Ziska | Page 8

Rome, or Egypt, one must do as Rome, or Egypt, does," he said, carelessly. "If hotel proprietors will give fancy balls, it is necessary to rise to the occasion. You look very well, Doctor. Why don't you other fellows go and get your toggeries on? It's past ten o'clock, and the Princess Ziska will be here by eleven."
"There are other people coming besides the Princess Ziska, are there not, Mr. Murray?" inquired Sir Chetwynd Lyle, with an obtrusively bantering air.
Denzil Murray glanced him over disdainfully.
"I believe there are," he answered coolly. "Otherwise the ball would scarcely pay its expenses. But as the Princess is admittedly the most beautiful woman in Cairo this season, she will naturally be the centre of attraction. That's why I mentioned she would be here at eleven."
"She told you that?" inquired Ross Courtney.
"She did."
Courtney looked up, then down, and seemed about to speak again, but checked himself and finally strolled off, followed by Lord Fulkeward.
"I hear," said Dr. Dean then, addressing Denzil Murray, "that a great celebrity has arrived at this hotel--the painter, Armand Gervase."
Denzil's face brightened instantly with a pleasant smile.
"The dearest friend I have in the world!" he said. "Yes, he is here. I met him outside the door this afternoon. We are very old chums. I have stayed with him in Paris, and he has stayed with me in Scotland. A charming fellow! He is very French in his ideas; but he knows England well, and speaks English perfectly."
"French in his ideas!" echoed Sir Chetwynd Lyle, who was just preparing to leave the lounge. "Dear me! How is that?"
"He is a Frenchman," said Dr. Dean, suavely. "Therefore that his ideas should be French ought not to be a matter of surprise to us, my dear Sir Chetwynd."
Sir Chetwynd snorted. He had a suspicion that he--the editor and proprietor of the Daily Dial--was being laughed at, and he at once clambered on his high horse of British Morality.
"Frenchman or no Frenchman," he observed, "the ideas promulgated in France at the present day are distinctly profane and pernicious. There is a lack of principle--a want of rectitude in-- er--the French Press, for example, that is highly deplorable."
"And is the English Press immaculate?" asked Denzil languidly.
"We hope so," replied Sir Chetwynd. "We do our best to make it so."
And with that remark he took his paunch and himself away into retirement, leaving Dr. Dean and young Murray facing each other, a singular pair enough in the contrast of their appearance and dress,--the one small, lean and wiry, in plain-cut, loose-flowing academic gown; the other tall, broad and muscular, clad in the rich attire of mediaeval Florence, and looking for all the world like a fine picture of that period stepped out from, its frame. There was a silence between them for a moment,--then the Doctor spoke in a low tone:
"It won't do, my dear boy,--I assure you it won't do! You will break your heart over a dream, and make yourself miserable for nothing. And you will break your sister's heart as well; perhaps you haven't thought of that?"
Denzil flung himself into the chair Sir Chetwynd had just vacated, and gave vent to a sigh that was almost a groan.
"Helen doesn't know anything--yet," he said hoarsely. "I know nothing myself; how can I? I haven't said a word to--to HER. If I spoke all that was in my mind, I daresay she would laugh at me. You are the only one who has guessed my secret. You saw me last night when I--when I accompanied her home. But I never passed her palace gates,--she wouldn't let me. She bade me 'good-night' outside; a servant admitted her, and she vanished through the portal like a witch or a ghost. Sometimes I fancy she IS a ghost. She is so white, so light, so noiseless and so lovely!"
He turned his eyes away, ashamed of the emotion that moved him. Dr. Maxwell Dean took off his academic cap and examined its interior as though he considered it remarkable.
"Yes," he said slowly; "I have thought the same thing of her myself--sometimes."
Further conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the military band of the evening, which now crossed the "lounge," each man carrying his instrument with him; and these were followed by several groups of people in fancy dress, all ready and eager for the ball. Pierrots and Pierrettes, monks in drooping cowls, flower-girls, water-carriers, symbolic figures of "Night" and "Morning," mingled with the counterfeit presentments of dead-and- gone kings and queens, began to flock together, laughing and talking on their way to the ball-room; and presently among them came a man whose superior height and build, combined with his eminently picturesque, half-savage type of beauty, caused every one to turn and watch him as he passed, and murmur whispering comments