The Place of the Lion by Charles Williams

friend—if he lived yet—was wandering, and Anthony disliked going off himself while the other’s doom remained unknown. And there might be some way—this Berringer now; perhaps something more could be found out about him. If he had opened, might he not close? Or his friends—this infernal group? Some of them might help: they couldn’t all want Archetypes coming down on them, not if they were like most of the religious people he had met. They also probably liked their religion taken mild—a pious hope, a devout ejaculation, a general sympathetic sense of a kindly universe—but nothing upsetting or bewildering, no agony, no darkness, no uncreated light. Perhaps he had better go and see some of them—Foster again, or even this Miss Wilmot, or the doctor who was attending Berringer, and whose wife had got Damaris (so she had told him) into this infernal mess. Yes, and then to persuade Damaris to go to London; and to look for Quentin …
    And all the while to be quiet and steady, to remember that man was meant to control, to be lord of his own nature, to accept the authority that had been given to Adam over all manner of beasts, as the antique fables reported, and to exercise that authority over the giants and gods which were threatening the world.
    Anthony sighed a little and stood up. “Adam,” he said, “Adam. Well, I am as much a child of Adam as any. The Red Earth is a little pale perhaps. Let’s go and walk in the garden among the beasts of the field which the Lord God hath made. I feel a trifle microcosmic, but if the proportion is in me let these others know it. Let me take the dominion over them—I wish I had any prospect of exercising dominion over Damaris.”

Chapter Seven
    INVESTIGATIONS INTO A RELIGION
    Dr. Rockbotham leaned back and looked at his watch. Mrs. Rockbotham looked at him. Dinner was just over; in a quarter of an hour he had to be in his surgery. The maid entered the room with a card on a salver. Dr. Rockbotham took it.
    â€œAnthony Durrant,” he read out and looked over at his wife enquiringly. She thought and shook her head.
    â€œNo,” she began, and then “O wait a minute! Yes, I believe I do remember. He’s one of my cousin’s people on The Two Camps . I met him there once.”
    â€œHe’s very anxious to see you, sir,” the maid said.
    â€œBut what can he want?” Dr. Rockbotham asked his wife. “If you know him, Elise, you’d better come along and see him too. I can’t give him very long now, and I’ve had a tiring day. Really, people do come at the most inconvenient times.”
    His protest however was only half-serious, and he turned a benign face on Anthony in the drawing-room. “Mr. Durrant? My wife thinks she remembers you, Mr. Durrant. You’re on The Two Camps , aren’t you? Yes, yes. Well, as you’ve met there’s no need for introductions. Sit down, do. And what can we do for you, Mr. Durrant?”
    â€œI’ve really only called to ask—if I may—a question about Mr. Berringer,” Anthony said. “We heard in London that he was very ill, and as he’s a person of some importance” (this, he thought guiltily, is the Archetypal Lie) “I thought I’d run down and enquire. As a matter of fact, there was some sort of idea that he should do a series of articles for us on … on the symbolism of the cosmic myths.”
    Mrs. Rockbotham nodded in pleasure. “I mentioned something of the sort to my cousin once,” she said. “I’m delighted to find that he followed it up. An excellent idea.”
    Anthony’s heart sank a little; he foresaw, if the world were not swallowed up, some difficulty in the future. “We were,” he said, “so sorry to hear he was ill. The housekeeper didn’t seem to know much, and as Mr. Tighe—whom you know, I think—mentioned that you were attending him, I