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As I looked, Brande touched a key, and the little globules began to fly more rapidly round their primary, and make wider sweeps in their revolutions. Another key was pressed, and the revolving spheres slowed down and drew closer until I could scarcely distinguish any movement. The globules seemed to form a solid ball. "Attend now!" Brande exclaimed. He tapped the first key sharply.
The line dividing it from vulgarity was becoming so thin I was losing sight of the divisor. Yet no one, even the most fastidious, could associate vulgarity with Natalie Brande. There remained an air of unassumed sincerity about herself and all her actions, including even her dress, which absolutely excluded her from hostile criticism.
I denie that Tobacco wastes ones substance, & I would refer your Majestie to my demonstration of the Extrauagance of not smoaking. And is it not an advantage that it resembleth to the Stigian smoak of the pit? The more we accustom ourselves thereto, the lesse we shall suffer when we join your Majestie. Will your Majestie kindlie recommend a Brande?
Thus spake Herbert Brande, a passenger on the Majestic, making for Queenstown Harbour, one evening early in the past year. Foolish as the words may seem, they were partly influential in leading to my terrible association with him, and all that is described in this book. Brande was standing beside me on the starboard side of the vessel.
For some time she had looked on at my discomfiture with a good-natured neutrality, and when I was metaphorically in my last ditch, she arose, stretched her shapely figure, flicked some clinging grass blades from her suit, and declared it was time to return. Brande was a man of science, but as such he was still amenable to punctuality in the matter of dinner.
Thus, Brande asserts that "A republic may be either a democracy or an aristocracy!" and proceeds to say: "In the former, the supreme power is vested in the whole body of the people, or in representatives elected by the people; in the latter, it is vested in a nobility, or a privileged class of comparatively a small number of persons."
There was only enough light to enable me to find my way along the corridor, off which the state-rooms occupied by Brande and his immediate lieutenants opened. All the sleepers were restless from the terrible heat. As I stole along, a muffled word, a sigh, or a movement in the berths, made me pause at every step with a beating heart. Having listened till all was quiet, I moved on again noiselessly.
"And now that I am a member, may I ask what is this object, the secret of which you guard with such fiendish zeal?" I demanded angrily. "The restoration of a local etheric tumour to its original formation." "I am already weary of this jargon from Brande," I interrupted. "What do you mean?" "We mean to attempt the reduction of the solar system to its elemental ether."
Grey handed me a book, which I found to be a register of the names of the members of Brande's Society, and pointed out the place for my signature. When I had written my name on the list I said to Brande: "Now that I have nominated myself, I suppose you'll second me?" "It is not necessary," he answered; "you are already a member. Your remark to Miss Metford this morning made you one of us.
"The desire for privacy is an archaic emotion," Miss Metford remarked sententiously, as she struck a match. "Besides, it is so selfish. We may be crowding others," Miss Brande said quietly. I was glad she did not smoke. "I don't want that now," I said to a porter who was hurrying up with a label. To the girls I remarked a little snappishly, "Of course you are quite right.
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