“Grand Hotel,” I responded, inwardly amused at his puzzled and anxious expression—I knew he was already mentally calculating how much he could make out of me in the pursuit of my literary whim—“Come there, and lunch or dine with me tomorrow if you like—only send me a word beforehand. Remember, I give you just a day’s grace to decide,—it must be yes or no, in twenty-four hours!”
And with this I left him, staring vaguely after me like a man who has seen some nameless wonder drop out of the sky at his feet. I went on, laughing to myself inaudibly, till I saw one or two passers-by looking at me so surprisedly that I came to the conclusion that I must put a disguise on my thoughts if I would not be taken for a madman. I walked briskly, and presently my excitement cooled down. I resumed the normal condition of the phlegmatic Englishman who considers it the height of bad form to display any personal emotion whatever, and I occupied the rest of the morning in purchasing some ready-made apparel which by unusual good luck happened to fit me, and also in giving an extensive, not to say extravagant order to a fashionable tailor in Sackville Street who promised me everything with punctuality and despatch. I next sent off the rent I owed to the landlady of my former lodgings, adding five pounds extra by way of recognition of the poor woman’s long patience in giving me credit, and general kindness towards me during my stay in her dismal house,—and this done I returned to the Grand in high spirits, looking and feeling very much the better for my ready-made outfit. A waiter met me in the corridor and with the most obsequious deference, informed me that ‘his excellency the prince’ was waiting luncheon for me in his own apartments. Thither I repaired at once, and found my new friend alone in his sumptuous drawing-room, standing near the full light of the largest window and holding in his hand an oblong crystal case through which he was looking with an almost affectionate solicitude.
“Ah, Geoffrey! Here you are!” he exclaimed—“I imagined you would get through your business by lunch time, so I waited.”
“Very good of you!” I said, pleased at the friendly familiarity he displayed in thus calling me by my Christian name—“What have you got there?”
“A pet of mine,”—he answered, smiling slightly—“Did you ever see anything like it before?”
VI
I approached and examined the box he held. It was perforated with finely drilled holes for the admission of air, and within it lay a brilliant winged insect coloured with all the tints and half-tints of the rainbow.
“Is it alive?” I asked.
“It is alive, and has a sufficient share of intelligence,”—replied Rimânez. “I feed it and it knows me,—that is the utmost you can say of the most civilized human beings; they know what feeds them. It is quite tame and friendly as you perceive,”—and opening the case he gently advanced his forefinger. The glittering beetle’s body palpitated with the hues of an opal; its radiant wings expanded, and it rose at once to its protector’s hand and clung there. He lifted it out and held it aloft, then shaking it to and fro lightly, he exclaimed—
“Off, Sprite! Fly, and return to me!”
The creature soared away through the room and round and round the ceiling, looking like a beautiful iridescent jewel, the whirr of its wings making a faint buzzing sound as it flew. I watched it fascinated, till after a few graceful movements hither and thither, it returned to its owner’s still outstretched hand, and again settled there making no further attempt to fly.
“There is a well-worn platitude which declares that ‘in the midst of life we are in death’”—said the prince then softly, bending his dark deep eyes on the insect’s quivering wings—“But as a matter of fact that maxim is wrong as so many trite human maxims are. It should be ‘in the midst of death we are in life.’ This creature is a rare and curious production of death, but not I believe the only one of its kind. Others have been found under precisely similar circumstances. I took possession of this one myself in rather a weird fashion,—will the story bore you?”
“On the contrary”—I rejoined eagerly, my eyes fixed on the radiant bat-shaped thing that glittered in the light as though its veins were phosphorescent.
He paused a moment, watching me.
“Well,—it happened simply thus,—I was present at the uncasing of an Egyptian female mummy;—her talismans described her as a princess of a famous royal house. Several curious jewels were tied round her neck, and on her chest was a piece of beaten gold quarter of an inch thick. Underneath this gold plate, her body was swathed round and round in an unusual number of scented wrappings; and when these were removed it was discovered that the mummified flesh between her breasts had decayed away, and in the hollow or nest thus formed by the process of decomposition, this insect I hold was found alive, as brilliant in colour as it is now!”
I could not repress a slight nervous shudder.
“Horrible!” I said—“I confess, if I were you, I should not care to make a pet of such an uncanny object. I should kill it, I think.”
He kept his bright intent gaze upon me.
“Why?” he asked. “I’m afraid, my dear Geoffrey, you are not disposed to study science. To kill the poor thing who managed to find life in the very bosom of death, is a cruel suggestion, is it not? To me, this unclassified insect is a valuable proof (if I needed one) of the indestructibility of the germs of conscious existence; it has eyes, and the senses of taste, smell, touch and hearing,—and it gained these together with its intelligence, out of the dead flesh of a woman who lived, and no doubt loved and sinned and suffered more than four thousand years ago!” He broke off,—then suddenly added—“All the same I frankly admit to you that I believe it to be an evil creature. I do indeed! But I like it none the less for that. In fact I have rather a fantastic notion about it myself. I am much inclined to accept the idea of the transmigration of souls, and so I please my humour sometimes by thinking that perhaps the princess of that Royal Egyptian house had a wicked, brilliant, vampire soul,—and that … here it is!”
A cold thrill ran through me from head to foot at these words, and as I looked at the speaker standing opposite me in the wintry light, dark and tall, with the ‘wicked, brilliant, vampire soul’ clinging to his hand, there seemed to me to be a sudden hideousness declared in his excessive personal beauty. I was conscious of a vague terror, but I attributed it to the gruesome nature of the story, and, determining to combat my sensations, I examined the weird insect more closely. As I did so, its bright beady eyes sparkled, I thought, vindictively, and I stepped back, vexed with myself at the foolish fear of the thing which overpowered me.
“It is certainly remarkable,”—I murmured—“No wonder you value it,—as a curiosity. Its eyes are quite distinct, almost intelligent in fact.”
“No doubt she had beautiful eyes,”—said Rimânez smiling.
“She? Whom do you mean?”
“The princess, of course!” he answered, evidently amused; “The dear dead lady,—some of whose personality must be in this creature, seeing that it had nothing but her body to nourish itself upon.”
And here he replaced the creature in its crystal habitation with the utmost care.
“I suppose”—I said slowly, “you, in your pursuit of science, would infer from this that nothing actually perishes completely?”
“Exactly!” returned Rimânez emphatically. “There, my dear Tempest, is the mischief,—or the deity,—of things. Nothing can be entirely annihilated;—not even a thought.”
I was silent, watching him while he put the glass case with its uncanny occupant away out of sight.
“And now for luncheon,” he said gaily, passing his arm through mine—“You look twenty per cent. better than when you went out this morning, Geoffrey, so I conclude your legal matters are disposed of satisfactorily. And what else have you done with yourself?”
Seated at table with the dark-faced Amiel in attendance, I related my morning’s adventures, dwelling at length on my chance meeting