Ziska: The Problem of a Wicked Soul Part 5

"Come and talk to me," she said, laying her hand on his arm; "I am tired, and the conversation of one's ball-room partners is very ba.n.a.l.

Monsieur Gervase would like me to dance all night, I imagine; but I am too lazy. I leave such energy to Lady Fulkeward and to all the English misses and madams. I love indolence."

"Most Russian women do, I think," observed the Doctor.

She laughed.

"But I am not Russian!"

"I know. I never thought you were," he returned composedly; "but everyone in the hotel has come to the conclusion that you are!"

"They are all wrong! What can I do to put them right?" she inquired with a fascinating little upward movement of her eyebrows.

"Nothing! Leave them in their ignorance. I shall not enlighten them, though I know your nationality."

"You do?" and a curious shadow darkened her features. "But perhaps you are wrong also!"

"I think not," said the Doctor, with gentle obstinacy. "You are an Egyptian. Born in Egypt; born OF Egypt. Pure Eastern! There is nothing Western about you. Is not it so?"

She looked at him enigmatically.

"You have made a near guess," she replied; "but you are not absolutely correct. Originally, I am of Egypt."

Dr. Dean nodded pleasantly.

"Originally,--yes. That is precisely what I mean--originally! Let me take you in to supper."

He offered his arm, but Gervase made a hasty step forward.

"Princess," he began--

She waved him off lightly.

"My dear Monsieur Gervase, we are not in the desert, where Bedouin chiefs do just as they like. We are in a modern hotel in Cairo, and all the good English mammas will be dreadfully shocked if I am seen too much with you. I have danced with you five times, remember! And I will dance with you once more before I leave. When our waltz begins, come and find me in the upper-room."

She moved away on Dr. Dean's arm, and Gervase moodily drew back and let her pa.s.s. When she had gone, he lit a cigarette and walked impatiently up and down the terrace, a heavy frown wrinkling his brows. The shadow of a man suddenly darkened the moonlight in front of him, and Denzil Murray's hand fell on his shoulder.

"Gervase," he said, huskily, "I must speak to you."

Gervase glanced him up and down, taking note of his pale face and wild eyes with a certain good-humored regret and compa.s.sion.

"Say on, my friend."

Denzil looked straight at him, biting his lips hard and clenching his hands in the effort to keep down some evidently violent emotion.

"The Princess Ziska," he began,--

Gervase smiled, and flicked the ash off his cigarette.

"The Princess Ziska," he echoed,--"Yes? What of her? She seems to be the only person talked about in Cairo. Everybody in this hotel, at any rate, begins conversation with precisely the same words as you do,--'the Princess Ziska!' Upon my life, it is very amusing!"

"It is not amusing to me," said Denzil, bitterly. "To me it is a matter of life and death." He paused, and Gervase looked at him curiously.

"We've always been such good friends, Gervase," he continued, "that I should be sorry if anything came between us now, so I think it is better to make a clean breast of it and speak out plainly." Again he hesitated, his face growing still paler, then with a sudden ardent light glowing in his eyes he said--"Gervase, I love the Princess Ziska!"

Gervase threw away his cigarette and laughed aloud with a wild hilarity.

"My good boy, I am very sorry for you! Sorry, too, for myself! I deplore the position in which we are placed with all my heart and soul.

It is unfortunate, but it seems inevitable. You love the Princess Ziska,--and by all the G.o.ds of Egypt and Christendom, so do I!"

CHAPTER IV.

Denzil recoiled a step backward, then with an impulsive movement strode close up to him, his face unnaturally flushed and his eyes glittering with an evil fire.

"You--you love her! What!--in one short hour, you--who have often boasted to me of having no heart, no eyes for women except as models for your canvas,--you say now that you love a woman whom you have never seen before to-night!"

"Stop!" returned Gervase somewhat moodily, "I am not so sure about that. I HAVE seen her before, though where I cannot tell. But the fire that stirs my pulses now seems to spring from some old pa.s.sion suddenly revived, and the eyes of the woman we are both mad for--well! they do not inspire holiness, my dear friend! No,--neither in you nor in me!

Let us be honest with each other. There is something vile in the composition of Madame la Princesse, and it responds to something equally vile in ourselves. We shall be dragged down by the force of it,--tant pis pour nous! I am sorrier for you than for myself, for you are a good fellow, au fond; you have what the world is learning to despise--sentiment. I have none; for as I told you before, I have no heart, but I have pa.s.sions--tigerish ones--which must be humored; in fact, I make it my business in life to humor them."

"Do you intend to humor them in this instance?"

"a.s.suredly! If I can."

"Then,--friend as you have been, you can be friend no more," said Denzil fiercely. "My G.o.d! Do you not understand? My blood is as warm as yours,--I will not yield to you one smile, one look from Ziska! No!--I will kill you first!"

Gervase looked at him calmly.

"Will you? Pauvre garcon! You are such a boy still, Denzil,--by-the-bye, how old are you? Ah, I remember now,--twenty-two.

Only twenty-two, and I am thirty-eight! So in the measure of time alone, your life is more valuable to you than mine is to me. If you choose, therefore, you can kill me,--now, if you like! I have a very convenient dagger in my belt--I think it has a point--which you are welcome to use for the purpose; but, for heaven's sake, don't rant about it--do it! You can kill me--of course you can; but you cannot--mark this well, Denzil!--you cannot prevent my loving the same woman whom you love. I think instead of raving about the matter here in the moonlight, which has the effect of making us look like two orthodox villains in a set stage-scene, we'd better make the best of it, and resolve to abide by the lady's choice in the matter. What say you? You have known her for many days,--I have known her for two hours. You have had the first innings, so you cannot complain."

Here he playfully unfastened the Bedouin knife which hung at his belt and offered it to Denzil, holding it delicately by the glittering blade.

"One thrust, my brave boy!" he said. "And you will stop the Ziska fever in my veins at once and forever. But, unless you deal the murderer's blow, the fever will go on increasing till it reaches its extremest height, and then ..."

"And then?" echoed Denzil.

"Then? Oh--G.o.d only knows what then!"

Denzil thrust away the offered weapon with a movement of aversion.

"You can jest," he said. "You are always jesting. But you do not know--you cannot read the horrible thoughts in my mind. I cannot resolve their meaning even to myself. There is some truth in your light words; I feel, I know instinctively, that the woman I love has an attraction about her which is not good, but evil; yet what does that matter? Do not men sometimes love vile women?"

"Always!" replied Gervase briefly.

"Gervase, I have suffered tortures ever since I saw her face!"

exclaimed the unhappy lad, his self-control suddenly giving way. "You cannot imagine what my life has been! Her eyes make me mad,--the merest touch of her hand seems to drag me away invisibly ..."