Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy | Page 6

went on, "but it's because I
feel from what you have said that you know and love America. And I
think I can help you."
"You mean," he said, divining her idea, "that you can help me to meet a
multimillionaire?"
"Yes," she answered, still hesitating.
"You know one?"
"Yes," still hesitating, "I know ONE."
She seemed about to say more, her lips had already opened, when
suddenly the dull raucous blast of the foghorn (they used a raucous one
on this ship on purpose) cut the night air. Wet fog rolled in about them,
wetting everything.
The girl shivered.
"I must go," she said; "good night."
For a moment de Vere was about to detain her. The wild thought leaped
to his mind to ask her her name or at least her mother's. With a
powerful effort he checked himself.

"Good night," he said.
She was gone.

CHAPTER II
Limits of space forbid the insertion of the whole of this chapter. Its
opening contains one of the most vivid word-pictures of the inside of
an American customs house ever pictured in words. From the customs
wharf de Vere is driven in a taxi to the Belmont. Here he engages a
room; here, too, he sleeps; here also, though cautiously at first, he eats.
All this is so admirably described that only those who have driven in a
taxi to an hotel and slept there can hope to appreciate it.
Limits of space also forbid our describing in full de Vere's vain quest in
New York of the beautiful creature whom he had met on the steamer
and whom he had lost from sight in the aigrette department of the
customs house. A thousand times he cursed his folly in not having
asked her name.
Meanwhile no word comes from her, till suddenly, mysteriously,
unexpectedly, on the fourth day a note is handed to de Vere by the
Third Assistant Head Waiter of the Belmont. It is addressed in a lady's
hand. He tears it open. It contains only the written words, "Call on Mr.
J. Superman Overgold. He is a multimillionaire. He expects you."
To leap into a taxi (from the third story of the Belmont) was the work
of a moment. To drive to the office of Mr. Overgold was less. The
portion of the novel which follows is perhaps the most notable part of it.
It is this part of the chapter which the Hibbert Journal declares to be the
best piece of psychological analysis that appears in any novel of the
season. We reproduce it here.
"Exactly, exactly," said de Vere, writing rapidly in his note-book as he
sat in one of the deep leather armchairs of the luxurious office of Mr.
Overgold. "So you sometimes feel as if the whole thing were not worth

while."
"I do," said Mr. Overgold. "I can't help asking myself what it all means.
Is life, after all, merely a series of immaterial phenomena,
self-developing and based solely on sensation and reaction, or is it
something else?"
He paused for a moment to sign a cheque for $10,000 and throw it out
of the window, and then went on, speaking still with the terse brevity of
a man of business.
"Is sensation everywhere or is there perception too? On what grounds,
if any, may the hypothesis of a self-explanatory consciousness be
rejected? In how far are we warranted in supposing that innate ideas are
inconsistent with pure materialism?"
De Vere listened, fascinated. Fortunately for himself, he was a
University man, fresh from the examination halls of his Alma Mater.
He was able to respond at once.
"I think," he said modestly, "I grasp your thought. You mean--to what
extent are we prepared to endorse Hegel's dictum of immaterial
evolution?"
"Exactly," said Mr. Overgold. "How far, if at all, do we substantiate the
Kantian hypothesis of the transcendental?"
"Precisely," said de Vere eagerly. "And for what reasons [naming them]
must we reject Spencer's theory of the unknowable?"
"Entirely so," continued Mr. Overgold. "And why, if at all, does
Bergsonian illusionism differ from pure nothingness?"
They both paused.
Mr. Overgold had risen. There was great weariness in his manner.
"It saddens one, does it not?" he said.

He had picked up a bundle of Panama two per cent. gold bonds and was
looking at them in contempt.
"The emptiness of it all!" he muttered. He extended the bonds to de
Vere.
"Do you want them," he said, "or shall I throw them away?"
"Give them to me," said de Vere quietly; "they are not worth the
throwing."
"No, no," said Mr. Overgold, speaking half to himself, as he replaced
the bonds in his desk. "It is a burden that I must carry alone. I have no
right to ask any one to share it.