To all appearances he conducted himself in a rational manner, though slightly eccentric, but with his firm belief in metempsychosis, and his preparations for his future incarnation he could hardly be called sane. Yet he conducted all business matters with admirable skill, and in spite of the dilapidated state of the Grange, his farms were well managed, and his tenants found no cause to complain of neglect on the part of their landlord. Like all madmen, he was a profound egotist, and absorbed in his belief of a re-incarnation on this earth, he paid no heed to the claims of relatives or friends, neglecting all social duties in order to devote himself entirely to his favourite delusions. Such was the man who sat before Basil Beaumont, by whose skilful brush and genuine talent the strange face of the recluse was rapidly being transferred to the canvas in the most life-like manner.
"I hope this portrait will please you," said Beaumont, breaking the silence which had lasted some minutes, "it's the best thing I have ever done."
"Is it?" replied Garsworth, vaguely, his mind being far away, occupied with some abstruse thought. "Yes, of course. What did you say?"
"I hope you'll like the picture," repeated Beaumont, slowly.
"Of course I will," said the squire, quickly. "I want to see myself in the future as I am now. Some people look back on their portraits taken in youth, and see a faint semblance of their old age in the unwrinkled faces, but I will see this picture when in a new body which will have no resemblance in its form to the withered shape I now bear."
"As you say--a strange doctrine," said Garsworth, warming with his subject, "but a very true one. My body is old and worn out. Physically, I am an irreparable wreck, but my soul is as lusty, fresh and eager as it was in the days of my youth. Why, then, should not my true entity shed this worn-out, fleshly envelope as a snake does its skin, and enter into a new one replete with the vigour of youth?"
"A difficult question to answer," replied Beaumont, calmly, "very, very difficult. We have no proof that such a thing can happen."
"Pardon me, no. A materialist, as I understand the word, denies the independent existence of spirit; I do not. I believe our spirits or souls to be immortal: but, as to this re-incarnation theory--it is a dream of Pythagoras."