Crome Yellow | Page 6

his life Henry asserted himself, and with good effect, it seemed.
Priscilla's gay and gadding existence had come to an abrupt end. Nowadays she spent
almost all her time at Crome, cultivating a rather ill-defined malady. For consolation she
dallied with New Thought and the Occult. Her passion for racing still possessed her, and
Henry, who was a kind-hearted fellow at bottom, allowed her forty pounds a month
betting money. Most of Priscilla's days were spent in casting the horoscopes of horses,
and she invested her money scientifically, as the stars dictated. She betted on football too,
and had a large notebook in which she registered the horoscopes of all the players in all
the teams of the League. The process of balancing the horoscopes of two elevens one
against the other was a very delicate and difficult one. A match between the Spurs and
the Villa entailed a conflict in the heavens so vast and so complicated that it was not to be
wondered at if she sometimes made a mistake about the outcome.
"Such a pity you don't believe in these things, Denis, such a pity," said Mrs. Wimbush in
her deep, distinct voice.
"I can't say I feel it so."
"Ah, that's because you don't know what it's like to have faith. You've no idea how
amusing and exciting life becomes when you do believe. All that happens means
something; nothing you do is ever insignificant. It makes life so jolly, you know. Here am
I at Crome. Dull as ditchwater, you'd think; but no, I don't find it so. I don't regret the Old
Days a bit. I have the Stars..." She picked up the sheet of paper that was lying on the
blotting- pad. "Inman's horoscope," she explained. "(I thought I'd like to have a little fling
on the billiards championship this autumn.) I have the Infinite to keep in tune with," she
waved her hand. "And then there's the next world and all the spirits, and one's Aura, and
Mrs. Eddy and saying you're not ill, and the Christian Mysteries and Mrs. Besant. It's all
splendid. One's never dull for a moment. I can't think how I used to get on before--in the
Old Days. Pleasure--running about, that's all it was; just running about. Lunch, tea, dinner,

theatre, supper every day. It was fun, of course, while it lasted. But there wasn't much left
of it afterwards. There's rather a good thing about that in Barbecue-Smith's new book.
Where is it?"
She sat up and reached for a book that was lying on the little table by the head of the sofa.
"Do you know him, by the way?" she asked.
"Who?"
"Mr. Barbecue-Smith."
Denis knew of him vaguely. Barbecue-Smith was a name in the Sunday papers. He wrote
about the Conduct of Life. He might even be the author of "What a Young Girl Ought to
Know".
"No, not personally," he said.
"I've invited him for next week-end." She turned over the pages of the book. "Here's the
passage I was thinking of. I marked it. I always mark the things I like."
Holding the book almost at arm's length, for she was somewhat long-sighted, and making
suitable gestures with her free hand, she began to read, slowly, dramatically.
"'What are thousand pound fur coats, what are quarter million incomes?'" She looked up
from the page with a histrionic movement of the head; her orange coiffure nodded
portentously. Denis looked at it, fascinated. Was it the Real Thing and henna, he
wondered, or was it one of those Complete Transformations one sees in the
advertisements?
"'What are Thrones and Sceptres?'"
The orange Transformation--yes, it must be a Transformation-- bobbed up again.
"'What are the gaieties of the Rich, the splendours of the Powerful, what is the pride of
the Great, what are the gaudy pleasures of High Society?'"
The voice, which had risen in tone, questioningly, from sentence to sentence, dropped
suddenly and boomed reply.
"'They are nothing. Vanity, fluff, dandelion seed in the wind, thin vapours of fever. The
things that matter happen in the heart. Seen things are sweet, but those unseen are a
thousand times more significant. It is the unseen that counts in Life.'"
Mrs. Wimbush lowered the book. "Beautiful, isn't it?" she said.
Denis preferred not to hazard an opinion, but uttered a non- committal "H'm."
"Ah, it's a fine book this, a beautiful book," said Priscilla, as she let the pages flick back,

one by one, from under her thumb. "And here's the passage about the Lotus Pool. He
compares the Soul to a Lotus Pool, you know." She held up the book again and read. "'A
Friend of mine has a Lotus Pool in his garden. It lies in a little dell embowered with wild
roses and eglantine,