The Reason Why | Page 4

not depend upon features,
or coloring, or form, or beauty. A subtle force of character--a radiating
magnetism--breathed from her whole being. When Zara Shulski came
into any assemblage of people conversation stopped and speculation
began.
She was rather tall and very slender; and yet every voluptuous curve of
her lithe body refuted the idea of thinness. Her head was small and her
face small, and short, and oval, with no wonderfully chiseled features,
only the skin was quite exceptional in its white purity--not the purity of
milk, but the purity of rich, white velvet, or a gardenia petal. Her mouth
was particularly curved and red and her teeth were very even, and when
she smiled, which was rarely, they suggested something of great
strength, though they were small and white. And now I am coming to
her two wonders, her eyes and her hair. At first you could have sworn
the eyes were black; just great pools of ink, or disks of black velvet, set
in their broad lids and shaded with jet lashes, but if they chanced to
glance up in the full light then you knew they were slate color, not a
tinge of brown or green--the whole iris was a uniform shade: strange,
slumberous, resentful eyes, under straight, thick, black brows, the
expression full of all sorts of meanings, though none of them peaceful
or calm. And from some far back Spanish-Jewess ancestress she
probably got that glorious head of red hair, the color of a ripe chestnut
when it falls from its shell, or a beautifully groomed bright bay horse.
The heavy plaits which were wound tightly round her head must have
fallen below her knees when they were undone. Her coiffure gave you

the impression that she never thought of fashion, nor changed its form
of dressing, from year to year. And the exquisite planting of the hair on
her forehead, as it waved back in broad waves, added to the perfection
of the Greek simplicity of the whole thing. Nothing about her had been
aided by conscious art. Her dress, of some black clinging stuff, was
rather poor, though she wore it with the air of a traditional empress.
Indeed, she looked an empress, from the tips of her perfect fingers to
her small arched feet.
And it was with imperial hauteur that she asked in a low, cultivated
voice with no accent:
"Well, what is it? Why have you sent for me thus peremptorily?"
The financier surveyed her for a moment; he seemed to be taking in all
her points with a fresh eye. It was almost as though he were counting
them over to himself--and his thoughts ran: "You astonishingly
attractive devil. You have all the pride of my father, the Emperor. How
he would have gloried in you! You are enough to drive any man mad:
you shall be a pawn in my game for the winning of my lady and gain
happiness for yourself, so in the end, Elinka, if she is able to see from
where she has gone, will not say I have been cruel to you."
"I asked you to come down--to discuss a matter of great importance:
Will you be good enough to be seated, my niece," he said aloud with
ceremonious politeness as he drew forward a chair--into which she
sank without more ado and there waited, with folded hands, for him to
continue. Her stillness was always as intense as his own, but whereas
his had a nervous tension of conscious repression, hers had an
unconscious, quiet force. Her father had been an Englishman, but both
uncle and niece at moments made you feel they were silent panthers,
ready to spring.
"So--" was all she said.
And Francis Markrute went on:
"You have a miserable position--hardly enough to eat at times, one

understands. You do not suppose I took the trouble to send for you
from Paris last week, for nothing, do you? You guessed I had some
plan in my head, naturally."
"Naturally," she said, with fine contempt. "I did not mistake it for
philanthropy."
"Then it is well, and we can come to the point," he went on. "I am sorry
I have had to be away, since your arrival, until yesterday. I trust my
servants have made you comfortable?"
"Quite comfortable," she answered coldly.
"Good: now for what I want to know. You have no doubt in your mind
that your husband, Count Ladislaus Shulski, is dead? There is no
possible mistake in his identity? I believe the face was practically shot
away, was it not? I have taken the precaution to inform myself upon
every point, from the authorities at Monte Carlo, but I wish for your
final testimony."
"Ladislaus Shulski is dead," she said quietly, in a tone as though it