Somerset maughan

C'est tellement intime ici
,' smiled Dr Porhoët, breaking into French in 
the impossibility of expressing in English the exact feeling which 
that scene gave him. 
It might have been a picture by some master of 
genre
. It seemed 
hardly by chance that the colours arranged themselves in such 
agreeable tones, or that the lines of the wall and the seated persons 
achieved such a graceful decoration. The atmosphere was 
extraordinarily peaceful. 
There was a knock at the door, and Arthur got up to open. The 
terrier followed at his heels. Oliver Haddo entered. Susie watched to 
see what the dog would do and was by this time not surprised to see 
a change come over it. With its tail between its legs, the friendly 

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little beast slunk along the wall to the furthermost corner. It turned a 
suspicious, frightened eye upon Haddo and then hid its head. The 
visitor, intent upon his greetings, had not noticed even that there 
was an animal in the room. He accepted with a simple courtesy they 
hardly expected from him the young woman's thanks for his 
flowers. His behaviour surprised them. He put aside his poses. He 
seemed genuinely to admire the cosy little studio. He asked 
Margaret to show him her sketches and looked at them with 
unassumed interest. His observations were pointed and showed a 
certain knowledge of what he spoke about. He described himself as 
an amateur, that object of a painter's derision: the man 'who knows 
what he likes'; but his criticism, though generous, showed that he 
was no fool. The two women were impressed. Putting the sketches 
aside, he began to talk, of the many places he had seen. It was 
evident that he sought to please. Susie began to understand how it 
was that, notwithstanding his affectations, he had acquired so great 
an influence over the undergraduates of Oxford. There was romance 
and laughter in his conversation; and though, as Frank Hurrell had 
said, lacking in wit, he made up for it with a diverting pleasantry 
that might very well have passed for humour. But Susie, though 
amused, felt that this was not the purpose for which she had asked 
him to come. Dr Porhoët had lent her his entertaining work on the 
old alchemists, and this gave her a chance to bring their 
conversation to matters on which Haddo was expert. She had read 
the book with delight and, her mind all aflame with those strange 
histories wherein fact and fancy were so wonderfully mingled, she 
was eager to know more. The long toil in which so many had 
engaged, always to lose their fortunes, often to suffer persecution 
and torture, interested her no less than the accounts, almost 
authenticated, of those who had succeeded in their extraordinary 
quest. 
She turned to Dr Porhoët. 
'You are a bold man to assert that now and then the old alchemists 
actually did make gold,' she said. 
'I have not gone quite so far as that,' he smiled. 'I assert merely that, 
if evidence as conclusive were offered of any other historical event, 
it would be credited beyond doubt. We can disbelieve these 

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circumstantial details only by coming to the conclusion beforehand 
that it is impossible they should be true.' 
'I wish you would write that life of Paracelsus which you suggest in 
your preface.' 
Dr Porhoët, smiling shook his head. 
'I don't think I shall ever do that now,' he said. 'Yet he is the most 
interesting of all the alchemists, for he offers the fascinating problem 
of an immensely complex character. It is impossible to know to what 
extent he was a charlatan and to what a man of serious science.' 
Susie glanced at Oliver Haddo, who sat in silence, his heavy face in 
shadow, his eyes fixed steadily on the speaker. The immobility of 
that vast bulk was peculiar. 
'His name is not so ridiculous as later associations have made it 
seem,' proceeded the doctor, 'for he belonged to the celebrated 
family of Bombast, and they were called Hohenheim after their 
ancient residence, which was a castle near Stuttgart in Würtemberg. 
The most interesting part of his life is that which the absence of 
documents makes it impossible accurately to describe. He travelled 
in Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, in Denmark, Sweden, 
and Russia. He went even to India. He was taken prisoner by the 
Tartars, and brought to the Great Khan, whose son he afterwards 
accompanied to Constantinople. The mind must be dull indeed that 
is not thrilled by the thought of this wandering genius traversing the 
lands of the earth at the most eventful date of the world's history. It 
was at Constantinople that, according to a certain