"Adorable one!" he broke out passionately, attempting to embrace
her, "I have come to take you." Without moving, she touched a knob
in the wall. A trap-door beyond him sank, and out of the bowels of
the earth leaped three indescribable demons. Then, rising, she
took a cake of chalk from the table and, drawing a mystic half
circle on the floor, returned to the divan, lit a cigarette, and
leaning comfortably back, said in a low, monotonous voice, "Advance
one foot within that magic line, and on that head, although it wore
a crown, I launch the curse of Rome."
"I--only wanted to take you--with a kodak," he said, with a light
laugh to conceal his confusion, as he produced the instrument from
his coat-tail pocket.
"Not with that cheap box," she said, rising with magnificent
disdain. "Come again with a decent instrument--and perhaps"--
Then, lightly humming in a pure contralto, "I've been photographed
like this--I've been photographed like that," she summoned the
slave to conduct him back, and vanished through a canvas screen,
which nevertheless seemed to the dazed Chevalier to be the stony
front of the pyramids.
V
"And you saw her?" said the doctor in French.
"Yes; but the three-thousand-year gag did not work! She spotted
you, cher ami, on the instant. And she wouldn't let me take her
with my kodak."
The doctor looked grave.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127