Ziska: The Problem of a Wicked Soul Part 16

She rose quickly, and with a quiet dignity held out her hand.

"No, Monsieur Gervase," she said, "it is not so. I am not one of those women who take every little idle word said by men in jest au grand serieux! You have always been a kind and courteous friend, and if you ever fancied you had a warmer feeling for me, as you say, I am sure you were mistaken. We often delude ourselves in these matters. I wish, for your sake, I could think the Princess Ziska worthy of the love she so readily inspires. But,--I cannot! My brother's infatuation for her is to me terrible. I feel it will break his heart,--and mine!" A little half sob caught her breath and interrupted her; she paused, but presently went on with an effort at calmness: "You talk of our leaving Egypt; how I wish that were possible! But I spoke to Denzil about it on the night of the ball, and he was furious with me for the mere suggestion. It seems like an evil fate."

"It IS an evil fate," said Gervase gloomily. "Enfin, my dear Helen, we cannot escape from it,--at least, _I_ cannot. But I never was intended for good things, not even for a lasting love. A lasting love I feel would bore me. You look amazed; you believe in lasting love? So do many sweet women. But do you know what symbol I, as an artist, would employ were I asked to give my idea of Love on my canvas?"

Helen smiled sadly and shook her head.

"I would paint a glowing flame," said Gervase dreamily. "A flame leaping up from the pit of h.e.l.l to the height of heaven, springing in darkness, lost in light; and flying into the centre of that flame should be a white moth--a blind, soft, mad thing with beating, tremulous wings,--that should be Love! Whirled into the very heart of the ravening fire,--crushed, shrivelled out of existence in one wild, rus.h.i.+ng rapture--that is what Love must be to me! One cannot prolong pa.s.sion over fifty years, more or less, of commonplace routine, as marriage would have us do. The very notion is absurd. Love is like a choice wine of exquisite bouquet and intoxicating flavor; it is the most maddening draught in the world, but you cannot drink it every day.

No, my dear Helen; I am not made for a quiet life,--nor for a long one, I fancy."

His voice unconsciously sank into a melancholy tone, and for one moment Helen's composure nearly gave way. She loved him as true women love, with that sublime self-sacrifice which only desires the happiness of the thing beloved; yet a kind of insensate rage stirred for once in her gentle soul to think that the mere sight of a strange woman with dark eyes,--a woman whom no one knew anything about, and who was by some people deemed a mere adventuress,--should have so overwhelmed this man whose genius she had deemed superior to fleeting impressions.

Controlling the tears that rose to her eyes and threatened to fall, she said gently,

"Good-bye, Monsieur Gervase!"

He started as from a reverie.

"Good-bye, Helen! Some day you will think kindly of me again?"

"I think kindly of you now," she answered tremulously; then, not trusting herself to say any more, she turned swiftly and left him.

"The flame and the moth!" he mused, watching her slight figure till it had disappeared. "Yes, it is the only fitting symbol. Love must be always so. Sudden, impetuous, ungovernable, and then--the end! To stretch out the divine pa.s.sion over life-long breakfasts and dinners!

It would be intolerable to me. Lord Fulkeward could do that sort of thing; his chest is narrow, and his sentiments are as limited as his chest. He would duly kiss his wife every morning and evening, and he would not a.n.a.lyze the fact that no special thrill of joy stirred in him at the action. What should he do with thrills of joy--this poor Fulkeward? And yet it is likely he will marry Helen. Or will it be the Courtney animal,--the type of man whose one idea is 'to arise, kill, and eat?' "Ah, well!" and he sighed. "She is not for me, this maiden grace of womanhood. If I married her, I should make her miserable. I am made for pa.s.sion, not for peace."

He started as he heard a step behind him, and turning, saw Dr. Dean.

The worthy little savant looked worried and preoccupied.

"I have had a letter from the Princess Ziska," he said, without any preliminary. "She has gone to secures rooms at the Mena House Hotel, which is situated close to the Pyramids. She regrets she cannot enter into the idea of taking a trip up the Nile. She has no time, she says, as she is soon leaving Cairo. But she suggests that we should make up a party for the Mena House while she is staying there, as she can, so she tells me, make the Pyramids much more interesting for us by her intimate knowledge of them. Now, to me this is a very tempting offer, but I should not care to go alone."

"The Murrays will go, I am sure," murmured Gervase lazily. "At any rate, Denzil will."

The Doctor looked at him narrowly.

"If Denzil goes, so will you go," he said. "Thus there are two already booked for company. And I fancy the Fulkewards might like the idea."

"The Princess is leaving Cairo?" queried Gervase presently, as though it were an after thought.

"So she informs me in her letter. The party which is to come off on Wednesday night is her last reception."

Gervase was silent a moment. Then he said:

"Have you told Denzil?"

"Not yet."

"Better do so then," and Gervase glanced up at the sky, now glowing red with a fiery sunset. "He wants to propose, you know."

"Good G.o.d!" cried the Doctor, sharply, "If he proposes to that woman.

"Why should he not?" demanded Gervase. "Is she not as ripe for love and fit for marriage as any other of her s.e.x?"

"Her s.e.x!" echoed the Doctor grimly. "Her s.e.x!--There!--for heaven's sake don't talk to me!--leave me alone! The Princess Ziska is like no woman living; she has none of the sentiments of a woman,--and the notion of Denzil's being such a fool as to think of proposing to her--Oh, leave me alone, I tell you! Let me worry this out!"

And clapping his hat well down over his eyes, he began to walk away in a strange condition of excitement, which he evidently had some difficulty in suppressing. Suddenly, however, he turned, came back and tapped Gervase smartly on the chest.

"YOU are the man for the Princess," he said impressively. "There is a madness in you which you call love for her; you are her fitting mate, not that poor boy, Denzil Murray. In certain men and women spirit leaps to spirit,--note responds to note--and if all the world were to interpose its trumpery bulk, nothing could prevent such tumultuous forces rus.h.i.+ng together. Follow your destiny, Monsieur Gervase, but do not ruin another man's life on the way. Follow your destiny,--complete it,--you are bound to do so,--but in the havoc and wildness to come, for G.o.d's sake, let the innocent go free!"

He spoke with extraordinary solemnity, and Gervase stared at him in utter bewilderment and perplexity, not understanding in the least what he meant. But before he could interpose a word or ask a question, Dr.

Dean had gone.

CHAPTER XI.

The next two or three days pa.s.sed without any incident of interest occurring to move the languid calm and excite the fleeting interest of the fas.h.i.+onable English and European visitors who were congregated at the Gezireh Palace Hotel. The anxious flirtations of Dolly and Muriel Chetwynd Lyle afforded subjects of mirth to the profane,--the wonderfully youthful toilettes of Lady Fulkeward provided several keynotes from which to strike frivolous conversation,--and when the great painter, Armand Gervase, actually made a sketch of her ladys.h.i.+p for his own amus.e.m.e.nt, and made her look about sixteen, and girlish at that, his popularity knew no bounds. Everyone wanted to give him a commission, particularly the elderly fair, and he could have made a fortune had he chosen, after the example set him by the English academicians, by painting the portraits of ugly n.o.bodies who were ready to pay any price to be turned out as handsome somebodies. But he was too restless and ill at ease to apply himself steadily to work,--the glowing skies of Egypt, the picturesque groups of natives to be seen at every turn,--the curious corners of old Cairo--these made no impression upon his mind at all, and when he was alone, he pa.s.sed whole half hours staring at the strange picture he had made of the Princess Ziska, wherein the face of death seemed confronting him through a mask of life. And he welcomed with a strong sense of relief and expectation the long-looked-for evening of the Princess's "reception," to which many of the visitors in Cairo had been invited since a fortnight, and which those persons who always profess to be "in the know," even if they are wallowing in ignorance, declared would surpa.s.s any entertainment ever given during the Cairene season.

The night came at last. It was exceedingly sultry, but bright and clear, and the moon shone with effective brilliance on the gayly-attired groups of people that between nine and ten o'clock began to throng the narrow street in which the carved tomb-like portal of the Princess Ziska's residence was the most conspicuous object. Lady Chetwynd Lyle, remarkable for bad taste in her dress and the disposal of her diamonds, stared in haughty amazement at the Nubian, who saluted her and her daughters with the grin peculiar to his uninviting cast of countenance, and swept into the courtyard attended by her husband with an air as though she imagined her presence gave the necessary flavor of "good style" to the proceedings. She was followed by Lady Fulkeward, innocently clad in white and wearing a knot of lilies on her prettily-enamelled left shoulder, Lord Fulkeward, Denzil Murray and his sister. Helen also wore white, but though she was in the twenties and Lady Fulkeward was in the sixties, the girl had so much sadness in her face and so much tragedy in her soft eyes that she looked, if anything, older than the old woman. Gervase and Dr. Dean arrived together, and found themselves in a brilliant, crus.h.i.+ng crowd of people, all of different nationalities and all manifesting a good deal of impatience because they were delayed a few minutes in an open court, where a couple of stone lions with wings were the only spectators of their costumes.

"Most singular behavior!" said Lady Chetwynd Lyle, snorting and sniffing, "to keep us waiting outside like this! The Princess has no idea of European manners!"

As she spoke, a sudden blaze of light flamed on the scene, and twenty tall Egyptian servants in white, with red turbans, carrying lighted torches and marching two by two crossed the court, and by mute yet stately gestures invited the company to follow. And the company did follow in haste, with scramble and rudeness, as is the way of "European manners" nowadays; and presently, having been relieved of their cloaks and wrappings, stood startled and confounded in a huge hall richly adorned with silk and cloth of gold hangings, where, between two bronze sphinxes, the Princess Ziska, attired wonderfully in a dim, pale rose color, with flecks of jewels flas.h.i.+ng from her draperies here and there, waited to receive her guests. Like a queen she stood,--behind her towered a giant palm, and at her feet were strewn roses and lotus-lilies. On either side of her, seated on the ground, were young girls gorgeously clad and veiled to the eyes in the Egyptian fas.h.i.+on, and as the staring, heated and impetuous swarm of "travelling" English and Americans came face to face with her in her marvellous beauty, they were for the moment stricken spellbound, and could scarcely summon up the necessary a.s.surance to advance and take the hand she outstretched to them in welcome. She appeared not to see the general embarra.s.sment, and greeted all who approached her with courteous ease and composure, speaking the few words which every graceful hostess deems adequate before "pa.s.sing on" her visitors. And presently music began,--music wild and fantastic, of a character unknown to modern fas.h.i.+onable ears, yet strangely familiar to Armand Gervase, who started at the first sound of it, and seemed enthralled.

"That is not an ordinary orchestra," said Dr. Dean in his ear. "The instruments are ancient, and the form of melody is barbaric."

Gervase answered nothing, for the Princess Ziska just then approached them.

"Come into the Red Saloon," she said. "I am persuading my guests to pa.s.s on there. I have an old bas-relief on the walls which I would like you to see,--you, especially, Dr. Dean!--for you are so learned in antiquities. I hear you are trying to discover traces of Araxes?"

"I am," replied the Doctor. "You interested me very much in his history."

"He was a great man," said the Princess, slowly piloting them as she spoke, without hurry and with careful courtesy, through the serried ranks of the now freely chattering and animated company. "Much greater than any of your modern heroes. But he had two faults; faults which frequently accompany the plent.i.tude of power,--cruelty and selfishness.

He betrayed and murdered the only woman that ever loved him, Ziska-Charmazel."

"Murdered her!" exclaimed Dr. Dean. "How?"

"Oh, it is only a legend!" and the Princess smiled, turning her dark eyes with a bewitching languor on Gervase, who, for some reason or other which he could not explain, felt as if he were walking in a dream on the edge of a deep chasm of nothingness, into which he must presently sink to utter destruction. "All these old histories happened so long ago that they are nothing but myths now to the present generation."

"Time does not rob any incident of its interest to me," said Dr. Dean.

"Ages hence Queen Victoria will be as much a doubtful potentate as King Lud. To the wise student of things there is no time and no distance.

All history from the very beginning is like a wonderful chain in which no link is ever really broken, and in which every part fits closely to the other part,--though why the chain should exist at all is a mystery we cannot solve. Yet I am quite certain that even our late friend Araxes has his connection with the present, if only for the reason that he lived in the past."

"How do you argue out that theory!" asked Gervase with sudden interest.

"How do you argue it? The question is, how can you argue at all about anything that is so plain and demonstrated a fact? The doctrine of evolution proves it. Everything that we were once has its part in us now. Suppose, if you like, that we were originally no more than sh.e.l.ls on the sh.o.r.e,--some remnant of the nature of the sh.e.l.l must be in us at this moment. Nothing is lost,--nothing is wasted,--not even a thought.

I carry my theories very far," pursued the Doctor, looking keenly from one to the other of his silent companions as they walked beside him through a long corridor towards the Red Saloon, which could be seen, brilliantly lit up and thronged with people. "Very far indeed, especially in regard to matters of love. I maintain that if it is decreed that the soul of a man and the soul of a woman must meet,--must rush together,--not all the forces of the universe can hinder them; aye, even if they were, for some conventional cause or circ.u.mstance themselves reluctant to consummate their destiny, it would nevertheless, despite them, be consummated. For mark you,--in some form or other they have rushed together before! Whether as flames in the air, or twining leaves on a tree, or flowers in a field, they have felt the sweetness and fitness of each other's being in former lives,--and the craving sense of that sweetness and fitness can never be done away with,--never! Not as long as this present universe lasts! It is a terrible thing," continued the Doctor in a lower tone, "a terrible fatality,--the desire of love. In some cases it is a curse; in others, a divine and priceless blessing. The results depend entirely on the temperaments of the human creatures possessed by its fever. When it kindles, rises and burns towards Heaven in a steady flame of ever-brightening purity and faith, then it makes marriage the most perfect union on earth,--the sweetest and most blessed companions.h.i.+p; but when it is a mere gust of fire, bright and fierce as the sudden leaping light of a volcano, then it withers everything at a touch,--faith, honor, truth,--and dies into dull ashes in which no spark remains to warm or inspire man's higher nature. Better death than such a love,--for it works misery on earth; but who can tell what horrors it may not create Hereafter!"