Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/531

 ble parable. For, to Astro the Seer, modern science was but an allegory of the intellect and the emotions. By it he explained even his own charlatanry.

"Isn't it like absence? While our friend is present, he is bathed in the matter-of-fact light of day; he is radiant, luminous. When he disappears, for a time that impression of him lasts, like the phosphorescent glow. Then, the light fades and we begin to forget, all save those who truly love, who truly know, whose soul can still perceive the mysterious astral black light he radiates through the dark. His influence persists, transmuted from mental into psychic energy. Selah!"

He dropped his narghile and sat with folded hands, looking at her as if she were miles away. His smile was the calm expression of his own bronze Buddha.

But Valeska took the parable to herself eagerly. "Yes, yes, it's true, and that's just what I need to know before I give you the answer you want! I don't know whether I really love you or not,—you're too near me, too intermingled with my life and my work. If I could try that test of absence, if I could wait till your phosphorescence fades out, then I could tell whether or not I was affected by your black light. I'd know then just what you were to me—alone in the dark!"

"Shall we try it?" he asked gently. "Shall I disappear for a week, say?"

"Ah, I'm afraid it would take at least a month!" she said.

He laughed. "Well, as long as you like."

"Will you really?"

He bowed gravely. "I shall disappear to-morrow. You may use the studio as you please; and, when