Diary of a Drug Fiend

354 The Diary of a Drug Fiend ‘** Love is the law, love under will.” I thrilled again, this time with a combination of surprise and exultation which was curiously unintelligi- ble. Then I saw, in one corner of the room, behind the array of benches and tables crowded with neatly dis- posed apparatus, a glimmering form. The back was turned to us; it was on the floor busily occupied in cleaning up. ‘This is Sir Peter Pendragon,” said Big Lion, “‘ who is coming to take charge of the laboratory.” My eyes were still unaccustomed to the gloom, but I could see the figure scramble to its feet, curtesy, and advance to me, where I stood in the shaft of sun- light that came through the half-open doorway. It was dressed in a knickerbocker suit of black silk. It wore sandals and black stockings. I recognised Lou. “ Big Lion said you might want to begin work this afternoon, Sir Peter,” she said with dignity, ‘‘so I have been trying to put the place in some sort of order.” I stood absolutely aghast. It was Lou, but a Lou that I had never seen or known. I turned to King Lamus for an explanation, but he was not there. A ripple of laughter ran over her face; the sunlight blazed in her magnetic eyes. JI trembled with in- describable emotion. Here was an undecipherable puzzle. Or was it by any chance the answer to a puzzle—to all my puzzles—the puzzle of life? I could think of nothing to say but the most lame and awkward banality. “What are you doing here?” I inquired. “My will, of course,” came the answer, and her eyes twinkled in the sunshine as unfathomably as the sea itself. “ Thou hast no right but to do thy will,” she quoted. “Do that and no other shall say nay.” “Oh, yes,’”’ I retorted, with a trace of annoyance. I had still a feeling of reaction against the Book of the Law. I hated to submit to a formula, however much