below. Several minutes passed, but he remained motionless, listening to the life of the swiftly-flowing invisible river. In the near distance, the blast of a siren suddenly gave desolation a voice. A moment later, a ruby-coloured light slowly emerged, glowed for a second, and vanished. Then all was still and dark again.
Gradually, a deep hypnotic stupor possessed him, depriving him of all sense of personality. An interior indolence lulled him to yield to this trance-like state in which only dreams had substance. But the remnant of his will rebelled, and he sought to regain contact with actuality by recalling the conversation he had overheard in the tavern. To his dismay, however, he discovered that he could only remember Marsden’s final sentence:
“He’s convinced
The words circled in his brain till repetition robbed them of the last vestige of meaning. Then, with a final effort to attain normality, he turned abruptly, determined to seek sanctuary in the Frazers’ house.
Instantly he gave a cry.
He saw a shrouded figure confronting him. The face was fully revealed and Trent knew—with a certainty deeper than knowledge—that this was the countenance of a new order of being. It reflected thoughts and emotions unknown to present-day humanity. The glance of the eyes transmitted a secret wisdom. The forehead was crested with serenity.