“Just as you like,” said Clinton, tapping the table with his thumb, which was adorned with a massive jade ring curiously carved. “I always drink brandy after heroin, but you order what you please.” It may have been the whisky, it may have been the pressing nervous strain or a combination of both, which caused Bellamy now to regard the mural decorations with a much modified sang-froid. Those distorted and tortured patches of flat colour, how subtly suggestive they were of something sniggeringly evil! “I gave Valin the subject for those panels,” said Clinton. “They are meant to represent an impression of the stages in the Black Mass, but he drank away his original inspiration, and they fail to do that majestic ceremony justice.” Bellamy flinched at having his thoughts so easily read. “I was thinking the same thing,” he replied; “that unfortunate cat they’re slaughtering deserved a less ludicrous memorial to its fate.” Clinton looked at him sharply and sponged his oozing eye. “I have made these rather flamboyant references to my habits purposely. Not to impress you, but to see _how_ they impressed you. Had you appeared disgusted, I should have known it was useless to pursue our acquaintanceship. All my life I have been a law unto myself, and that is probably why the Law has always shown so much interest in me. I know myself to be a being apart, one to whom the codes and conventions of the herd can never be applied. I have sampled every so-called ‘vice,’ including every known drug. Always, however, with an object in view. Mere purposeless debauchery is not in my character. My Art, to which you have so kindly referred, must always come first. Sometimes it demands that I sleep with a negress, that I take opium or hashish; sometimes it dictates rigid asceticism, and I tell you, my friend, that if such an instruction came again to-morrow, as it has often come in the past, I could, without the slightest effort, lead a life of complete abstinence from drink, drugs and women for an indefinite period. In other words, I have gained absolute control over my senses after the most exhaustive experiments with them. How many can say the same? Yet one does not know what life can teach till that control is established. The man of superior power--there are no such women--should not flinch from such experiments, he should seek to learn every lesson evil as well as good has to teach. So will he be able to extend and multiply his personality, but always he must remain absolute master of himself. And then he will have many strange rewards, and many secrets will be revealed to him. Some day, perhaps, I will show you some which have been revealed to me.” “Have you absolutely no regard for what is called ‘morality’?” asked Bellamy.