"'A foolish and barbaric superstition!'" he echoed slowly and meditatively. "You do not believe in any possibility of there being a life—or several lives—after this present death through which we must all pass inevitably, sooner or later?"
"Not in the least! I leave such ideas to the ignorant and uneducated. I should be unworthy of the progressive teachings of my time if I believed such arrant nonsense."
"Death, you consider, finishes all? There is nothing further—no mysteries beyond? … " and Dr. Dean's eyes glittered as he stretched forth one thin, slight hand and pointed into space with the word "beyond," an action which gave it a curious emphasis, and for a fleeting second left a weird impression on even the careless mind of Gervase. But he laughed it off lightly.
"Nothing beyond? Of course not! My dear sir, why ask such a question? Nothing can be plainer or more positive than the fact that death, as you say, finishes all."
A woman's laugh, low and exquisitely musical, rippled on the air as he spoke—delicious laughter, rarer than song; for women as a rule laugh too loudly, and the sound of their merriment partakes more of the nature of a goose's cackle than any other sort of natural melody. But this large, soft and silvery, was like a delicately subdued cadence played on a magic flute in the distance, and suggested nothing but sweetness; and at the sound of it Gervase started violently and turned sharply round upon his friend Murray with a look of wonderment and perplexity.
"Who is that?" he demanded. "I have heard that pretty laugh before; it must be some one I know."
But Denzil scarcely heard him. Pale, and with eyes full of yearning and passion, he was watching the slow approach of a group of people in fancy dress, who were all eagerly pressing round one central figure—the figure of a woman clad in gleaming golden tissues and veiled in the old Egyptian fashion up to the eyes, with jewels flashing about her waist, bosom and hair—a woman who moved glidingly as if she floated rather than walked, and whose beauty, half hidden as it was by the exigencies of the costume she had chosen, was so unusual and brilliant that it seemed to create an atmosphere of bewilderment and rapture around her as she came. She was preceded by a small Nubian boy in a costume of vivid scarlet, who, walking backwards humbly, fanned her slowly with a tall fan of peacock's plumes made after the quaint designs of ancient Egypt. The lustre radiating from the peacock's feathers, the light of her golden garments, her jewels and the marvellous black splendor of her eyes, all flashed for a moment like sudden lightning on Gervase; something—he knew not what—turned him giddy and blind; hardly knowing what he did, he sprang eagerly forward, when all at once he felt the lean, small hand of Dr. Dean on his arm and stopped short embarrassed.
"Pardon me!" said the little savant, with a delicate, half-supercilious lifting of his eyebrows. "But—do you know the Princess Ziska?"
CHAPTER II.
Gervase stared at him, still dazzled and confused.
"Whom did you say? … the Princess Ziska? … No, I don't know her … Yet, stay! Yes, I think I have seen her … somewhere—in Paris, possibly. Will you introduce me?"
"I leave that duty to Mr. Denzil Murray," said the Doctor, folding his arms neatly behind his back … "He knows her better than I do."
And smiling his little grim, cynical smile, he settled his academic cap more firmly on his head and strolled off towards the ballroom. Gervase stood irresolute, his eyes fixed on that wondrous golden figure that floated before his eyes like an aerial vision. Denzil Murray had gone forward to meet the Princess and was now talking to her, his handsome face radiating with the admiration he made no attempt to conceal. After a little pause Gervase moved towards him a step or two, and caught part of the conversation.
"You look the very beau-ideal of an Egyptian Princess," Murray was saying. "Your costume is perfect."
She laughed. Again that sweet, rare laughter! Gervase thrilled with the pulsation of it—it beat in his ears and smote his brain with a strange echo of familiarity.
"Is it not?" she responded. "I am 'historically correct,' as your friend Dr. Dean would say. My ornaments are genuine—they all came out of the same tomb."
"I find one fault with your attire, Princess," said one of the male admirers who had entered with her; "part of your face is veiled. That is a cruelty to us all!"
She waived the compliment aside with a light gesture.
"It was the fashion in ancient Egypt," she said. "Love in those old days was not what it is now—one glance, one smile was sufficient to set the soul on fire and draw another soul towards it to consume together in the suddenly kindled flame! And women veiled their faces in youth, lest they should be deemed too prodigal of their charms; and in age they covered themselves still more closely, in order not to affront the Sun-God's fairness by their wrinkles." She smiled, a dazzling smile that drew Gervase yet a few steps closer unconsciously, as though he were being magnetized. "But I am not bound to keep the veil always up," and as she spoke she loosened it and let it fall, showing an exquisite face, fair as a lily, and of such perfect loveliness that the men who were gathered round her seemed to lose breath and speech at sight of it. "That pleases you better, Mr. Murray?"
Denzil grew very pale. Bending down he murmured something to her in a low tone. She raised her lovely brows with a little touch of surprise that was half disdain, and looked at him straightly.
"You say very pretty things; but they do not always please me," she observed. "However, that is my fault, no doubt."
And she began to move onwards, her Nubian page preceding her as before.
Gervase stood in her path and confronted her as she came.
"Introduce me," he said in a commanding tone to Denzil.
Denzil looked at him, somewhat startled by the suppressed passion in his voice.
"Certainly. Princess, permit me!" She paused, a figure of silent grace and attention. "Allow me to present to you my friend, Armand Gervase, the most famous artist in France—Gervase, the Princess Ziska."
She raised her deep, dark eyes and fixed them on his face, and as he looked boldly at her in a kind of audacious admiration, he felt again that strange dizzying shock which had before thrilled him through and through. There was something strangely familiar about her; the faint odors that seemed exhaled from her garments—the gleam of the jewel-winged scarabei on her breast—the weird light of the emerald-studded serpent in her hair; and more, much more familiar than these trifles, was the sound of her voice—dulcet, penetrating, grave and haunting in its tone.
"At last we meet, Monsieur Armand Gervase!" she said slowly and with a graceful inclination of her head. "But I cannot look upon you as a stranger, for I have known you so long—in spirit!"
She smiled—a strange smile, dazzling yet enigmatical—and something wild and voluptuous seemed to stir in Gervase's pulses as he touched the small hand, loaded with quaint Egyptian gems, which she graciously extended towards him.
"I think I have known you, too!" he said. "Possibly in a dream—a dream of beauty never realized till now!"
His voice sank to an amorous whisper; but she said nothing in reply, nor could her looks be construed into any expression of either pleasure or offence. Yet through the heart of young Denzil Murray went a sudden pang of jealousy, and for the first time in his life he became conscious that even among men as well as women there may exist what is called the "petty envy" of a possible rival, and the uneasy desire to outshine such an one in all points of appearance, dress and manner. His gaze rested broodingly on the tall, muscular form of Gervase, and he noted the symmetry and supple grace of the man with an irritation of which he was ashamed. He knew, despite his own undeniably handsome personality, which was set off