There are many people who would have considered Mrs. Delarayne a selfish mother. Despite the fact that no man, woman, or child has ever yet been known to perform an unselfish action, the superstition still holds ground, that "selfish" and "unselfish" are two different and possible descriptions of human life and action. Believing, as we do, however, that no intellectually honest man can any longer attach any significance to these words, it cannot be admitted in these pages that Mrs. Delarayne was selfish. Neither was she at all conscious of any evil impulses when, standing at the dining-room window on her "Inner Light" afternoon, she watched her two children leave the house on their way to the "Claude hag," as Leonetta called the lady. On the contrary, she felt wonderfully free, exceptionally happy, profoundly relieved. The big house was silent. She was alone. She even had to suppress the half-formed longing that it might always be so.

She knew that Cleopatra felt no deep sympathy with any part of the "Inner Light" doctrine, and she was convinced, before enquiring, that Leonetta would sympathise with it even less. Although, therefore, she expected a number of young men that afternoon,—Lord Henry, St. Maur, and Malster, among them,—who might have interested her daughters, she was not in the least conscious of having acted with deliberate hostility in arranging so neatly that they should be out of the house when these gentlemen came.

To explain precisely what the "Inner Light" meetings meant to Mrs. Delarayne would entail such a long discussion of the relation of women's religiosity in general to sex and to self-deception, that it would require almost the compass of another independent treatise to deal with it adequately.

In a word Mrs. Delarayne suffered, as a large number of modern women suffer, from receiving no sure and reliable guidance from men. As a widow this was, of course, incidental to her position; but she knew well enough that there were thousands who still had their husbands, who were no better off than she was. In addition to this, she had succumbed to the influence of that absurd belief, so prevalent in cultivated circles, that typical modern thought is superior to Christianity.

She felt the ease and peace of mind that resulted from having a belief of some sort; but she would have regarded it as a surrender of principle to return to Christianity; and, far from suspecting that most modern thought, as manifested in the doctrine of the "Inner Light," for instance, or Theosophy, or Christian Science, is inferior to Christianity, she had become a member of the Inner Light, and paid its heavy entrance fee of fifty guineas, with a feeling of deep pride and satisfaction.

The doctrine of the Inner Light was an importation from America. It had been introduced into England by a very intelligent, very tall, but very delicate looking Virginian lady, about fifteen years before this story opens. It had not spread very much, it is true,—its total number of members in Great Britain amounted only to two thousand five hundred; but it was all the more select on that account, and it was guaranteed by its founders and by all who belonged to it, to be entirely free from those "regrettable remnants of superstition which so very much marred the beauty of the older religions."

It professed to recognise only one purifying and creative agent in life, and that was Light. "The world was all darkness and death," said the first prophet of the "Inner Light,"—an American named Adolf Albernspiel, who had died worth half a million dollars,—"and then Light appeared, and with it Life and the great lucid Powers: Thought, Spirit, Order."

It was so obviously superior to Christianity, it commended itself so cogently to the meanest intelligence, that the members of the "Inner Light," try how they might to exercise the tolerance which is universal to-day, could hardly refrain from a mild consciousness of superiority when they looked down upon other creeds.

Thus the priests of the Order were not called "Fathers" or "Brethren," which implied a false anthropomorphic relationship to a supreme parent "God"; they were simply "Incandescents":—Incandescent Bernard, Incandescent Margaret, Incandescent Mansel, and so on. Again, in allowing women to officiate at the altar of the Supreme Incandescence, the doctrine of the Inner Light rose superior to Christianity. "Owing to Judaic tradition and influence," as his Incandescence Albernspiel had truly pointed out, "the Christian Church had never enjoyed the eminent advantage of women's ministration. Even the Greeks had been wiser than this. And thus much of an essential character in all true religion had always been absent from Christianity, owing to this proscription of feminine influence." (The Doctrine of the Inner Light, Vol. II., p. 1303.)

There was only one Temple in England, at which all the faithful met once a year, and that was at Liverpool. It was hoped that other churches would be built sooner or later in other big centres, but meanwhile,—that is to say, pending the collecting of the necessary building fund,—all the faithful outside Liverpool were recommended to meet once a month at each other's houses, where one of the Incandescents would hold a service.

The Incandescent for London was a pale and feverish looking little man, Gerald Tribe by name, with false teeth and large, bony red hands, who lived as a sort of non-paying guest at the house of Miss Mallowcoid, Mrs. Delarayne's elder sister, at Hampstead. It was a perfectly orderly arrangement, because, apart from the fact that he had his young wife with him, he was in any case such a learned and pure-minded young man, that, as Miss Mallowcoid declared, even if he had not been married, she would have regarded it as a privilege to live under the same roof with him. She admitted, of course, that his wife was so far beneath him as to present an almost insufferable objection to the arrangement; but Miss Mallowcoid regarded this creature as the trial and chastisement sent by the supreme Incandescence, to bring both her own and Gerald Tribe's inner light to ever greater prodigies of brilliance and power.

Miss Mallowcoid, who had been responsible for her sister, Mrs. Delarayne's conversion to the Inner Light, was expected that afternoon, as were also Sir Joseph Bullion, and all the London faithful. Lord Henry had also reluctantly agreed to attend this one meeting after months of persuasion from Mrs. Delarayne.

If Mrs. Delarayne had been asked why she had joined the cult of the Inner Light, she would have probably replied that it was a simple doctrine. Light was the beginning, Light would be the end. Life on earth was simply the struggle of Light against Darkness. When you died, you became one with the Eternal Incandescence. Age, old age,—and this was the part that chiefly attracted Mrs. Delarayne,—was simply the fatigue incurred by battling with darkness. When Light prevailed, as it would in the other world, Age would pass away, and everybody would remain eternally youthful.

Thus, far from feeling selfish or unselfish, Mrs. Delarayne was conscious only of a sensation of supreme elation, as she watched her daughters leave the house on that afternoon in July. She was even able to contemplate their unusual beauty, which would have made them a credit to any family, with unmixed feelings of pride as they walked down the square, and she smiled as she noticed the eagerness with which Leonetta strode ahead, just about half a pace in front of her sister. When she turned away from the window, therefore, and once again surveyed the large stately dining-room, with its row upon row of chairs all ready for the meeting, she was conscious only of feeling supremely happy and above all secure.

Lord Henry was to come at last. For months, in fact ever since her first initiation into the Order, she had implored him to attend a meeting, and now that her will had prevailed she felt confident that once he saw with his own eyes the large number of distinguished people gathered that day under her roof—all followers and devotees of the Inner Light,—he would be forced to acknowledge that there was a good deal in it.

Among the first arrivals was Sir Lionel Borridge, the inventor of the most up-to-date calculating machine, and a mathematician of renown. He had a conical brow like a beautifully polished knee, and very sad eyes which seemed to proclaim to the world that the study of mathematics was, on the whole, a most harrowing occupation. With him came his aged wife and spinster daughter. Both appeared to be over fifty, and, like the head of their household, also deeply depressed by mathematics. These three, looking so learned, looking so miserable with learning, were surely the best evidence that could be advanced in support of the truth of the Inner Light; for they were all convinced adherents of the Order. Sir Joseph arrived punctually at three, the hour appointed for the meeting. With him came Malster, and one of the junior secretaries of Bullion Ltd., a certain Guy Tyrrell. Lord Henry and St. Maur came a minute after time, and were followed by a phalanx of ladies of uncertain age, with their Poms, their Pekinese, their Yorkshire and their toy terriers.

Mrs. Delarayne's dining-room was filling rapidly. A buzz of conversation, accompanied by the shuffling of the latest arrivals' feet, began to pervade the large room, and necks were craned in tense expectation of celebrities.

The philocanine Palmer was entrusted with the care of the legion of lap dogs out in the garden,—for the religious meeting could not admit even the most docile pet animal; and the sound of their spiteful yappings could be heard through the open windows at the back of the room.

"You know, my dear," said Lady Muriel Bellington, who had brought her Mexican hairless, "of course he is very, very naughty. And it's very tiresome. But they are so minute, one couldn't beat them. It would be really too too!"

Lady fflote, already purple with the heat, went almost black at the suggestion of beating the Mexican hairless.

"Beat them!" she ejaculated. "Oh that would be very wrong. Oh no, you couldn't bully them. Better far let them tyrannise over you. I should never forgive myself."

In another part of the room Sir Lionel Borridge was leaning across Mrs. Gerald Tribe, the delicate and emaciated wife of the Incandescent Gerald Tribe, to address a word to Miss Mallowcoid.

"I think it possible, you know," he said very gravely, and looking the image of the most unconquerable woe, "that I may be able to give our minister certain mathematical facts, which I feel convinced are all in support of the doctrine of the Inner Light. I was working at them with my daughter last night,—the results are simply astounding—astounding, that's the only word."

Miss Mallowcoid ejaculated, "Really! Really!" in a hushed, awed voice, and then quickly proceeded to communicate the thrilling intelligence to her right hand neighbour, who marvelled as reverently and as inaudibly as she had done.

Sir Joseph, feeling a little bewildered, was asking Guy Tyrrell a string of questions which this young man was quite unqualified to answer, and both looked and felt extremely uncomfortable.

Lord Henry, who was seated in the second row from the front, between Denis Malster and St. Maur, glanced round at the crowd behind him, and frowned darkly.

"I think, you know, Lord Henry," said Denis Malster, noticing the young nobleman's expression of angry scorn, "you do not allow sufficiently for the fact that all of us have a subconscious inkling of the supernatural behind phenomena, and these attempts on the part of the followers of the Inner Light, of the Theosophists, or the Spiritualists, to realise the nature of this supernatural basis to the material and visible world, are all proofs of this subconscious inkling."

"I don't think," Lord Henry replied, "that you are sufficiently inclined to allow for the fundamental fact, that mankind is very, very slow in dropping an old habit. We are now, thank goodness, witnessing the slow death agony of Christianity. These people here are among those who plume themselves on having abandoned Christian dogma. But deep down in their natures, there is not the inkling of the supernatural of which you speak, but simply the religious habit,—the habit of believing in something vague and indemonstrable, the habit of services and congregational worship. And while they are dropping away from the old Church in all directions, they simultaneously, from sheer habit, create new-fangled creeds very much more absurd than anything the Church ever taught, and not nearly so beautiful."

At this moment a hush suddenly fell upon the whole company, and Mrs. Delarayne, who by virtue of her rÔle as hostess, was officiating as assistant to the Incandescent Gerald that afternoon, entered the room by a small door at the back, followed by the minister.

Everyone stood up, and Lord Henry noticed that the venerable bald head of Sir Lionel Borridge was bowed in humble reverence.

The service lasted about three quarters of an hour; even Sir Joseph Bullion, who, as the latest of the elect, was the new broom of the afternoon, was seen to gape once during the course of it; and when it was over and a sort of blessing had been pronounced by the minister, the whole company filed out of the dining-room into the library for refreshment and also for the discussion of the meeting.

Everyone seemed intent upon reaching Mrs. Delarayne, and among those who struggled most to achieve this end was Sir Joseph Bullion. Congratulations were being pronounced on all sides. "How well she had read the Articles of Faith!" "How clearly she had announced the hymns!" "How cool and collected she was, and yet how reverent!"

Gradually the throng pressed less thickly about her, and Sir Joseph reached his idol.

"Wonderful, Edith,—wonderful!" he whispered. "And what a beautiful impressive service!"

Mrs. Delarayne grasped his hand, and even nodded, but her eyes were busy elsewhere. She was watching the movements of Lord Henry, who had not yet spoken to her, and who, apparently in animated conversation with Sir Lionel Borridge, had hitherto held himself aloof.

"You wouldn't remember, of course," Sir Joseph pursued, "the arrival of Baroness Puckha Bilj in London in the late eighties, with her doctrine of 'Self-Exteriorisation.' The Inner Light reminds me somewhat of that. We were her bankers. She was most successful."

"Your husband surpassed himself, Mrs. Tribe," said Denis Malster to the emaciated wife of the Incandescent Gerald. Denis felt extremely superior behind his solid Anglican Protestant entrenchments, and thought that he could afford to be generous and even patronising to the members of a struggling creed.

"Of course, Baroness Puckha Bilj had not your advantages," continued the undaunted Sir Joseph. "She was already advanced in years when she left Hungary."

"Have some cake?" said Mrs. Delarayne.

"I admit," Lord Henry was saying, "that a new religion is perhaps the most urgent need of modern times; but then this Age is scarcely great enough to make it."

"Come, come!" exclaimed Sir Lionel gruffly, his melancholy eyes closing heavily as he spoke, "you are a little hard surely. Is not this your first attendance here? I don't seem to remember having seen you amongst us before."

Lord Henry apologised and turned away. He had noticed his hostess's eye upon him, and he hastened towards her.

"Sir Lionel's conversation seems to have been singularly engrossing," remarked Mrs. Delarayne as he approached.

"It always amazes me," declared the young nobleman with laughter in his eyes, "how the men of the so-called 'exact sciences' become involved in our new emergency substitutes for a great Faith."

Mrs. Delarayne purred with a slightly treble note of dissent.

"Why not?" Sir Joseph demanded.

"I suppose it is the refuge of the mind that deals only with precise and exact terms and rules, to plunge into the opposite extreme,—into blue mistiness for instance. Or is it perhaps the fact that mathematicians and physicists deal very largely with symbols, with abstractions as opposed to realities, and that they therefore easily fall a prey to this sort of thing?"

Sir Joseph shrugged his shoulders and tried hard to look wise.

"The worst of it is," Lord Henry pursued, "the adherence of a man like Borridge, makes lesser men imagine that the creed to which he lends his support, must have something in it."

Mrs. Delarayne contented herself with pouting, and casting a glance full of distress signals at Sir Joseph.

But Sir Joseph appeared not to notice, and taking unnecessarily large bites at a piece of cake he held, was evidently hoping to convey the impression that a sudden and inconvenient access of appetite prevented his opposing Lord Henry as violently as he might otherwise have done on the subject of the Inner Light.

The occupants of the room were beginning to revolve in that purposeful manner which augurs of leave-taking. People came up to shake hands with their hostess, and gradually the library emptied. Only Denis Malster, St. Maur, Sir Joseph, and Lord Henry remained.

Their hostess fidgeted uneasily. She wished to be alone with Lord Henry. Gradually the others understood, and ultimately took their leave.

"Now quickly, explain to me," Lord Henry began severely, "why you have anything to do with this arrant nonsense. Surely it would be more dignified, more sensible to be a Christian again, than to lend your support to this inferior modern bunkum?"

Mrs. Delarayne, with her elbow on the mantelpiece and her chin in her hand, stood sulking and was mute.

"Good Heavens! The Inner Light!" He strode towards her. "Promise me you'll give it up," he said.

"What for?"

That was her position. What for? What did he propose to offer in compensation? His protection? His devotion? His love? Then the sacrifice might be worth while. She bowed her head and smiled icily. She adored this young man. This was the last weapon she believed she could still wield against him. She was aware, perhaps, that the Inner Light was all nonsense. The fact that he said it was made it abundantly probable to her. But was it possible that the Inner Light might afford her a means of bringing their relationship to its desired conclusion?

"A supremely intelligent woman like you," Lord Henry continued, "—really! And the Incandescent Gerald! And hymn number 27——!"

"You may scoff," said the poor lady, feeling uncommonly hot, "but it all means something to me."

"That is not true!" Lord Henry exclaimed. "You know it's not true. Oh, and Lady fflote, and Lady Muriel. And Adolf Albernspiel—God!"

"Are you still determined to go to China?" Mrs. Delarayne demanded, her voice faltering a little.

"As firmly as ever."

"Well, don't let us quarrel then," she said. "The time is short enough."

"Lord Henry," she began hesitatingly, as she pulled a marguerite to pieces over the fender. "I asked you to stay for a few minutes because I wanted to consult you on a very delicate matter."

He sat down facing her, and began to tug at the mesh over his brow. He frowned and blinked rapidly, as was his wont when interested. He wondered whether this charming and unhappy creature realised how thoroughly he understood her.

"You know Leonetta is home again," Mrs. Delarayne continued.

Lord Henry nodded.

"She is rather difficult to manage."

He nodded again.

"She is so full of life, so eager, so—well, can you imagine me at seventeen? Can you picture the mercurial creature I was, with every sense agog, with every nerve on the qui vive?—a dreadful little person in every way."

Lord Henry chuckled, and gave his forelock one or two unusually rapid twists.

"Leonetta is if anything worse than I was," Mrs. Delarayne continued, "for she is of this century. I belonged to the last one. D'you understand?"

He bowed.

"She is vitality incarnate,—wilful, womanly, vain, beautiful,—not more beautiful than Cleopatra, but more intrepid, more inquisitive, more determined to live than her elder sister."

"Have you a photograph of her?" Lord Henry enquired.

Mrs. Delarayne darted across the room, and returned with a large framed photograph which she handed to her visitor.

"There's the latest. It was taken a month ago."

Lord Henry examined it closely.

"Yes," he said, with his customary gravity in dealing with interesting questions. "I see. I see now. Well?"

"Can you see the girl she is? Daring,—oh, and can I say it?"

Lord Henry looked up and blinked rapidly again.

"A little—a little——"

"A little inclined to temperamental precocity?" Lord Henry enquired.

Mrs. Delarayne, very much relieved, nodded quickly.

"That's exactly it,—that's just what I meant to say,—that's it precisely. Oh how accurately that describes her!"

The elegant widow was uncommonly agitated and anxious. Lord Henry noted her state of mind, and wondered what it signified.

"I feel—people tell me,—I feel I ought perhaps to tell Leonetta——"

"You are wondering," Lord Henry interrupted, hoping to help her, "whether it is your duty to enlighten the child at all concerning——"

She sat down beside him. "Yes, I am," she said quickly.

"Has she asked any questions?" Lord Henry demanded, allowing his hand for a moment to hang motionless from his mesh of hair and glancing up at the cornice.

"No, I scarcely expect that," Mrs. Delarayne replied. "But in case. You see Cleopatra was so different. I never had any difficulty with her. Her reserve was always so rigid, I would have trusted her as a cantiniÈre in a barracks of Zouaves. I never spoke a word about anything to Cleopatra. But Leonetta!"

"Yes, I see. You think Leonetta different?"

"What ought I to do? Do help me! Some say this and some say that. Some say that a mother should speak; some say that they never did, and they don't see why I should. My sister, Miss Mallowcoid, you know, says I ought to."

Lord Henry gave vent to an expletive of contempt.

"I'll do what you say;—only what you say," said the harassed matron, resting a hand on his.

"You should begin, my dear lady," Lord Henry replied, "by utterly distrusting all the nonsense the modern world says on this subject."

"But I do,—I don't! I mean, I pay no heed to what anybody says but you."

A shadow from the Inner Light passed across Lord Henry's mind; but that, he rightly imagined, was the widow's last little fortress against him.

"The bond that unites parent to child is a very precious one," Lord Henry continued. "It is, however, as brittle as it is precious. A trifle will snap it. Now there is one aspect of the relationship between parent and child, the physical aspect, the physical relation, which lies beneath a sort of sacred seal: it is deliberately never fully realised; it does not require to be fully realised, particularly by the child——"

Mrs. Delarayne nodded quickly and smiled.

"Think of the havoc you may create, through yourself breaking this seal by calling this delicate aspect into prominence, by discussing with your child all those matters which, as between you and her, by virtue of your relationship, are a closed book!"

"Yes, I see, I see," cried the widow quickly. "My feelings, my instincts, were always against it from the very start, and I see now that I was right."

"The modern world is immensely stupid; few of us know how immensely stupid it is. Everything that modern thought expresses, on this subject, particularly, you must feel sure therefore is utterly and radically absurd. You cannot afford to weaken the precious bond that unites you to your children; therefore do not attempt this business."

"Yes, I see. Yes, you are right. I feel you are right."

"It can only lead to the most acute embarrassment as between parent and child,—however well it is done;—and you would do it admirably, I know. Unfortunately, when one is embarrassed one is not at one's best for understanding. Consequently the whole proceeding, besides being dangerous, would be utterly futile."

Mrs. Delarayne pressed his hand. "It is at times like these," she burst out a little tearfully, "that I think of you going to China, and all that."

He rose.

"One minute," she said, turning eyes glistening with tears pleadingly upon him. "You have not told me what to do."

"The natural and proper thing," he replied, "is to keep her well in hand and then to trust her to her husband. The good husband is the best hierophant."

"Yes, I understand," said Mrs. Delarayne rising also.

"They master these things better on the Continent than we do in England," Lord Henry continued. "The young girl is carefully supervised, scrupulously watched, and a good husband is entrusted with the rest. That is by far the best."

"Yes," Mrs. Delarayne exclaimed, laughing in her old way for the first time that afternoon, "but then, you see, they happen to have the Continental husband to whom they can entrust the matter."

"True," Lord Henry replied. "Never mind. We must try to find her someone who is as like a Continental husband as possible."

"St. Maur is a most fascinating boy," Mrs. Delarayne observed.

"Ah—hands off Aubrey, at least for the present. He's not ripe yet," said Lord Henry; and in a moment he was gone.