CHAPTER XXXIII. CIRCE'S CUP.

In her cup the red wine glows,
Fragrant as the blushing rose;
Cure of sorrows, cure of woes,

From it thou wilt win.

Ah! but Circe's cup deceives,
Evil spell its magic weaves,
To the fool who drinks--it leaves

The bitterness of sin.

One night Reginald and Beaumont were comfortably seated over their cigarettes and coffee in the smoking-room of the hotel, talking in a desultory kind of way about the news of the day, when Blake suddenly made a remark quite foreign to the conversation.

"I often wonder why you have never married, Beaumont," he said idly.

The artist shrugged his shoulders.

"It's not difficult to answer," he replied lightly. "I have never met any woman I particularly cared about."

"Wouldn't you like to be married?" asked Reginald.

"Humph! that depends. I'm afraid I'm past the age of cultivating the domestic virtues. I am a cosmopolitan--a wanderer--no home would be pleasant to me for any length of time."

"But why don't you settle down?"

"Because the age of miracles is past. I'm one of those men who never know in what land they will lay their bones. No, no! I'm sadly afraid the domestic tea-urn and family circle are not for me."

It was curious to hear this man talk in such a cynical strain to his own son, but then Beaumont had been so long apart from his offspring that he almost regarded him as a stranger, and therefore spoke to him as such.

"I think you would be much happier married," observed Reginald.

"No doubt. You judge me by yourself. When you get married to Miss Challoner and settle down, your life will be a paradise, because long training has rendered you admirably suited to a domestic life. But I--ouf!--I would weary of the best woman in the world."

"What a curious man you are, Beaumont," said Blake, looking at him in a puzzled manner. "This life of yours in Town appears to me so unsatisfying. Everyone is on the move. Never a moment for rest or reflection, a constant striving after pleasure, and when that pleasure is gained, what is it but Dead Sea fruit? Now, on the other hand, I cannot imagine a more delightful life than one in the country. When I marry Una I will live at Garsworth Grange, bring up my children, if I am happy enough to become a father, take an interest in the dear old village, and enjoy my whole existence in a leisurely, pleasant manner, which will give me far more enduring enjoyment than this rapid frivolous Town life."

"Your instincts are quite those of a patriarchal age," said Beaumont, with a scarcely concealed sneer, "but of course I can hardly wonder at that. Many years of a highly artificial civilization have given me a distaste for your beau ideal of life, while the simplicity of your training has unfitted you for the gas and glitter of London. A man brought up on roast beef does not care for truffles, though, to be sure, roast beef is the more healthy of the two."

Reginald laughed at this extraordinary manner of arguing, but did not pursue the subject, and shortly afterwards the pair were whirling along in a hansom to the Totahoop Music Hall.

This establishment, which took its extraordinary name from an eminent comedian who first opened it as a place of entertainment, was one of the largest, handsomest, and most patronised music halls in town. It stood at one side of a large square and had a palatial appearance with its flight of marble steps, its enormous folding-doors and the view they afforded when open of tropical trees, nude white statues and gorgeous hangings of blue plush, all of which looked brilliant under the powerful radiance of the electric lights.

When the two gentlemen arrived the promenade was quite full of men and women, some talking loudly, others attending to the performance, and many crowding around the marble-topped counters of the various bars from which smiling barmaids dispensed cooling beverages. The house was quite full and comparatively quiet, for the ballet of The Lorelei was now being danced, and the stage was filled with multitudes of pretty girls in costumes of pale green glittering with silver scales, who were swaying to and fro to a swinging waltz melody played by the orchestra.

"This is a very good ballet," observed Beaumont, as they took their seats in a private box, "both the scenery and the dances being excellent. Have a drink?"

"No, thank you," replied Blake listlessly, taking off his cloak, "I prefer watching the ballet."

He leaned out of the box and was soon deeply interested in the pantomimic action on the stage, while Beaumont swept the glittering horseshoe with his opera-glass to see if he could espy a friend. Very shortly he saw a man with whom he was well acquainted, and left the box with a muttered apology, while Reginald, absorbed in the ballet, took no notice of his departure.

Veils of pale green gauze were falling like a curtain in front of the stage, which was flooded with an emerald light, and away at the back could be seen the Sea Palace of the Lorelei, above which undulated the blue waves of the ocean. The daring young knight in silver armour was standing like a statue in the centre of the stage and round him the nymphs, linked hand in hand, were wreathing in mysterious evolutions, growing slower and slower till they all paused, grouped in graceful attitudes like living statues. A strange low chord from the orchestra and then there stole forth a weird subtle melody that seemed to possess a snake-like fascination as it arose and fell with shrill sounds of clarinet and violin. A sudden ripple as of silver bells and the fatal Rhine nymph glided on to the stage from a huge shell placed far back in the restless green water. Then there was a dance of fascination in which the knight resisted the allurements of the Lorelei, but the sleeping nymphs also awoke and re-commenced their dreamy dance, while through the swing and beat of the band there stole the strange wild piping of the Lorelei motif. At last the knight yielded, there was a storm of somewhat discordant music and all the evil things of ocean came trooping on to the stage, dashing at length into a mad galop as they surged and rolled round the knight, now captive in the arms of the siren. A thick darkness spread over the scene and when the light broke again, the ocean halls had vanished and a merry crowd of peasants were dancing on a fair lawn to the piping of a shepherd.

Reginald did not like this latter scene so much, as it lacked the mysterious enticement of the former, and felt rather disappointed, but he was quite repaid by the last scene of the ballet, which represented the fatal Lorelei rock amid turbid waters under the pale light of the moon.

On the shore wandered the spell-enchained knight, and Blake thought of Heine's ballad with its foreboding beginning,

"Ich weiss nicht was soil is bedeuten,"

as the mysterious melody of the Lorelei began to once more steal from amid the sombre music of the orchestra. Lonely is the knight, for he loves naught on earth while the water witch has power over him. Shriller and shriller arose the melody and suddenly a white blaze of electric light envelopes the rock, upon which stands the siren, combing her marvellous locks of gold.

With mystic gestures she beckons the knight, he launches a boat and the waves rise white and threatening amid a storm of music from the orchestra, while overhead the thunder rolls and the lightning flashes. The boat reaches the rock, strikes, and in a moment the knight is struggling in the water with hands stretched out imploringly to the Water Witch. Darkness once more, then again the emerald light shines, showing the Halls of the Lorelei, who stands over the dead body of the knight, while around swing the river nymphs with floating hair and waving hands, then the shrill piping of the Lorelei motif sounds once more and the curtain falls.

"Well, what do you think of the ballet?" asked Beaumont, who had returned to the box and was watching with keen interest the dreamy look upon the young man's face.

"I think it is charming," replied Reginald, in whose head the mysterious melody of the Lorelei was still ringing, "but what a fool that knight was."

"Ah, do you think so?" rejoined the artist, lightly. "There I do not agree with you. Many a man has had his life wrecked by listening to the music of the Sea Witch. The legend of the Lorelei is simply an allegory of life."

"So is the legend of the Sirens, I suppose," said Blake listlessly.

"Of course the man who is drawn away from Nature by the alluring voice of the world always loses his happiness and genius."

"I don't think much of your world's singing," retorted Blake, a trifle cynically. "It would never allure me."

"It's alluring you now," thought Beaumont, although he did not say so, but merely remarked, "Too much of modern sentimentality about it, perhaps, or you think the world's voice pipes too vulgar a ditty. There I agree with you, but, unfortunately, in this age we vulgarise everything; we drag forth the lovely mysterious dreams of medi?valism from their enchanted twilights into the broad blaze of day and then reject them in disgust because we are disillusionized. Ah, bah' the world of to-day, which reduces everything to plain figures, always puts me in mind of a child spoiling a drum to find out what's inside."

"Unpleasant, but true."

"The truth is always unpleasant my friend, that is why people so seldom tell it," said Beaumont, "but listen to this recitation, it's the best thing of the evening."

The reciter was a celebrated actress who had been induced to appear upon the music-hall platform by way of an experiment, to see if the ordinary audience of such a place would take to the higher form of art as exemplified by the recitation.

Simply dressed, with no scenic effect, but only her wonderful voice and strong dramatic instinct to rely on, the lady recited a touching little piece about a dying woman, and it was truly wonderful the effect it had upon the pleasure-loving audience. In spite of the attractions of comic songs, of pretty girls, of grotesque tumblers, and of daring gymnasts, the whole body of men and women yielded to the spell of the recitation. The poem was full of human nature, and the intensity of the reciter's voice carried the pathos of the pitiful little story home to everyone. The intense humanity of the tale, declaimed in a most dramatic way by an artist, came like a breath of cool mountain air into the perfumed close atmosphere of a ball-room, and the storm of applause which broke forth at the conclusion of the recitation showed how powerful genius is to move even the most blasé of humanity.

"That is a step in the right direction," said Beaumont as he left the music-hall with Reginald, "everyone prophesied failure for such an experiment, but you see the voice of the heart can always reach the heart. There is more culture even among music-hall audiences than we give them credit for."

"I don't think it's a question of culture at all," replied Blake bluntly; "that simple story declaimed in such a way would appeal to the lowest audience in Whitechapel.

"I daresay you are right," answered Beaumont idly, "a touch of nature makes the whole world akin. I think it was Shakespeare who made that remark--wonderfully wise man--I should like to have seen him write a drama on the complex civilization of to-day."

"Our dramatists of to-day do their best."

"No doubt, but they write on such frivolous subjects. If they took up a broad question of the time and placed it before us in the form of a play they might evolve a new style of drama fitted to be handed down to posterity but when they concern themselves only with the drama of little things their ideas are as ephemeral as their plays. No, this is only the age of scientific discovery, not the time of poetic imaginings."

Thus talking, they strolled along the crowded streets, and turned into a supper-room, where they had a comfortable meal. Beaumont tried to induce Reginald to come with him to his club, and have a game of cards, but the young man, haunted by the subtle melody of the Lorelei did not feel inclined for the green table, so bidding the artist good-night, stepped into a hansom, and was driven back to his hotel.

All through his sleep that night, the shrill music rang in his brain, and he dreamed constantly of the woman with the fatal beauty, who, sitting on her rock, lured men to destruction.

Did no warning voice whisper the meaning of his dreams, how London, with siren music, was enticing him onward to her cruel pitfalls hidden by roses? No! Apparently his good genius had forsaken him, and he was now in the jaws of danger, without a single hand being stretched out to save him from the cruel rocks concealed under the whirling foam, above which the Lorelei sang her evil song.