The Magician

her mind the ugly slyness of that smile which succeeded on his face the first passionate look of deadly hatred. Her fancy suggested

e'd had anything in him at all he would have le

ased the disgust with w

d by Susie's

a brickbat on my head. If he shoots me he'll get his he

in the street a couple of days later, and since he took off his hat in the French fashi

Paris all it could give her, and she wished to begin a new life. Her love for Arthur appeared on a s

sie received a telegr

e at the Gare

cy

er, with a bold signature, stood on the chimney-piece, and Susie gave it an inquisitive glan

s!' she said. 'I

long that it would not be worth Susie's while to come back in the interval; and they arranged

Oliver Haddo passed slowly by. He did not seem to see her. Suddenly he stopped, put his hand to his heart, and fell heavily to the ground

lle, venez vit

go. Her heart beat hor

to be dead. She forgot

t down by his side and

ression of terrible ang

in for one moment,' he sobbe

g and airless, of the concierge. But with her help Margaret raised him to his fe

you some water?

pastille out

which she took out of a case

he gasped. 'I suffer from a disease of the

was able to hel

a while, so that he might regain his strength. She took up a book a

e me for intr

waned as he seemed to recover. She

an I did. I would have brought a d

t you wish

o his knees. Margaret sprang forward to help him. She reproached herself bitterly

ou like,' she cried. 'I'm sor

stricken, stood over him helplessly. She poured out a glass of water, but

do for you at all?' sh

low me to sit in th

remain as long

ed to read. In a little while he began to speak.

give me for what I

t looking at him, h

to you if I f

in drove me to do a thing which immediately I bitterly regretted. Don't you think i

f it. I don't want to thin

was and how unhappy, you w

oved. She could not doubt

known to you. You won't try to understand. You won't give me

here was silence. His voice was dif

et me die in the street rather than stretch out to me a helping hand. And if

ence to you how I rega

es mysteriously wrung her heartstrings

r contempt. I feel your goodness and your purity. I can hardly bear my ow

nger repellent, for his eyes wore a new expression; they were incredibly tender now, and they were moist with tears. His mouth was to

o be unkind to

I can best repay you f

so humiliated, that the

y. But let us tal

His eyes rested on a print of La Gioconda which hung on the wall. Suddenly he began to speak. He re

for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed. All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there,

cance. She was intoxicated with their beauty. She wished him to continue, but had not the strength to speak. As if he guessed her thought, he we

s their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange evils with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and al

air, cut short, curled over the head with an infinite grace. The skin was like ivory softened with a delicate carmine. There was in that beautiful countenance more than beauty, for what most fascinated the observer was a supreme and disdainful indifference to the passion of others. It was a vicious face, except that beauty could never be quite vicious; it was a cruel face, except that indolence could never be quite cruel. It was a face that haunted you, and yet your admiration was alloyed with an unreasoning terror. The hands were nervous and adroit, with long fashioning fingers; and you felt that at their touch the clay almost moulded itself into gracious forms. With Haddo's subtle words the character of that man rose before her, cruel yet indifferent, indolent and passionate, cold yet sensual; unnatural secrets dwelt in his mind, and mysterious crimes, and a lust for the knowledge that was arcane. Oliver Haddo was attracted by all that was unusual, deformed, and monstrous, by the pictures that represented the hideousness of man or that reminded you of his mortality. He summoned before Margaret the whole array of Ribera's ghoulish dwarfs, with their cunning smile, the insane light of their eyes, and their malice: he dwelt with

awing; but Oliver Haddo gave them at once a new, esoteric import. Those effects as of a Florentine jewel, the clustered colours, emerald and ruby, the deep blue of sapphires, the atmosphere of scented chambers, the mystic persons who seem ever about secret, religious rites, combined in his cunning phrases to create, a

preciation was new to her. She was horribly fascinated by the personality that imbued these elaborate sentences. Haddo's eyes were fixed upon hers, and she responded to his words like a delicate instrument made for

you in return for what you

and went t

his chair

ry was indeed astonishing. He had an infinite tact to know the feeling that occupied Margaret's heart, and what he chose seemed to be exactly that which at the moment she imperatively needed. Then he began to play things she did not know. It was music the like of which she had never heard, barbaric, with a plaintive weirdness that brought to her fancy the moonlit nights of desert places, with palm trees mute in the windless air, and tawny distances. She seemed to know tortuous narrow streets, white houses of silence with strange moon-shadows, and the glow of yellow light within, and the tinkling of uncouth instruments, and the acrid scents of Eastern perfumes. It was like a procession

to the valleys. The roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia are not so white as thy body. Neither the roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia, the garden of spices of the Queen of Arabia, nor th

them stirred. At last Margaret sought

hat you really are a magi

f you cared to see them,' he answe

r get me to believe in occu

dowed India with wonderful traditions, it civi

as a singular fascination in his gaze. It seemed that he spoke only to co

t established empires by its oracles, and at its voice tyrants grew pale upon thei

ve that Margaret's brain reeled. The sound of

up and form into ominous words the night wind that moans through their skulls. Heaven and Hell are in its province; and all forms, lovely and hideous; and love and hate. With Circe's wand it can change men into beasts of th

under his baleful glance, and she had not even the strength to wis

them,' she whispered, hard

muscles, with a faint sigh of exhaustion. Margaret did not speak, but she knew that something horrible was about to happen. Her heart beat like a prisoned b

, and it opened. He took an infinitesimal quantity of a blue powder that it contained and threw it on the water in the brass bowl. Immediately a bright flame sprang up, and Margaret gave a cry of alarm. Oliver looked at her quickly and motioned he

were straw, and not a drop remained. She p

t burn,' she mut

new what she thought,

han this blue powder, and I have enough to burn up all the w

er presence. He looked thought

le, I might so modify it that, like radium, it lost no strength as it burned; and then I should possess the greatest secret that has ever been in the mind of man. For there would be no end of it. It would continue to burn while ther

ttered with a devilish ardour. His voic

g the streams of the earth, searching out the moisture in all growing things, tearing it even from the eternal rocks; when the flames poured down

some crumbling substance that might have been dried leaves, leaves of different sorts, broken and powdery. There was a trace of moisture in them still, for a low flame sprang up immediately at the bottom of the dish, and a thick va

he com

ty, as though it consisted of molten metal. It was not still, but writhed

e very

ace. She gasped for breath, and it was as if the earth spun under her feet. She appeared to travel at an immeasurable speed. She made a slight movement, and Haddo told her not to look round. An immense terro

he said. 'Open your

on the heather, vague night-fires like spirits of the damned. They stood in a vast and troubled waste, with huge stony boulders and leafless trees, rugged and gnarled like tortured souls in pain. It was as if there had been a devastating storm, and the country reposed after the flood of rain and the tempestuous wind and the lightning. All things abou

w the subtle daughter of Herodias. And Jezebel looked out upon her from beneath her painted brows, and Cleopatra turned away a wan, lewd face; and she saw the insatiable mouth and the wanton eyes of Messalina, and Fustine was haggard with the eternal fires of lust. She saw cardinals in their scarlet, and warriors in their steel, gay gentlemen in periwigs, and ladies in powder and patch. And on a sudden, like leaves by the wind, all these were driven before the silent throngs of the oppressed; and they were innumerable as the sands of the se

derness. But even while she looked, as the mist of early day, rising, discloses a fair country, the animal part of that ghoulish creature seemed to fall away, and she saw a lovely youth, titanic but sublime, leaning against a massive rock. He was more beautiful than the Adam of Michelangelo who wakes into life at the call of the Almighty; and, like him freshly created, he had the adorable languor of one who feels still in his limbs the soft rain on the loose brown earth. Naked and full of majesty he lay, the outcast son of the morning; and she dared not look upon his face, for she knew it was impossible to bear the undying pain that darkened it with ruthless shadows. Impelled by a great curiosity, she sought to come nearer, but the vast figure seemed strangely to dissolve into a cloud; and immediately she felt herself again surrounded by a hurrying throng. Then came all legendary monsters and foul beasts of a madman's fancy; in the darkness she saw enormous

nds. She would not let him drag t

d not be

ed around her with frightened eyes. Everything was exactly as it had been. The early night of autumn was fallen, and the

ht the candl

all that she had seen, and she remembered that Haddo had stood by her side. Shame seized her, intolerable shame, so t

said. 'For Go

e to his lips which Susie had seen after his tus

e Vaugiraud, number 209,' he said. 'Knock at th

he could only think o

own for you in c

gh her heart would break. Suddenly, looking up with a start, she saw that he was gone. She had not heard him open th

with her back to the fireplace, her hands behind her, in the attitude of a prison

o tea?' she asked. 'I couldn't

he,' answered Margaret,

earily in a chair. Margare

particular to say

rain came in, but there was no sign of her. Then I thought she might have hit upon that time

the telegram that summoned her to the Gare du Nord,

er noticed the postmark.

tt

walk from the studio. Susie look

ugged her shoulders. 'But it's too foolish. If I were a suspicious woman,' s

He might easily have seen Nancy's name on the photograph during his first

of you, I should have no

ne has been her

on

d made up her mind to tell it. Her heart gave a gr

ox was on the table and, as she helped herself, her eyes fell carelessl

h lives ther

at all,' ans

s, but Susie, without interest, put dow

to impel her. She would have given much to confess her two falsehoods, but had not the courage. She could not bear that Susie's implicit trust in her straightforwardness sho

gone a long journey, and her mind was highly wrought. Margaret remembered that her state had been the same on her first arrival in Paris, when, in her eagerness to get a preliminary glimpse of its marvels, she had hurried till her bones ached from one celebrated monument to another. They began to speak of trivial things. Margaret tried to join calmly in the conversation, but

gasped. 'I don't know wh

rvous and f

y the old-fashioned name of vapours, and was not disposed to pay much atten

ome dreadful thing will happen to me. I want all y

sed away her tears, a

ed. 'I don't want to wait any longer. I sh

nd she needed time to get her clothes. The date had been fixed by her. She listened sullenly to his words. Their wisdom was plain, and she did not see how she

red, with the dark, anguished eyes of

u that nothin