Page:The Yellow Book - 04.djvu/203

Rh, we had not strayed off the legitimate ground of mere society nothings, whatever we might feel lay beneath them. And Theodora was trained thoroughly in the ways of fashion.

The next second she leant back in her chair, saying lightly, "A false, absurd, and unnatural god; it is the greatest error to strive after the impossible; it merely prevents you accomplishing the possible. Gods like these," and she indicated the abominable squint-eyed Venus, "are merely natural instincts personified, and one may well call them gods since they are invincible. Don't you remember the fearful punishments that the Greeks represented as overtaking mortals who dared to resist nature's laws, that they chose to individualise as their gods? You remember the fate of Hippolytus who tried to disdain Venus, of Pentheus who tried to subdue Bacchus? These two plays teach the immortal lesson that if you have the presumption to try to be greater than nature she will in the end take a terrible revenge. The most we can do is to guide her. You can never be her conqueror. Consider yourself fortunate if she allows you to be her charioteer."

It was all said very lightly and jestingly, but at the last phrase there was a flash in her eye, directed upon me—yes, me—as if she read down into my inner soul, and it sent the blood to my face.

As the last word left her lips, she stretched out her hand and deliberately took my ring from the head of Shiva, put it above her own diamonds on the other idol, and laid the god I had chosen, the god of austerity and mortification, prostrate on its face, at the feet of the leering Venus.

Then, without troubling to find a transition phrase, she got up and said, "I am going to look at that Persian carpet."

It had all taken but a few seconds; the next minute we were over by the carpet, standing in front of it and admiring its hues in