Often he spent the night in the cool court of his villa, lying amidst
soft cushions heaped upon the marble bench. A lamp stood on the table at
his elbow, its light making the water in the cistern twinkle. There was
no sound in the court except the soft continual plashing of the fountain.
Throughout these still hours he would meditate, and he became more than
ever convinced that man could, if he pleased, become lord of his own
sensations. This, surely, was the true meaning concealed under the
beautiful symbolism of alchemy. Some years before he had read many of the
wonderful alchemical books of the later Middle Ages, and had suspected
that something other than the turning of lead into gold was intended.
This impression was deepened when he looked into _Lumen de Lumine_
by Vaughan, the brother of the Silurist, and he had long puzzled himself
in the endeavor to find a reasonable interpretation of the hermetic
mystery, and of the red powder, "glistening and glorious in the sun." And
the solution shone out at last, bright and amazing, as he lay quiet in
the court of Avallaunius. He knew that he himself had solved the riddle,
that he held in his hand the powder of projection, the philosopher's
stone transmuting all it touched to fine gold; the gold of exquisite
impressions. He understood now something of the alchemical symbolism; the
crucible and the furnace, the "Green Dragon," and the "Son Blessed of the
Fire" had, he saw, a peculiar meaning. He understood, too, why the
uninitiated were warned of the terror and danger through which they must
pass; and the vehemence with which the adepts disclaimed all desire for
material riches no longer struck him as singular. The wise man does not
endure the torture of the furnace in order that he may be able to compete
with operators in pork and company promoters; neither a steam yacht, nor
a grouse-moor, nor three liveried footmen would add at all to his
gratifications. Again Lucian said to himself:

"Only in the court of Avallaunius is the true science of the exquisite to