/The/ table d’hôte at the Gezireh Palace Hotel had already begun when
Gervase entered the dining-room and sat down near Lady Fulkeward and
Dr. Dean.
“You have missed the soup,” said her ladyship, looking up at him with
a sweet smile. “All you artists are alike,--you have no idea whatever
of time. And how have you succeeded with that charming mysterious
person, the Princess Ziska?”
Gervase kept his gaze steadily fixed on the table-cloth. He was
extremely pale, and had the air of one who has gone through some great
mental exhaustion.
“I have not succeeded as well as I expected,” he answered slowly. “I
think my hand must have lost its cunning. At any rate, whatever the
reason may be, Art has been defeated by Nature.”
He crumbled up the piece of bread near his plate in small portions
with a kind of involuntary violence in the action, and Dr. Dean,
deliberately drawing out a pair of spectacles from their case,
adjusted them, and surveyed him curiously.
“You mean to say that you cannot paint the Princess’s picture?”
Gervase glanced up at him with a half-sullen, half-defiant expression.
“I don’t say that,” he replied; “I can paint something--something
which you can call a picture if you like,--but there is no resemblance
to the Princess Ziska in it. She is beautiful, and I can get nothing
of her beauty,--I can only get the reflection of a face which is not
hers.”
“How very curious!” exclaimed Lady Fulkeward. “Quite psychological, is
it not, Doctor? It is almost creepy!” and she managed to produce a
delicate shudder of her white shoulders without cracking the _blanc de
perle_ enamel. “It will be something fresh for you to study.”
“Possibly it will--possibly,” said the Doctor, still surveying Gervase
blandly through his round glasses; “but it isn’t the first time I have
heard of painters who unconsciously produce other faces than those of
their sitters. I distinctly remember a case in point. A gentleman,
famous for his charities and general benevolence, had his portrait
painted by a great artist for presentation to the town-hall of his
native place, and the artist was quite unable to avoid making him unto
the likeness of a villain. It was quite a distressing affair; the
painter was probably more distressed than anybody about it, and he
tried by every possible means in his power to impart a truthful and
noble aspect to the countenance of the man who was known and admitted
to be a benefactor to his race. But it was all in vain: the portrait
when finished was the portrait of a stranger and a scoundrel. The
people for whom it was intended declared they would not have such a
libel on their generous friend hung up in their town-hall. The painter
was in despair, and there was going to be a general hubbub, when, lo
and behold the ‘noble’ personage himself was suddenly arrested for a
brutal murder committed twelve years back. He was found guilty and
hanged, and the painter kept the portrait that had so remarkably
betrayed the murderer’s real nature, as a curiosity ever afterwards.”
“Is that a fact?” inquired a man who was seated at the other side of
the table, and who had listened with great interest to the story.
“A positive fact,” said the Doctor. “One of those many singular
circumstances which occur in life, and which are beyond all
explanation.”
Gervase moved restlessly; then filling for himself a glass of claret,
drained it off thirstily.
“Something of the same kind has happened to me,” he said with a hard,
mirthless laugh, “for out of the most perfect beauty I have only
succeeded in presenting an atrocity.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed Lady Fulkeward. “What a disappointing day you
must have had! But of course, you will try again; the Princess will
surely give you another sitting?”
“Oh, yes! I shall certainly try again and yet again, and ever so many
times again,” said Gervase, with a kind of angry obstinacy in his
tone, “the more so as she has told me I will never succeed in painting
her.”
“She told you that, did she?” put in Dr. Dean, with an air of lively
interest.
“Yes.”
Just then the handing round of fresh dishes and the clatter of knives
and forks effectually put a stop to the conversation for the time, and
Gervase presently glancing about him saw that Denzil Murray and his
sister were dining apart at a smaller table with young Lord Fulkeward
and Ross Courtney. Helen was looking her fairest and best that
evening--her sweet face, framed in its angel aureole of bright hair
had a singular look of pureness and truth expressed upon it rare to
find in any woman beyond her early teens. Unconsciously to himself,
Gervase sighed as he caught a view of her delicate profile, and Lady
Fulkeward’s sharp ears heard the sound of that sigh.
“Isn’t that a charming little party over there?” she asked. “Young
people, you know! They always like to be together! That very sweet
girl, Miss Murray, was so much distressed about her brother
to-day,--something was the matter with him--a touch of fever, I
believe,--that she begged me to let Fulke dine with them in order to
distract Mr. Denzil’s mind. Fulke is a dear boy, you know--very
consoling in his ways, though he says so little. Then Mr. Courtney
volunteered to join them, and there they are. The Chetwynd Lyles are
gone to a big dinner at the Continental this evening.”
“The Chetwynd Lyles--let me see. Who are they?” mused Gervase aloud.
“Do I know them?”
“No,--that is, you have not been formally introduced,” said Dr. Dean.
“Sir Chetwynd Lyle is the editor and proprietor of the London _Daily
Dial_, Lady Chetwynd Lyle is his wife, and the two elderly-youthful
ladies who appeared as ‘Boulogne fish-wives’ last night at the ball
are his daughters.”
“Cruel man!” exclaimed Lady Fulkeward with a girlish giggle. “The idea
of calling those sweet girls, Muriel and Dolly, ‘elderly-youthful!’”
“What are they, my dear madam, what are they?” demanded the
imperturbable little _savant_. “‘Elderly-youthful’ is a very
convenient expression, and applies perfectly to people who refuse to
be old and cannot possibly be young.”
“Nonsense! I will not listen to you!” and her ladyship opened her
jewelled fan and spread it before her eyes to completely screen the
objectionable Doctor from view. “Don’t you know your theories are
quite out of date? Nobody is old,--we all utterly refuse to be old!
Why,” and she shut her fan with a sudden jerk, “I shall have you
calling _me_ old next.”
“Never, madam!” said Dr. Dean gallantly laying his hand upon his
heart. “You are quite an exception to the rule. You have passed
through the furnace of marriage and come out unscathed. Time has done
its worst with you, and now retreats, baffled and powerless; it can
touch you no more!”
Whether this was meant as a compliment or the reverse it would have
been difficult to say, but Lady Fulkeward graciously accepted it as
the choicest flattery, and bowed, smiling and gratified. Dinner was
now drawing to its end, and people were giving their orders for coffee
to be served to them on the terrace and in the gardens, Gervase among
the rest. The Doctor turned to him.
“I should like to see your picture of the Princess,” he said,--“that
is if you have no objection.”
“Not the least in the world,” replied Gervase,--“only it isn’t the
Princess, it is somebody else.”
A faint shudder passed over him. The Doctor noticed it.
“Talking of curious things,” went on that irrepressible _savant_, “I
started hunting for a particular scarabeus to-day. I couldn’t find it,
of course,--it generally takes years to find even a trifle that one
especially wants. But I came across a queer old man in one of the
curiosity-shops who told me that over at Karnak they had just
discovered a large fresco in one of the tombs describing the exploits
of the very man whose track I’m on--Araxes …”
Gervase started,--he knew not why.
“What has Araxes to do with you?” he demanded.
“Oh, nothing! But the Princess Ziska spoke of him as a great warrior
in the days of Amenhotep,--and she seems to be a great Egyptologist,
and to know many things of which we are ignorant. Then you know last
night she adopted the costume of a dancer of that period, named
Ziska-Charmazel. Well, now it appears that in one part of this fresco
the scene depicted is this very Ziska-Charmazel dancing before
Araxes.”
Gervase listened with strained attention,--his heart beat thickly, as
though the Doctor were telling him of some horrible circumstance in
which he had an active part; whereas he had truly no interest at all
in the matter, except in so far as events of history are more or less
interesting to everyone.
“Well?” he said after a pause.
“Well,” echoed Dr. Dean. “There is really nothing more to say beyond
that I want to find out everything I can concerning this Araxes, if
only for the reason that the charming Princess chose to impersonate
his lady-love last night. One must amuse one’s self in one’s own
fashion, even in Egypt, and this amuses _me_.”
Gervase rose, feeling in his pocket for his cigarette-case.
“Come,” he said briefly, “I will show you my picture.”
He straightened his tall, fine figure and walked slowly across the
room to the table where Denzil Murray sat with his sister and friends.
“Denzil,” he said,--“I have made a strange portrait of the Princess
Ziska, and I’m going to show it to Dr. Dean. I should like you to see
it too. Will you come?”
Denzil looked at him with a dark reproach in his eyes.
“If you like,” he answered shortly.
“I do like!” and Gervase laid his hand on the young fellow’s shoulder
with a kind pressure. “You will find it a piece of curious
disenchantment, as well as a proof of my want of skill. You are all
welcome to come and look at it except …” here he hesitated,--“except
Miss Murray. I think--yes, I think it might possibly frighten Miss
Murray.”
Helen raised her eyes to his, but said nothing.
“Oh, by Jove!” murmured Lord Fulkeward, feeling his moustache as
usual. “Then don’t you come, Miss Murray. We’ll tell you all about it
afterwards.”
“I have no curiosity on the subject,” she said a trifle coldly.
“Denzil, you will find me in the drawing-room. I have a letter to
write home.”
With a slight salute she left them, Gervase watching the disappearance
of her graceful figure with a tinge of melancholy regret in his eyes.
“It is evident Mademoiselle Helen does not like the Princess Ziska,”
he observed.
“Oh, well, as to that,” said Fulkeward hastily, “you know you can’t
expect women to lose their heads about her as men do. Besides, there’s
something rather strange in the Princess’s manner and appearance, and
perhaps Miss Murray doesn’t take to her any more than I do.”
“Oh, then you are not one of her lovers?” queried Dr. Dean smiling.
“No; are you?”
“I? Good heavens, my dear young sir, I was never in love with a woman
in my life! That is, not what _you_ would call in love. At the age of
sixteen I wrote verses to a mature young damsel of forty,--a woman
with a remarkably fine figure and plenty of it; she rejected my
advances with scorn, and I have never loved since!”
They all laughed,--even Denzil Murray’s sullen features cleared for
the moment into the brightness of a smile.
“Where did you paint the Princess’s picture?” inquired Ross Courtney
suddenly.
“In her own house,” replied Gervase. “But we were not alone, for the
fascinating fair one had some twenty or more armed servants within
call.” There was a movement of surprise among his listeners, and he
went on: “Yes; Madame is very well protected, I assure you,--as much
so as if she were the first favorite in a harem. Come now, and see my
sketch.”
He led the way to a private sitting-room which he had secured for
himself in the hotel at almost fabulous terms. It was a small
apartment, but it had the advantage of a long French window which
opened out into the garden. Here, on an easel, was a canvas with its
back turned towards the spectator.
“Sit down,” said Gervase abruptly addressing his guests, “and be
prepared for a curiosity unlike anything you have ever seen before!”
He paused a moment, looking steadily at Dr. Dean. “Perhaps, Doctor, as
you are interested in psychic phenomena, you may be able to explain
how I got such a face on my canvas, for I cannot explain it to
myself.”
He slowly turned the canvas round, and, scarcely heeding the
exclamation of amazement that broke simultaneously from all the men
present, stared at it himself, fascinated by a singular magnetism more
potent than either horror or fear.