第31章

He shuddered, he knew not why, and passed his hand over his high forehead. "Yes, I go there very often," he replied vacantly. "But you, mademoiselle--you--I have met before?""Oh, ages, ages ago!"There was something weird in her emphasis. "Ha!" said a voice near them, "I thought so!"It was the doctor,peering at them curiously. "And you both feel rather dazed and creepy?" He suddenly felt their pulses, lingering, however, as the Chevalier fancied, somewhat longer than necessary over the lady's wrist and beautiful arm. He then put a small round box in the Chevalier's hand, saying, "One before each meal," and turning to the lady with caressing professional accents said, "We must wrap ourselves closely and endeavor to induce perspiration," and hurried away, dragging the Chevalier with him. When they reached a secluded corner, he said, "You had just now a kind of feeling, don't you know, as if you'd sort of been there before, didn't you?""Yes, what you call a--preexistence," said the Chevalier wonderingly. "Yes; I have often observed that those who doubt a future state ofexistence have no hesitation in accepting a previous one," said the doctor dryly. "But come, I see from the way the crowd are hurrying that your divinity's number is up--I mean," he corrected himself hastily, "that she is probably dancing again.""Aha! with him, the imbecile McFeckless?" gasped the Chevalier. "No, alone."She was indeed alone, in the centre of the ballroom--with outstretched arms revolving in an occult, weird, dreamy, mystic, druidical, cabalistic circle. They now for the first time perceived the meaning of those strange wands which appeared to be attached to the many folds of her diaphanous skirts and involved her in a fleecy, whirling cloud. Yet in the wild convolutions of her garments and the mad gyrations of her figure, her face was upturned with the seraphic intensity of a devotee, and her lips parted as with the impassioned appeal for "Light! more light!" And the appeal was answered. A flood of blue, crimson, yellow, and green radiance was alternately poured upon her from the black box of a mysterious Nubian slave in the gallery. The effect was marvelous; at one moment she appeared as a martyr in a sheet of flame, at another as an angel wrapped in white and muffled purity, and again as a nymph of the cerulean sea, and then suddenly a cloud of darkness seemed to descend upon her, through which for an instant her figure, as immaculate and perfect as a marble statue, showed distinctly--then the light went out and she vanished!

The whole assembly burst into a rapturous cry. Even the common Arab attendants who were peeping in at the doors raised their melodious native cry, "Alloe, Fullah! Aloe, Fullah!" again and again.

A shocked silence followed. Then the voice of Sir Midas Pyle was heard addressing Dr. Haustus Pilgrim:

"May we not presume, sir, that what we have just seen is not unlike that remarkable exhibition when I was pained to meet you one evening at the Alhambra?"The doctor coughed slightly."The Alhambra--ah, yes!--you--er--refer, I presume, to Granada and the Land of the Moor, where we last met. The music and dance are both distinctly Moorish--which, after all, is akin to the Egyptian. I am gratified indeed that your memory should be so retentive and your archaeological comparison so accurate. But see! the ladies are retiring. Let us follow."

IV

The intoxication produced by the performance of the Princess naturally had its reaction. The British moral soul, startled out of its hypocrisy the night before, demanded the bitter beer of self-consciousness and remorse the next morning. The ladies were now openly shocked at what they had secretly envied. Lady Pyle was, however, propitiated by the doctor's assurance that the Princess was a friend of Lady Fitz-Fulke, who had promised to lend her youthful age and aristocratic prestige to the return ball which the Princess had determined to give at her own home. "Still, I think the Princess open to criticism," said Sir Midas oracularly.

"Damn all criticism and critics!" burst out McFeckless, with the noble frankness of a passionate and yet unfettered soul. Sir Midas, who employed critics in his business, as he did other base and ignoble slaves, drew up himself and his paunch and walked away.

The Chevalier cast a superb look at McFeckless. "Voila! Regard me well! I shall seek out this Princess when she is with herself! Alone, comprenez?I shall seek her at her hotel in the Egyptian Hall! Ha! ha! I shall seek Zut-Ski! Zut!" And he made that rapid yet graceful motion of his palm against his thigh known only to the true Parisian.

"It's a rum hole where she lives, and nobody gets a sight of her," said Flossy. "It's like a beastly family vault, don't you know, outside, and there's a kind of nigger doorkeeper that vises you and chucks you out if you haven't the straight tip. I'll show you the way, if you like.""Allons, en avant!" said the Chevalier gayly. "I precipitate myself there on the instant.""Remember!" hissed McFeckless, grasping his arm, "you shall account to me!""Bien!" said the Chevalier, shaking him off lightly. "All a-r-r- right." Then, in that incomparable baritone, which had so often enthralledthousands, he moved away, trolling the first verse of the Princess's own faint, sweet, sad song of the "Lotus Lily," that thrilled McFeckless even through the Chevalier's marked French accent:--"Oh, a hard zing to get is ze Lotus Lillee! She lif in ze swamp--in ze watair chillee; She make your foot wet--and you look so sillee, But you buy her for sixpence in Piccadillee!"In half an hour the two men reached the remote suburb where the Princess lived, a gloomy, windowless building. Pausing under a low archway over which in Egyptian characters appeared the faded legend, "Sta Ged Oor," they found a Nubian slave blocking the dim entrance.