Helwyse had the gift of familiarity,—­of that rare kind of familiarity which does not degenerate into contempt.  But there was an incongruity about this person, hard to assimilate.  In a couple of not very original sentences, he had wrought upon his listener an effect of depraved intellectual power, strangely combined with artless simplicity,—­an unspeakably distasteful conjunction!  Imagination, freed from the check of the senses, easily becomes grotesque; and Helwyse, unable to see his companion, had no difficulty in picturing him as a grisly monster, having a satanic head set upon the ingenuous shoulders of a child.  And what was Helwyse himself?  No longer, surely, the gravely humorous moralizer?  The laws of harmony forbid!  He is a monster likewise; say—­since grotesqueness is in vogue—­the heart of Lucifer burning beneath the cool brain of a Grecian sage.  The symbolism is not inapt, since Helwyse, while afflicted with pride and ambition as abstract as boundless, had, at the same time, a logical, fearless brain, and keen delight in beauty.

“I was just thinking,” remarked the latter monster, “that this was a good place for confidential conversation.”

“You believe, then, that talking relieves the mind?” rejoined the former, softly.

“I believe a thief or a murderer would be glad of an hour—­such as now passes—­to impart the story of what is dragging him to Hell.  And even the best houses are better for an airing!”

“A pregnant idea!  There are certainly some topics one would like to discuss, free from the restraint that responsibility imposes.  Have you ever reflected on the subject of omnipotence?”

Somewhat confounded at this bold question, Helwyse hesitated a moment.

“I can’t see you, remember, any more than you can see me,” insinuated the voice, demurely.

“I believe I have sometimes asked myself whether it were obtainable,—­how it might best be approximated,” admitted Helwyse, cautiously; for he began to feel that even darkness might be too transparent for the utterance of some thoughts.

“But you never got a satisfactory answer, and are not therefore omnipotent?  Well, the reason probably is, that you started wrongly.  Did it ever occur to you to try the method of sin?”

“To obtain omnipotence?  No!”

“It wouldn’t be right,—­eh?” chuckled the voice.  “But then one must lay aside prejudice if one wants to be all-powerful!  Now, sin denotes separation; the very etymology of the word should have attracted the attention of an ambitious man, such as you seem to be.  It is a path separate from all other paths, and therefore worth exploring.”

“It leads to weakness, not to power!”

“If followed in the wrong spirit, very true.  But the wise man sins and is strong!  See how frank I am!—­But don’t let me monopolize the conversation.”

“I should like to hear your argument, if you have one.  You are a prophet of new things.”