The Crack of Doom | Page 4

swarming past. Her dark eyes followed the people with a strange wondering, pitying look which I did not understand. Her face, exquisite in its expression at all times, was now absolutely transformed, beatified. Brande had often spoken to me of mesmerism, clairvoyance, and similar subjects, and it occurred to me that he had used his sister as a medium, a clairvoyante. Her brain was not, therefore, under normal control. I determined instantly to tell him on the first opportunity that if he did not wish to see the girl permanently injured, he would have to curtail his hypnotic influence.
"It is rather a stirring sight," I said so sharply to Miss Brande that she started. I meant to startle her, but did not succeed as far as I wished.
"It is a very terrible sight," she answered.
"Oh, there is no danger," I said hastily, and drew her hand over my arm.
"Danger! I was not thinking of danger."
As she did not remove her hand, I did not infringe the silence which followed this, until a break in the traffic allowed us to cross the street. Then I said:
"May I ask what you were thinking of just now, Miss Brande?"
"Of the people--their lives--their work--their misery!"
"I assure you many are very happy," I replied. "You take a morbid view. Misery is not the rule. I am sure the majority are happy."
"What difference does that make?" the girl said with a sigh. "What is the end of it all--the meaning of it all? Their happiness! Cui Bono?"
We walked on in silence, while I turned over in my mind what she had said. I could come to no conclusion upon it save that my dislike for her enigmatic aberrations was becoming more intense as my liking for the girl herself increased. To change the current of her thoughts and my own, I asked her abruptly:
"Are you a member of the Cui Bono Society?"
"I! Oh, no. Women are not allowed to join--for the present--"
"I am delighted to hear it," I said heartily, "and I hope the rule will continue in force."
She looked at me in surprise. "Why should you mind? You are joining yourself."
"That is different. I don't approve of ladies mixing themselves up in these curious and perhaps questionable societies."
My remark amused her. Her eyes sparkled with simple fun. The change in her manner was very agreeable to me.
"I might have expected that." To my extreme satisfaction she now looked almost mischievous.
"Herbert told me you were a little--"
"A little what?"
"Well, a little--you won't be vexed? That is right. He said a little--mediaeval."
This abated my appreciation of her sense of humour, and I maintained a dignified reticence, which unhappily she regarded as mere sullenness, until we reached the Society's room.
The place was well filled, and the company, in spite of the extravagantly modern costumes of the younger women, which I cannot describe better than by saying that there was little difference in it from that of ordinary male attire, was quite conventional in so far as the interchange of ordinary courtesies went. When, however, any member of the Society mingled with a group of visitors, the conversation was soon turned into a new channel. Secrets of science, which I had been accustomed to look upon as undiscoverable, were bandied about like the merest commonplaces of education. The absurdity of individuality and the subjectivity of the emotions were alike insisted on without notice of the paradox, which to me appeared extreme. The Associates were altruistic for the sake of altruism, not for the sake of its beneficiaries. They were not pantheists, for they saw neither universal good nor God, but rather evil in all things--themselves included. Their talk, however, was brilliant, and, with allowance for its jarring sentiments, it possessed something of the indefinable charm which followed Brande. My reflections on this identity of interest were interrupted by the man himself. After a word of welcome he said:
"Let me show you our great experiment; that which touches the high-water mark of scientific achievement in the history of humanity. It is not much in itself, but it is the pioneer of many marvels."
He brought me to a metal stand, on which a small instrument constructed of some white metal was placed. A large number of wires were connected with various portions of it, and these wires passed into the side-wall of the building.
In appearance, this marvel of micrology, so far as the eye-piece and upper portions went, was like an ordinary microscope, but its magnifying power was to me unbelievable. It magnified the object under examination many thousand times more than the most powerful microscope in the world.
I looked through the upper lens, and saw a small globe suspended in the middle of a tiny chamber filled with soft blue light, or transparent material. Circling round this globe four other