Ziska (Gothic Classic). Marie Corelli

her fan, and comported herself altogether as if she were a hoyden of seventeen just let loose from school for the holidays. And then the worthy Dr. Maxwell Dean, somewhat exhausted by vigorous capering in the "Lancers," strolled forth to inhale the air, fanning himself with his cap as he walked, and listening keenly to every chance word or sentence he could hear, whether it concerned himself or not. He had peculiar theories, and one of them was, as he would tell you, that if you overheard a remark apparently not intended for you, you were to make yourself quite easy, as it was "a point of predestination" that you should at that particular moment, consciously or unconsciously, play the eavesdropper. The reason of it would, he always averred, be explained to you later on in your career. The well-known saying "listeners never hear any good of themselves" was, he declared, a most ridiculous aphorism. "You overhear persons talking and you listen. Very well. It may chance that you hear yourself abused. What then? Nothing can be so good for you as such abuse; the instruction given is twofold; it warns you against foes whom you have perhaps considered friends, and it tones down any overweening conceit you may have had concerning your own importance or ability. Listen to everything if you are wise—I always do. I am an old and practised listener. And I have never listened in vain. All the information I have gained through listening, though apparently at first disconnected and unclassified, has fitted into my work like the stray pieces of a puzzle, and has proved eminently useful. Wherever I am I always keep my ears well open."

      With such views as he thus entertained, life was always enormously interesting to Dr. Dean—he found nothing tiresome, not even the conversation of the type known as Noodle. The Noodle was as curious a specimen of nature to him as the emu or the crocodile. And as he turned up his intellectual little physiognomy to the deep, warm Egyptian sky and inhaled the air sniffingly, as though it were a monster scent-bottle just uncorked for his special gratification, he smiled as he observed Muriel Chetwynd Lyle standing entirely alone at the end of the terrace, attired as a "Boulogne fish-wife," and looking daggers after the hastily-retreating figure of a "White Hussar,"—no other than Ross Courtney.

      "How extremely droll a 'Boulogne fish-wife' looks in Egypt," commented the Doctor to his inward self. "Remarkable! The incongruity is peculiarly typical of the Chetwynd Lyles. The costume of the young woman is like the knighthood of her father—droll, droll, very droll!" Aloud he said—"Why are you not dancing, Miss Muriel?"

      "Oh, I don't know—I'm tired," she said, petulantly. "Besides, all the men are after that Ziska woman—they seem to have lost their heads about her!"

      "Ah!" and Dr. Dean rubbed his hands. "Yes—possibly! Well, she is certainly very beautiful."

      "I cannot see it!" and Muriel Chetwynd Lyle flushed with the inward rage which could not be spoken. "It's the way she dresses more than her looks. Nobody knows who she is—but they do not seem to care about that. They are all raving like lunatics over her, and that man—that artist who arrived here to-day, Armand Gervase—seems the maddest of the lot. Haven't you noticed how often he has danced with her?"

      "I couldn't help noticing that," said the Doctor, emphatically, "for I have never seen anything more exquisite than the way they waltz together. Physically, they seem made for one another."

      Muriel laughed disdainfully.

      "You had better tell Mr. Denzil Murray that; he is in a bad enough humor now, and that remark of yours wouldn't improve it, I can tell you!"

      She broke off abruptly, as a slim, fair girl, dressed as a Greek vestal in white, with a chaplet of silver myrtle-leaves round her hair, suddenly approached and touched Dr. Dean on the arm.

      "Can I speak to you a moment?" she asked.

      "My dear Miss Murray! Of course!" and the Doctor turned to her at once.

       "What is it?"

      She paced with him a few steps in silence, while Muriel Chetwynd Lyle moved languidly away from the terrace and re-entered the ball-room.

      "What is it?" repeated Dr. Dean. "You seem distressed; come, tell me all about it!"

      Helen Murray lifted her eyes—the soft, violet-gray eyes that Lord Fulkeward had said he admired—suffused with tears, and fixed them on the old man's face.

      "I wish," she said—"I wish we had never come to Egypt! I feel as if some great misfortune were going to happen to us; I do, indeed! Oh, Dr. Dean, have you watched my brother this evening?"

      "I have," he replied, and then was silent.

      "And what do you think?" she asked anxiously. "How can you account for his strangeness—his roughness—even to me?"

      And the tears brimmed over and fell, despite her efforts to restrain them. Dr. Dean stopped in his walk and took her two hands in his own.

      "My dear Helen, it's no use worrying yourself like this," he said. "Nothing can stop the progress of the Inevitable. I have watched Denzil, I have watched the new arrival, Armand Gervase, I have watched the mysterious Ziska, and I have watched you! Well, what is the result? The Inevitable—simply the unconquerable Inevitable. Denzil is in love, Gervase is in love, everybody is in love, except me and one other! It is a whole network of mischief, and I am the unhappy fly that has unconsciously fallen into the very middle of it. But the spider, my dear—the spider who wove the web in the first instance—is the Princess Ziska, and she is NOT in love! She is the other one. She is not in love with anybody any more than I am. She's got something else on her mind—I don't know what it is exactly, but it isn't love. Excluding her and myself, the whole hotel is in love—YOU are in love!"

      Helen withdrew her hands from his grasp and a deep flush reddened her fair face.

      "I!" she stammered—"Dr. Dean, you are mistaken. … "

      "Dr. Dean was never mistaken on love-matters in his life," said that self-satisfied sage complacently. "Now, my dear, don't be offended. I have known both you and your brother ever since you were left little orphan children together; if I cannot speak plainly to you, who can? You are in love, little Helen—and very unwisely, too—with the man Gervase. I have heard of him often, but I never saw him before to-night. And I don't approve of him."

      Helen grew as pale as she had been rosy, and her face as the moonlight fell upon it was very sorrowful.

      "He stayed with us in Scotland two summers ago," she said softly. "He was very agreeable … "

      "Ha! No doubt! He made a sort of love to you then, I suppose. I can imagine him doing it very well! There is a nice romantic glen near your house—just where the river runs, and where I caught a fifteen-pound salmon some five years ago. Ha! Catching salmon is healthy work; much better than falling in love. No, no, Helen! Gervase is not good enough for you; you want a far better man. Has he spoken to you to-night?"

      "Oh, yes! And he has danced with me."

      "Ha! How often?"

      "Once."

      "And how many times with the Princess Ziska?"

      Helen's fair head drooped, and she answered nothing. All at once the little Doctor's hand closed on her arm with a soft yet firm grip.

      "Look!" he whispered.

      She raised her eyes and saw two figures step out on the terrace and stand in the full moonlight—the white Bedouin dress of the one and the glittering golden robe of the other made them easily recognizable—they were Gervase and the Princess Ziska. Helen gave a faint, quick sigh.

      "Let us go in," she said.

      "Nonsense! Why should we go in? On the contrary, let us join them."

      "Oh, no!" and Helen shrank visibly at the very idea. "I cannot; do not ask me! I have tried—you know I have tried—to like the Princess; but something in her—I don't know what it is—repels me. To speak truthfully, I think I am afraid of her."

      "Afraid! Pooh! Why should you be afraid? It is true one doesn't often see a woman with the eyes of a vampire-bat; but there is nothing to be frightened about. I have dissected the eyes of a vampire-bat—very interesting work, very. The Princess has them—only, of course, hers are larger and finer; but there is