After this incident, the guests melted away, singly and by pairs and families, thanking Nitocris and her father with muchempressementfor "the delightful afternoon," and "the extraordinary entertainment which they had so much enjoyed," and many regrets that "the poor Adept, who really was so very clever and had mystified them all so delightfully," had overdone himself and got ill, and so on, and so on, through the endless repetitions and variations usual on such occasions.
A small party, including the Hartleys, the Van Huysmans, Merrill, and Lord Leighton, had been asked to stay to dinner, but it happened that they had a conversazione already included in the day's programme, and so they took their departure soon after the others, the Professor, it must be confessed, in a somewhat morose frame of mind. Like all men of similar mental constitution, he hated to be mystified, and now, for the first time in his long career of investigation into apparently abstruse phenomena, he had been absolutely stumped by this perfect-mannered, quiet-spoken gentleman from the East who performed wonders in broad daylight, on a plot of grass amidst acrowd of people, and did not deign to even touch the things he worked his miracles with. If he had only used some sort of apparatus, or condescended to some concealment, after the manner of others of this kind, there might have been a chance of finding a means of exposure; but the whole performance had been so transparently open and aboveboard that Professor Marcus Hartley, D.Sc., M.A., F.R.S., etc., etc., felt that, as a consistent materialist, he had not been given a fair chance. Still, he did not despair; and by the time he got back into his own den he had resolved that when it did come, as of course it must do sooner or later, the exposure of Phadrig the Adept and the vindication of Natural Law should be complete and final.
A discussion of the same marvels naturally bulked largely in the conversation during dinner at "The Wilderness." Mrs van Huysman did not contribute much wisdom to it beyond the assertion of her conviction that such things were wicked and should be stopped by law, at which her daughter was sufficiently unfilial to draw a diverting picture of a stalwart policeman trying to arrest an elusive adept who could probably make himself invisible at will, or call to his aid fire-breathing dragons, just as easily as he could make a tennis ball evaporate into thin air, or grow lovely witch-roses and wither them to ashes with a breath.
"I do think it was a bit mean of him not to let that poor young man have one of them,if he was willing to take the risk. Especially as he just wanted to go on working for Science for ever. Fancy what a single man might do if he could just keep right on with his life-work for, say, a thousand years without having to stop it to die and be born again, according to Niti's pet theory. What couldn't a man like that do for human knowledge!"
"Would you have had one of those roses, Brenda, if the Prince's miracle-worker had offered you one?" asked Nitocris, smiling, but still with a decided note of seriousness in her tone.
"I?" laughed Brenda, leaning back in her chair. "Sakes, no, child! I've had a pretty good time so far, and I hope it won't be over just yet; but, after all, there must be a limit even to the combinations of human life, and a time would have to come when you'd just be doing the same old things over and over again. And, besides that, think of the horror of living on and on and seeing every one you loved—husband and wife, and children and grandchildren—grow old and die, and leave you alone in a world of strangers. No; life's a good thing if you only have fair play in the world; but so is death when you've lived your life. It's only like going to bed, after all. Eternal life would be like a day with no night to it, and that, I guess, would get a bit monotonous after a century or two. What do you think, Professor?"
"My dear Miss van Huysman," replied her host with one of his rare but eloquent smiles, "sinceI began to study the question with anything like enlightenment, I have not been able to look upon what we call life, by which I mean existence in this or some other world, as anything but eternal. In its manifestations to our senses it is, I admit, merely transitory, a brief span of time between two other states which, for want of a better word, we may call two eternities; but I must confess that, to me, a human existence beginning with the cradle and ending with the grave is merely a more or less tragic riddle without an answer: in other words, a meaningless absurdity. I find it quite impossible to conceive any deity or presiding genius of the universe who could be guilty of such a colossally useless tragedy as human life would be under those circumstances."
"I can't see it, my dear Marmion," said Brenda's father a trifle gruffly, for he had not yet quite recovered from the disquieting experiences of the afternoon. "What does it matter whether we live again or not as long as we live cleanly and do our work honestly while we are alive? Surely if we leave this world a little bit better, a little bit richer in knowledge, than we find it, these poor little lives of ours, such as they are, and that's not much—will not have been lived in vain. Of course, as you know, I'm just a common, low-down materialist who can't rise to the poetry of things as you can with this gorgeous theory of re-incarnation of yours.
"I should very much like to believe it if Icould, as I once said to an eminent revivalist on the war-path in the States; but the trouble with a man who is honest with himself is that he can no more make himself believe what doesn't seem true to him than he can make himself hungry when he isn't. All the horrible history of religious persecution is just the story of a lot of bigots in power trying to force helpless people to do what they couldn't do honestly. The awful part of the business is that they were most likely all wrong, and didn't know it."
"But, at least, Professor, I hope you are able to give them credit for honest intentions, however mistaken they might have been?" interposed Merrill, who was the son of a country parson and had so far preserved his simple faith intact. It may be remarked here, that Nitocris was well aware of this, and loved her strong-souled sailor all the better for it. Franklin Marmion did not, but then he thought any creed good enough for "a mere fighting man."
"There were schemers and scoundrels among them on both sides, sir," replied the American quietly. "The temptation was too big; but I am quite willing to allow that the majority of them, even the Inquisitors, were honest zealots who really did think it right to produce any amount of suffering and misery here on earth in order to get matters straightened out, as they thought, hereafter. Charles V. was the most enlightened monarch of his age and the worst persecutor, and Torquemada, away from hisreligion, was as kind-hearted a man as ever lived. Calvin was a good man, but he watched Servetus burn, and our own Pilgrim Fathers on the other side were just about as hard men as any when it came to arguing out a religious question with whips and pillories and thumbscrews, and the like. I don't want to offend any one's sentiment or question any one's faith. To each man the belief that satisfies him, but personally I have no use for a religion that can't get itself believed without persecution."
"I quite agree with you there, Professor," replied Merrill, who felt a little chilled by the perfect aloofness with which the other spoke, and was wondering what his dear old father, living his quiet, saintly life among the Derbyshire dales, would have thought of such cold-blooded heresy. "I have always looked upon that sort of brutal intolerance as a form of religious mania—sincere, but still mania, and the story of it is the most awful chapter in human history——"
"Except, perhaps, the story of war," interrupted Professor Marmion, with a snap in his voice. Monomania, more or less harmless, is a not infrequent affliction of very high intelligences, and a quite unreasoning hatred of war was his, although within the last few days he had come to suspect disquieting misgivings on the subject, possibly in consequence of the higher knowledge to which he was attaining.
"My dear sir," replied Merrill quite good-humouredly, and not at all sorry for the diversion,"I am glad to say that I agree with you also. No man who has not actually fought can have any just idea of the appalling abominations of war, and I am sure that no men hate it more devotedly than those who have to fight. But we have to take the world as it is, and not as we would like it to be; and as long as we have people in it who want to set it on fire for their own brutally selfish purposes, we shall have to keep the fire-extinguishers in good order."
In obedience to an appealing glance from his daughter, the Professor did not reply. His opponent in the bloodless arena of Science saved him by interrupting:
"Yes, sir. I differ from my friend Marmion on a good many points, and that's one of them. You have the honour to serve in the biggest fire-extinguishing institution on earth. It was the British Navy that put out Napoleon's bonfire that he was making of the world: you kept the ring round us and Spain, and round Russia and Japan, and you've saved more conflagrations than half a dozen Noah's floods would put out. That's why the Kaiser and his tin-hatted firebrands have such a healthy dislike for you. They'd have had the world on fire years ago if they hadn't had to worry about you."
"I think you must admit, Professor Marmion," said Lord Leighton, who had so far been busy with his own new thoughts and the contemplation of the inspirer of them, "that it is people like these on whom the real guilt of the crime of warrests. Now that the pressure of the bear's paw is removed, Germany is the danger-spot of the world. The Maroocan business proved that pretty clearly; and nothing but our friendship with America and France and Japan, and the ability to strike hard and instantly at sea, saved Europe, and perhaps the world, from something like a repetition of the Napoleonic wars."
"With Mister William Hohenzollern a Napoleon," added Professor van Huysman, with a half-suppressed snort. "It seems to me as though that gentleman had been spreading himself round Europe as German War-Lord so long that he's getting tired of playing at it, and 's just spoiling for a real fight."
"That is very possible," said Merrill; "but happily he has responsibilities, and even the German war party would not follow him as far as he would like to go, to say nothing of the Liberals and the Socialists. Personally, I must say that I think we have had a much more dangerous person, as far as the peace of the world is concerned, on the lawn of 'The Wilderness' this afternoon."
"Of course you mean that hateful Russian Prince who brought that equally hateful Adept, as he calls himself, with him," said Nitocris, with an unwonted harshness that made every one look up.
"Oh, Niti," exclaimed Brenda, "and I asked you to let me bring him!"
"I'm very sorry, dear," she replied quietly, butwith a smile of reassurance. "It was not your fault, of course. He may have been very nice to you, but I am obliged to say that the first moment I looked at him I was possessed by some inexplicable feeling of dislike, and even fear, although I certainly never hated or feared any one before. If I had met him before I got your note, I really think I should have asked you to spare us the honour. It seemed to me as though there was something uncanny about the man. It was very curious."
Her father looked up at her for a moment, wondering what would happen if he were to explain the mysterious antipathy there and then. The little theological discussion would look very small after such a revelation as that. But he, too, had had a revelation which the somewhat desultory conversation had done something to press home upon him. He had seen the advent of the Queen, and heard what she had said to Phadrig with other eyes and ears than his guests had done, for to them it had only been Nitocris who had gone to him and said a few inaudible words, which they had taken as a request for the conclusion of his "performance."
He had seen back through the mists of many centuries and recognised them as they had been, and he had learned that Oscarovitch the Russian had now entered the circle of the Queen's, and therefore his own, influence. A sudden anxiety for the safety of his darling Niti had awakened in his heart. He had seen the lust for possession flame in the man's eyes, and now that he knewwho he was—and had been—he determined that whatever other adventurer might set the world aflame, the Modern Skobeleff should not do it if he and his Royal ally on the Higher Plane could prevent it. His coming had been a curious coincidence, possibly a consequence of obscure causes; but, for some reason or other, he felt himself beginning to look with a more favourable eye on Commander Mark Merrill—perhaps because he was the impersonation of uncompromising hostility to everything that Oscarovitch represented.
Dinner had come to an end now, and so Nitocris took advantage of ending a conversation which bade fair to become somewhat awkward. She glanced round the table and rose, saying:
"Don't you think we've had polemics enough for one little dinner, Dad? There's a lovely moon, so we'll have our coffee on the verandah, and you and Mr van Huysman can settle the affairs of the universe comfortably over your pipes. Give Lord Leighton and Mr Merrill something to smoke, and we will join you when we have got some wraps."
When they got back from Nitocris's rooms Mrs van Huysman elected to take her coffee in a big, deep-seated armchair by the drawing-room window. She said that she had felt the sun a little, and might possibly indulge in forty winks—which she did within a few minutes of getting comfortably arranged in it. Then Nitocris took Brenda by the arm and walked her half-way down the lawn.
"I want to take possession of Lord Leighton for about half an hour, dear, if you don't mind. I've got something very serious to say to him. Dad, with the characteristic cowardice of his sex, has left it to me to say. It's—well, it's about a mummy: a female mummy, or, at least, I suppose I ought to say a mummy that was once a female—about five thousand years ago."
"My dear Niti——"
"No, no, don't interrupt me, for goodness' sake. It's too serious. It is really. We've had something like a tragedy here in the last few days, and things seem to have been, as you would say, a good deal mixed up ever since. I don't understand it a bit; but they have been."
"But, my dear Niti, what on earth can you have to say to Lord Leighton about a—a female mummy? What possible interest can a five-thousand-year-old corpse have for him?"
"Don't, Brenda, don't—at least not just now! Wait till I've told you, and then you'll see," said Nitocris, pressing her arm closer to her side. "Lord Leighton is, as I think you know, an enthusiastic student of Egyptian antiquities. He was also, or thought he was, in love with my unworthy self. He found this mummy in a royal tomb at Memphis. He—well, I suppose, stole it—of course under the usual licence from the Khedive—and sent it home to Dad. Now comes the mystery. That was the mummy of Nitocris, the daughter of the great Rameses, and it was the dead image of my living self."
"Oh, but, Niti—what do you mean?"
"I don't know, Brenda. I wish I did. All I do know is that it was stolen that very night out of Dad's study in the Old Wing, and that I've got to tell Lord Leighton all about it. I'm sure Dad could have told him much better, only somehow he seems afraid."
"Oh, is that all—just the stealing of what was perhaps a very valuable relic? They try to steal much fresher corpses than that in the States if there are dollars in the business."
"Don't be brutal, Brenda! I know you don't mean it, and it isn't like you. Now, listen. Before he went to Egypt this time Lord Leighton asked me to marry him. I said 'No,' and for two reasons. I knew that he liked me very much—he always has done—and poor Dad took his liking for love and encouraged him: but I'm a woman and, I know, that liking isn't love—and then I love some one else. And now he, I mean Lord Leighton—loves some one else. Turn your face to the moon. Yes, you know who the some one else is. I'm so glad, for I do think you——"
"Niti, you're talking arrant nonsense for an educated young woman. I've only known His Lordship for a day, and how can you——"
"Because female Bachelors of Science and graduates of Vassar, whatever stupid people may say, have heartsaswell as intellects, dear, and so they know. I seem to have had a kind of sixth sense given to me to-day, and, when you met Lord Leighton, I saw it, and I believe youfeltit.I saw your eyes brighten and your face flush—only a little, but it did, and so did his. You know my belief in the Doctrine. You may have been lovers—perhaps wedded lovers—once upon a time, as they say in the fairy tales."
"How awful—no, I mean how wonderful—if it could only be true! And now, as you've told me all this, you might as well tell me who your some one else is."
"Really, Brenda, I thought you had more perception. He's there on the verandah smoking with your Lord Leighton."
"Oh! Then, of course, you're going to marry him?"
"I'm sorry to say Dad doesn't want me to. With all his genius and learning he is a perfect child in that sort of thing. He has no idea of Natural Selection. Now listen again, Brenda.. When I had to tell Mark that Dad wouldn't let me marry him, he picked me up out of a chair in the verandah there, where your father and mine are sitting, and kissed me three times."
"And I'll gamble ten cents that you kissed him back. That's Natural Selection, if I know anything about it. Niti, if that man—and he is a man—doesn't get killed in a fight, he'll marry you in spite of all the misguided scientific Dads on earth. Don't you worry. You've made me just happy. I'm not emotional that way, but I'd like to kiss you if the moon wasn't so bright. Suppose we go back and try to assist the kindly Fates a little bit?"
The Fates which, in some dimly-perceived fashion, seem to shape our little successive phases of existence, were certainly in a kindly mood that "lovely night in June." The two Professors had retired to Franklin Marmion's sanctum for the discussion of whisky and soda and the possibilities of physical manifestations of the Occult. Mrs van Huysman was frankly and comfortably sleeping in the deep, amply-cushioned armchair, and the two young men were almost as frankly pining for sweeter companionship than their own.
But the pairing off, which was so deftly managed by Nitocris, did not at first appear entirely satisfactory to them, yet a very few minutes' conversation sufficed to convince them of the wisdom of the arrangement. Brenda, with all the delicate tact which makes every highly-trained woman a skilled diplomatist, managed, not only to completely charm Merrill as a man who is in love with another woman likes to be charmed, but also to make him understand even more clearly than he had done how greatly the Fates had blessed him by giving him the love of such a girl as Nitocris; and then, by a few very deftly conveyed suggestions, she further gave him to understand that, so far as Lord Leighton had ever been an unconscious obstacle in his path, he was even now engaged in removing himself. Wherefore Commander Merrill enjoyed his smoke and stroll under the beeches a good deal more than he had anticipated.
More difficultly ambiguous, certainly, was the position in which Lord Leighton found himself with Nitocris, but here also her tact and perfect candour helped his own innate chivalry to accomplish all that was desirable with the slightest possible friction. She began by telling him, as she had told Brenda, of the mysterious stealing of the Mummy, and made a sort of apology for her father having deputed the telling of it to her—of course, in perfect innocence of the real reason for his doing so. He deplored with her the loss of what they both believed to be a priceless relic of the Golden Age of Egypt, but he passed it over lightly, chiefly for the reason that there was something in his mind just now that was much more serious than even the loss of the mummy of her long-dead namesake.
There had been a little silence between them after he had made his condolences, and then he said, with a hesitation which told quite plainly what was coming:
"Miss Marmion, I have a rather awkward confession to make to you—I have got to tell you, in fact, I think it is my duty to—well, honestly I really don't quite know how to put it properly, but—but—er, something has happened to me to-day that is a good deal more important to me, at least, than the disappearance of half a dozen royal mummies."
"Indeed?" said Nitocris, with a demurely perfect assumption of ignorance. "A good many things seem somehow to have happened to-day. It is something connected with that wonderful Adept's marvels, perhaps? They have certainly astonished most of us, I think."
"No," he replied, still a trifle hesitatingly, "it is nothing connected with him or his miracles, as far as I know, except that there was certainly something decidedly queer about the man and the impression he made upon one. Of course I have seen something like the same thing in Egypt and the Farther East; but he seemed quite what I might call uncanny. Still, that's not the point, although possibly it may have had something to do with it."
He hesitated again. She looked at him with a sideway glance, and said, almost in a whisper: "Yes?"
The moonlight was bright enough for him to see the notes of interrogation in her eyes, and he took the plunge.
"Miss Marmion, I once told you that I loved you and wanted you for my wife, and—and the real fact is that it—I mean I know now that it wasn't true—and so I thought I ought to tell you. You know, of course, that the Professor——"
"My dear Lord Leighton," she answered, with an air of quite superior wisdom, "my learned father is a very clever man in his own subjects: but I think I know a great deal more about this particular one than he does. You are quite right. You did not love me. You liked me very much, I have no doubt——"
"Yes, and so I do still, and always shall do, but——"
"But your liking was great enough to make you mistake it for love. Women's instincts arequicker and keener in these relations than men's are, and I saw that you did not love me as a real woman has to be loved, and, to be quite frank with you, some one else did. I like you very much, Lord Leighton, and I am going to go on liking you; but, you see, I could not give you what I had already given away. Now, you have told me so much that you ought to tell me a little more. How did your sudden enlightenment on that interesting subject come about?"
He was infinitely relieved by the absolutely frank and friendly way in which she had treated the whole subject, and so he had courage to reply with a laugh:
"In short, Miss Marmion, you ask me who the other girl is. Well, you certainly have a right to know, because, curiously enough, I might never have got to know her but for you——"
"Is it Brenda?"
The question was whispered, and he replied in a whisper:
"Yes; do you think I have any chance?"
A cohort of wild cats would not have torn Brenda's secret out of her friend's soul, and so she replied in a tone that was almost judicious in its evenness:
"That, my friend, is a question that you can only get answered by asking another—and you must ask her, not me."
"Oh yes, of course I must," he said rather limply. "But she's so splendid—so beautiful, soexquisite—and—I do wish she wasn't so very rich. You see, even if I had the great good fortune to—to get her to marry me, I have lots for both; and, you know, the moment an Englishman with a title gets engaged to an American millionairess everybody says that he is simply dollar-hunting."
"That, unfortunately, is usually too well justified by the facts," she replied seriously. "But only the most idiotic and ignorant of gossips could possibly say that of you. Every one who is any one knows that the Kyneston coronet does not want re-gilding."
And then she went on, glancing sideways at him again:
"Still, as you know perfectly well, in matters of this kind, these very delicate diplomatic considerations, I do not care whether it is a question of fifty shillings a week or fifty thousand a year. You once paid me the very great compliment of offering me rank, position, and almost everything that a girl, from the merely material point of view could ask for. I refused, because I felt certain that you and I did not love each other—however much we may have liked and respected each other—as a man and woman ought to do, unless they become guilty of a great sin against each other. To put it in a very hackneyed way, we were not each other's affinities. I had already found mine—and I think, and hope, that you have found yours—and I wish you all the good fortune that you may, and, perhaps, can win."
"If is very, very good of you, Miss Marmion;but do you think you could—well, help me a little? I know I don't deserve it."
"No, sir, you do not," she laughed softly, because the other two were coming back on to the lawn. "I wonder that you have—I have half a mind to say the impudence—to ask such a thing. You have confessed your fickleness in an almost shameless way; and now you ask me to help you with the other girl! No, my lord: if I know anything of Brenda van Huysman's nature, there is no one who can help you except yourself. Of course she might——"
"Do you really think she might—I mean in that way?"
"Who am I that I should know the secrets of another woman's soul?" she replied, with unhesitating prevarication. "There she is. Go and ask her, and take my best wishes with you. Now I am going to talk tomyaffinity for a few minutes."
"So it was Merrill, after all!" he said to himself, as they joined the others. "Well, I'm glad. He's a splendid fellow; and she—of course, she's worth the love of the best man on earth—and I'm afraid that's not—anyhow, I'll have Miss Brenda's opinion on the subject before I go home to-night."
It now need hardly be added that the said opinion was not only entirely satisfactory, but also very sweetly expressed.
The next morning there were, at least, three eventful breakfasts "partaken of," as it was once the fashion to say; one at "The Wilderness," one at the Savoy, and one at the Kyneston town house in Prince's Gate.
When Professor Marmion came down he was a little late, for he had done a long night's work, finishing his lecture-notes to his own satisfaction, or, at least, as nearly as he could get there. Like all good workers, he was never quite satisfied with what he did. When the maid had closed the door of the breakfast-room, he looked across the table at his daughter with a twinkle in his eyes, and said:
"Niti, before Lord Leighton left last night he had a talk with me, and you were partly the subject of it."
"And who might have been the other part of the subject, Dad?" she asked, with excellently simulated composure.
"That, Niti," he replied slowly, "I expect you know quite as well as I do. I am inclined to consider myself the victim of something very like a conspiracy."
"I think you are quite right, Dad," she replied, with perfect calmness. "But the chief conspirators were the Fates themselves. We others only did as we had to do. When you have solved that problem of N to the fourth, I think you will see that we could really have done nothing else, because, if you once crossed the border-line—the horizon which Professor Cayley spoke of, I mean—you ought to be on speaking terms with them."
Before he replied to this somewhat searching remark, the man whohadcrossed the horizon emptied his coffee cup, and set it down in the saucer with a perceptible rattle. Then he said more slowly than before:
"My dear Niti, there are other mysteries than N to the fourth. I only wish now to confess frankly to you that I have tried to solve one of them, perhaps the greatest of all, and ignominiously failed. I learnt a great deal last night from a young man to whom I thought I could have taught anything, and I got up this morning in a distinctly chastened frame of mind; and so, to make a long story short, if you like to drive into town and bring Commander Merrill back to lunch, I shall be very pleased to have a chat with him afterwards."
The next moment Nitocris was on the other side of the table, with her arm round her father's shoulders. She kissed him, and whispered:
"You dearest of dears! If I could have loved you any more, I would now, but I can't. I won't drive into town, because Brenda's coming out withLord Leighton in her new motor to fetch me; at least, she will, if other papas have been as delightful as you have been."
He put his hand up and stroked her cheek with a gesture that was older than she was, and said with a smile which meant more than she could comprehend:
"Ah! so itwasa conspiracy, after all! Well, dear, I hope that, for all your sakes, it will turn out a successful one."
About the same time Brenda was saying to her parents:
"Poppa and Mammy, I've got some news to tell you, and I've slept on it, so as to make quite sure about the telling."
"And what might that be, Brenda?" asked her mother, looking up a trifle anxiously. "Nothing very serious, I hope."
"Anything connected with the Marmions?" asked her father, in a voice that sounded as though it had come from somewhere far away. He had theTimespropped up against the sugar basin on his left hand, and he had just read the announcement of Franklin Marmion's lecture for the following evening, and this was quite a serious matter for him.
"It's connected with them in this way," said Brenda, leaning her elbows on the table. "You and Uncle have wanted a coronet in the family, and you know that I've refused three, because the men who wore them weren't fit to respect, to say nothing about loving. Well, I've just discoveredthat I do love a man who has one coronet now, and will have another some day, unless something unexpected happens to him; but mind, it's the man I love and want to marry, and I'd want to do it just the same if he was still the same man he is, and hadn't either a coronet or a dollar to his name."
"That's like you, Brenda, and it sounds good," said her father, tearing his attention away from the alluring title of Franklin Marmion's lecture. "Now, who is it?"
"If it was only that nice young man, Lord Leighton!" said Mrs van Huysman, in a voice that sounded like an appeal against the final judgment of human fate, "but, of course, he's——"
"No, Mammy, that's just what he'snotgoing to do," exclaimed Brenda, sitting up and clasping her hands behind her neck. "Nitocris Marmion is in love with some one else, and Lord Leighton is in love with me—at least he said so last night at 'The Wilderness,' and I don't suppose he'd have said it if he hadn't meant it—and I told him to go and ask his Papa: and now I'm going to ask my Poppa and Mammy if I may be Lady Leighton soon, and, perhaps, some day Countess of Kyneston. You see, Lord Leighton is just a viscount now——"
"What, just a viscount!" exclaimed Mrs van Huysman, getting up from her chair and putting a plump arm round her neck. "Just a viscount—and heir to one of the oldest peerages in England! Oh, Brenda, is it really true?"
"I guess Brenda wouldn't say it if it wasn't, and that's about all there is to it," said her father, putting his long arm out over the table. "I congratulate you, my girl. Mammy and I may have been a bit troubled over some of those other refusals of yours, but you seem to have known best, after all: and I reckon your Uncle Ephraim'll think the same. Lord Leighton's a man right through. He wouldn't have done what he has done if he hadn't been. Shake, child, and——"
Brenda "shook," and then, without another word, she got up and hurried out of the room.
"The girl's right!" said Professor van Huysman, as the door closed behind her; "and if I'm not a fool entirely, she's found the right man."
"Hoskins, you can leave that to a well-brought-up girl like Brenda all the time. Sheisright, and all we've got to hope for now is that the Earl will be right too," said his wife somewhat anxiously.
"He's just got to see our girl and then he will be, unless he's a natural born idiot, which, of course, he couldn't be," replied Brenda's father in a tone of absolute conviction. "Now, I wonder what that man Marmion's going to let loose on us to-morrow night?"
"Good morning, sir," said Lord Leighton, as his father came into the breakfast-room at about the same time that Brenda left the other room in the Savoy.
"Good morning, Lester," replied the Earl of Kyneston, as father and son shook hands in theold courtly fashion which, within the last half century, has gone out of vogue save among those who have ancestors whose record is a credit to their descendants. "You are looking very well and fit—and there is something else. What is it? Had you a very pleasant evening yesterday at 'The Wilderness'? Has Miss Marmion revoked her decision after all?"
"No, sir," said his son, looking at him with brightening eyes; "but she convinced me that I had thought myself in love with the wrong girl—and the other girl was on the lawn at the same time, talking with the man that Miss Marmion was, and is in love with, and will be always, I think."
"And the other young lady, Lester—because, of course, she is a lady, I mean in our sense of the word, much misunderstood as it is in these days?"
"She is Brenda van Huysman, sir."
"Oh, the Professor's daughter.—I mean the other Professor's daughter. A very good family. Her father is a distinguished man, and, if I remember rightly, a Van Huysman was one of the first colonisers of New England about four hundred years ago. It is the same family, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir; I can vouch for that."
Nitocris had given him the whole history of the family, and so he was sure of his facts.
"Lester, I congratulate you," replied his father, taking his arm, as they were accustomed to."While you have been away digging among those Egyptian tombs and temples, this girl has refused at least three coronets, and one had strawberry leaves on it; so she loves you for yourself. That is good, other things being equal, as I think they will be in this case. Now, we will go to breakfast, and you shall tell me the whole story. I have not heard a real love story for a good many years."
It was only to be expected that the announcement of a lecture with such an alluring title by such a distinguished scholar and scientist as Professor Franklin Marmion should fill the theatre of the Royal Society, as the reporters said tritely but truly, "to its utmost capacity."
The mere words, "An Examination of Some Supposed Mathematical Impossibilities," were just so many bomb-shells tossed into the middle of the scientific arena. The circle-squarers, the triangle-trisectors, the cube-doublers, the flat-worlders, and all the other would-be workers of miracles plainly impossible in a world of three dimensions jumped—not incorrectly—to the conclusion that their favourite impossibility would be selected for examination, and, perhaps—blissful thought!—demonstration by one of the foremost thinkers of the day, to the lasting confusion of the scoffers. Learned pundits of the old school, who were firmly convinced that Mathematics had long ago said their last word, and that to talk about "supposed impossibilities" was blasphemy of the rankest sort, came with note-books and agrim determination to explode Franklin Marmion's heresies for good and all. Dreamers of Fourth Dimensional dreams came hoping against hope, for the Professor was known to be something of a dreamer himself; and added to all these there assembled a distinguished company of ladies and gentlemen who looked upon the lecture as a "function" which their social positions made it necessary for them to patronise. The reader's personal friends and acquaintances, including Prince Oscarovitch and Phadrig, were naturally among the most anxiously interested of the Professor's audience.
It is almost needless to say that Hoskins van Huysman had donned all his panoply of scientific war, and had armed himself with what he believed his keenest weapons; and that Professor Hartley looked with amused confidence to a veritable battle royal of wits when the lecture was over and the discussion began. The Prince and Phadrig were keenly anticipative, and the latter not a little nervous.
A verbatim report of that famous lecture would, of course, be out of place in these pages. If Professor Marmion's words of wonder are not already written in the archives of the Royal Society, no doubt they will be in the fullness of time when the minds of men shall have become prepared to receive them. Here we are mainly concerned with the results which they produced upon his audience. Certain portions may, however, be properly reproduced here.
When the decorous murmur of applause which greeted the President's closing sentences had died away, and Franklin Marmion went to the reading-desk and unfolded his notes, there was a tense silence of anticipation, and hundreds of pairs of eyes, which had some of the keenest brains in Europe behind them, were converged upon his spare, erect figure and his refined, clear-cut, somewhat sternly-moulded face.
"Mr President, my lords, ladies, and gentlemen," he began, in his quiet, but far-reaching tones. "The somewhat peculiar title which I have chosen for my lecture was not, I hope I need scarcely say, selected with a view of arousing any but that intelligent curiosity which is always characteristic of such a distinguished audience as that which I have the honour of addressing to-night. I chose it after somewhat anxious consideration, because I am aware that the bulk of opinion in the world of science strongly insists upon the finality of the axioms of mathematics, and therefore it was with no little hesitancy that I approached such a subject as this. I am well aware that, in the estimation of most of my learnedconfrèresand fellow-seekers after scientific truth, to suggest those axioms may not embody final and universal truth is, if I may put it so, to lay sacrilegious hands on the Ark of the Scientific Covenant."
A low murmur, prelude of the coming storm, ran through the theatre, and Professor van Huysman permitted himself to snort distinctively, for which he was very promptly, though quietly,called to order by his daughter, who was sitting in front of the platform between him and Lord Leighton. Franklin Marmion paused for a moment and smiled ever so faintly. Nitocris looked round at the now eager audience a trifle anxiously, for she had a fairly clear idea of the trouble that might possibly be ahead. Her father went on as quietly as before:
"Of course, every one here is aware that the great Napoleon once said that the word 'impossible' was not French. I need not remind such an audience as this that more than one distinguished student and investigator has suggested that it also may not be scientific."
The murmur broke out again, and Hoskins van Huysman blew his nose somewhat aggressively. His scientific bile was beginning to rise. He disapproved very strongly of the tone which his rival had begun. Its quiet confidence was somewhat ominous. The lecturer continued without this time noticing the interruption, and proceeded to give a lengthy and learned but singularly lucidresuméof the more recent progress in the higher mathematics and the deeply interesting speculations to which it had given rise. This, with certain demonstrations which he made on the great black-board beside him, occupied nearly an hour. When he had finished there was another murmur, which this time was wholly of applause, for this part of the lecture had not only been masterly but entirely orthodox. Then silence fell again, the silence of expectant waiting, for everyone felt that the "Examination" was coming now. He began again in a slightly altered voice.
"What I have just been saying was necessary to my subject as far as it went, but for all that it was chiefly introductory to what I am now going to bring to your notice. But this is a matter rather for illustration and discussion than for mere disquisition. Therefore, to save your time as much as possible, I will proceed at once to the illustration, and then we will have the discussion."
Professor van Huysman snorted again, even as a war-horse that snuffs the fray. This time Franklin Marmion seemed to recognise the implied challenge, for he looked round the crowded theatre with a curious smile, which seemed to say: "Yes, gentlemen, I see that some of you are getting ready for a tussle. I am in hopes of being able to oblige you."
"Now," he continued, "it is generally conceded that an ounce of practice is worth a good many pounds of precept, so I will get to the practice. I need hardly remind you that ever since mathematics became an exact science, three problems have been recognised as impossible of solution—trisecting the triangle, squaring the circle, and doubling the cube. I have now the pleasure of announcing that I have had the great good fortune to discover certain formulæ which, so far, at least, as I can see, make the solution of those problems not only possible, but comparatively easy—to those who know how to use them."
As he said this, Franklin Marmion looked directly at Hoskins van Huysman. He was the challenger now, and there was a glint in his eyes and a smile on his lips which showed that he meant business. The American writhed, and had it not been for Brenda's gently but firmly restraining hand, he might have jumped to his feet and precipitated matters in a somewhat embarrassing fashion. The chairman looked up at the lecturer with elevated eyelids which had a note of interrogation under each of them, and then there came that sound of shifting in seats and breathing in many low keys which denotes that an audience has been wound up to a very tense pitch of expectation. If a smaller man had said such words to such hearers some one would have laughed, and then would have burst forth a storm of derision. But the keenest critic had never found Franklin Marmion wrong yet, and he had far too great a reputation to permit himself to say in such a place that which he did not seriously mean. So the hum died down as he went to the black-board, and Nitocris looked at Merrill with something like fear in her eyes.
"If he does that," whispered Phadrig to the Prince in Russian, "the story that Pent-Ah and Neb-Anat told will be true—which the High Gods forbid!"
"As the trisection of the triangle is, perhaps, the simplest of the three problems," said the lecturer, with almost judicial calmness, "we will, if you please, begin with that. I hope thatgentlemen who have brought note-books with them will be kind enough to follow my calculations and check any error that I may make."
But a good threescore note-books, pencils, and stylographic pens were out already, and hundreds of eyes were eagerly fastening their gaze on the black-board, their owners desperately anxious to detect the first slip in the demonstration. The demonstrator drew an isosceles triangle rapidly, and without speaking filled the remainder of the board with formulæ. The almost breathless silence was broken only by the click of the chalk on the board and the scratching of pencils and pens on paper. When he had finished he ran through the calculations aloud, and said in the most commonplace voice:
"Now, gentlemen, if, as I hope, you have found my working correct, I may draw the two lines which will trisect the triangle."
He drew them, and then, as calmly as though he had done nothing more than cross the much-troddenpons asinorum, he told two attendants to take the board down and put it in front of the platform; then, while they were lifting another on to the easel, he said:
"As those who have followed me would no doubt like a little time to revise the figures, I will go on with the next problem, which will be our old friend, or enemy, the squaring of the circle."
The second board was filled with diagrams and formulæ as rapidly as the first.
"There is the demonstration, gentlemen," he said, as the attendants placed it beside the other in full view of everybody. "Now, as time is shortening, I will get on with the third problem."
The chalk began to click again, and the pens and pencils scratched on to the accompaniment of murmurs and whispers and occasional grunts and snorts of incredulity. By a master-stroke of strategy Franklin Marmion had, in placing the three demonstrations of the long-supposed impossible before them in quick succession, kept the learned, but now utterly bewildered mathematicians so busy that they literally had not time to begin "the trouble" which Brenda was now actually dreading. Her father's face, bent down over his note-book, was getting more terrible to look upon every moment. The mere fact that he had not uttered a sound since the demonstrations had begun was sufficiently ominous, for it meant that he was puzzled—perhaps even beaten—and if that was so, she dreaded to even imagine what might happen. On the other hand, Nitocris felt her spirits rising as she looked round and saw the many learned heads bending and shaking over the note-books, each owner of them working at high pressure to win the honour of first finding the error which all firmly believed must exist, and which none of them could detect.
When he had finished his third demonstration, Franklin Marmion, without interrupting the hard thinking that was going on, took a chair by theside of the President, poured out a glass of water, and waited for results.
"Marmion, what is this white magic that you have been springing upon us?" whispered the presiding genius of the learned assembly, looking up from several sheets of paper which he had been rapidly covering with formulæ. "These things are impossible, you know—unless, of course, you have got a good deal farther than any of us. And yet the calculations are correct as far as I can follow them, and no one else seems to have hit on any error yet. I must confess, though, that these progressives of yours are too deep for me. I can follow them, and yet I can't. At a certain point they seem to elude me, and yet the calculations are rigidly right. It's almost enough to make one think you had done what Cayley once told us in this room some one might do some day."
"My Lord," replied Franklin Marmion, almost inaudibly, "I began my address by remarking, as you will remember, that perhaps, after all, the word 'impossible' might not be scientific."
Their eyes met, and the President, than whose there was no greater name in the higher realm of learning, saw something in Marmion's which sent a little chill through him, and that something told him that he was in the presence of a superior being.
"Dear me!" he murmured, looking down at his papers again, "the age of miracles is not past, after all—in fact, it is only just beginning."
"It is re-beginning, my Lord—for us," camethe reply, in a voice which seemed to come from very far away.
The President did not reply. As a matter of fact, he had no reply ready, and he had something else to do. He rose, and said in a somewhat constrained voice:
"Ladies and gentlemen, Professor Marmion has shown us some very strange demonstrations which have certainly amply justified the title which he selected. A good many gentlemen, and some ladies as well, I am glad to see, have followed his calculations very carefully. I have done the same myself, but I am bound to confess that I have not been able to find any error. I think I shall be right in saying that no one will be more pleased than the learned and—er—gifted lecturer to hear that some one else has been able to do so."
Franklin Marmion bowed his assent, and a faint smile flickered across his clean-shaven lips. The next instant Professor van Huysman was on his legs, note-book in one hand and stylo in the other. All the fresh colour had gone out of his face; his eyes were burning, and his lips were twitching with uncontrollable excitement.
"My Lord," he began, in a voice that even Brenda hardly recognised, "like yourself, I have been unable to find any actual error in the lecturer's demonstrations of which I will take permission to call the possibility of the impossible; in other words, that a contradiction in terms can be true and false at one and the same time. That, my Lord, and ladies, and gentlemen," he went on,raising his voice almost to a shout, "is still, and, I hope, in the interests of true science, and not adroit jugglery with figures and formulæ, will ever remain, another impossibility. Professor Marmion has apparently trisected the triangle, squared the circle, and doubled the cube. It may be that he has persuaded some present that he really has done so; but, again, in the interests of science, I desire to protest against the way in which these demonstrations have been sprung upon us. Calculations which he has doubtless taken months to elaborate, he has asked us to test in a few minutes. For myself, I decline to accept them as true, and I hope that others will do the same until we have had time to satisfy ourselves that the hitherto impossible has been made possible."
He sat down, breathing hard and white with anger and excitement, and then the trouble began. The trisectors, the circle-squarers, and the cube-doublers, had seen their long-flouted theories proved to demonstration by one of the most learned and responsible men of science in the world, and one of their most sarcastic and hitherto successful flouters had been compelled to confess that he could find no flaw in the calculations of this mathematical Daniel so unexpectedly come to judgment. They did not understand his proofs, but that was no reason why they should reject them, and so they rose as one man in support of their champion to demand that Professor van Huysman should withdraw his imputations ofjugglery. He sat still, and shook his head. He was too disgusted and bewildered to do or say anything more until he had made a searching analysis of these diabolical formulæ.
But there were others who wanted to have their say in defence of scientific orthodoxy, and they had it—and the rest was a chaos of intellectual conflict until, at the end of nearly an hour, the President, who now saw with clearer eyes than any of the disputants, rose and put an end to the discussion by remarking that they had not the whole night before them, and that all that Professor Marmion had said and done would be published in the scientific papers; further, that such a controversy would perhaps be more profitably conducted in print than by word of mouth. Such a course would give every one ample leisure to work out the problems in the light of the new demonstrations, and also give a much better prospect of reaching a logical, and therefore just, conclusion than a discussion in which haste, and possibly pre-conceived opinions, from the influence of which no human being was really free, could possibly promise.
This, of course, put an end to the matter for the time being, and, after the usual votes of thanks and acknowledgments, the distinguished company dispersed—amused, mystified, gratified, bewildered, and exasperated: but, saving only four of its members, with no idea of the effect which that evening's proceedings were destined to have upon the fate of Europe, perhaps of the whole human race.
Franklin Marmion and Hoskins van Huysman parted that evening in what may be described as a state of armed neutrality, but with more cordiality than Brenda, at any rate, had hoped for. Still, they were both gentlemen, and, moreover, the American scientist was honestly looking forward to the discovery of some fatal flaw in the reasoning of his English rival which should leave the final triumph with him—and such a triumph would be not only final but crushing.
Brenda whirled her father and Lord Leighton—who, of course, sat beside her in front as she drove—off to supper; Merrill went to his club to ruminate happily for an hour; and the hero of the evening and his daughter drove home almost in silence, and it was a silence for which there was a very sufficient reason. Such people do not talk about trivialities when they are thinking about much more serious concerns.
After supper Nitocris followed her father into the study, as he quite expected her to do, and when she had shut the door, she faced him and said in a voice that was not quite her own:
"Dad, there seems to me to be only one explanation of what you did to-night. I know enough mathematics to see that it is the only one. If you tell me that I am wrong, of course I shall believe you—and then I shall ask you how else you did it."
As she spoke he felt that his soul was asking itself a momentous question. She had guessed—or did she already know?—the Great Secret. And, if either, was she herself near enough to the dividing line between the two worlds for him to tell her the truth?
He sat down in the chair before his writing-table and stared hard at his plotting-pad for a few moments. Then he looked up at her and saw the answer.
"Niti," he said slowly, and with a little halt between the words, "you have asked me a question which I think some one else must answer, if it can be answered at all. Look behind you!"
She turned swiftly, and there, almost beside her, stood—not the Mummy, but the Queen, her living other-self, royal-robed and crowned as she had been in the dim past, which was now again the present.
Would she flinch or faint, or cry out with fear? If her unconscious feet had not advanced very near to the Border she would certainly do one or the other. Indeed, it was with an inward quaking of fear for her that her father had told her to turn. It might well have meant the difference between sanity and insanity, knowingwhat she already did of the Mummy and its mysterious disappearance. But no: there before his eyes was worked again the miracle which had already been worked in his own case, though now it was, if possible, even more marvellous than it had been before. As Nitocris turned she uttered a low cry of wonder and recognition, and held out both hands to her other twin-self. The Queen took them, and said in the Ancient Tongue, which now she understood again after many centuries:
"Welcome, thou who wast once myself, into this larger life to which the Perfect Knowledge hath led thee: where Time is not, and that which was, and is, and shall be are the same! Thou hast yet many days, as men call them, to live in that limited life known as mortal, and so the mortal lot, with its perils and sorrows and joys, shall yet be thine: yet, although, if the High Gods will it so, that life shall end and begin and end again many times, thou hast already won through the shadows which bound that little life into the light of the Day which knows not dawn nor noon nor night. I who was, and thou who art, are one again!"
Then came silence. Franklin Marmion saw the two kindred shapes merge into each other. He closed his eyes for a moment, as he thought, and when he opened them again he was alone. He looked at the clock, and saw that it was after four.
"Dear me!" he said, getting up with a shake of his shoulders, "I must have fallen asleep.Where's Niti? Why, of course, she has been in bed for hours, and it's about time that I got there, too."
When they met before breakfast Nitocris said to him:
"I had a very strange experience last night, Dad. I either saw, or dreamt I saw, the Mummy alive again, robed and crowned like a queen of ancient Egypt; and then we seemed to become the same person, and I remembered that I had been Queen Nitocris of Egypt once. Then I found myself alone—so very much alone—in a new world which was still like this one, only there wasn't any time. I had another sense which made me able to see past, present, and future all at once, and here and there, and up and down, and something else were all the same, and yet it did not seem in the slightest strange to me, so I suppose it was a dream."
"It was no dream, Niti," said her father, looking at her with grave eyes. "Last night, as we have to say in the state of Three Dimensions, you had your first glimpse of the state of Four. I saw what you did."
"Ah!" she replied, without any sign of astonishment. "Then that is why I was able to understand your demonstrations last night when all the rest were puzzled. I didn't think I quite did then, however, but I see now that I did. And so I and Her Majesty are really one and the same! It ought to seem very wonderful, but somehow it doesn't in the slightest."
"I don't think that anything will seem wonderful to you now, Niti," was the quiet response. "But as we are at present on the lower plane of existence, it will be necessary for us to go to breakfast."
Oscarovitch and Phadrig went back after the lecture to the Prince's flat in Royal Court Mansions, which, as a bachelor and a bird of passage, he found much more convenient in many ways than a house. He ordered his Russian servant to make coffee for his guest, and mixed a stiff brandy-and-soda for himself. He wanted it, for the experiences of the evening had shaken even his nerves not a little. He was essentially a man of power, both physically and mentally, of boundless ambitions and iron will, vast knowledge of the world, as he knew it, and of very high intellectual attainments; but the cast of his mind was absolutely material, and therefore he both hated and feared anything which appeared to transcend the material plane to which his mental vision was at present entirely confined.
When the servant had left the room after bringing the coffee, he gave Phadrig a cigar, lit one himself, and said through the first puffs of smoke:
"Phadrig, you know, or pretend to know, more about these things than I do, or want to do: but, still, just now I want you to tell me honestly if you believe that Professor Marmion did reallysolve those problems to-night. I ask you because I admit that the solutions went beyond the range of my mathematics."
"Highness," replied the Egyptian, speaking slowly and almost reverently, "he did. There is not, I think, another man on earth now who could have done so; but for those who had eyes to see there could be no doubt, and you will find that, though he has many rivals and will have countless critics, not one will be able either to explain his solutions or find a flaw in them."
"You did a few things that I should not have thought possible the other day, which you claimed to be really miracles. Now, if they were, I suppose you can explain Professor Marmion's?"
"There are no miracles, Highness: only the results of higher knowledge than that which they who see them possess. That is why what I did seemed like miracles to those who watched. But this Franklin Marmion, as he is called in this life, has attained to a higher knowledge than mine, wherefore I am able only to understand imperfectly, but not myself to do, that which he does. Yet, as the High Gods live, he did this thing; and to do it he must have passed to the higher life through the gate of the Perfect Knowledge."
"In other words," said the Prince, after a big gulp of his brandy-and-soda, "that he has solved that infernal problem of the fourth dimension you have had so much to say about. Now, granted that he has done so, what does itamount to as regards our world—the world of practical thought and real action, I mean?"
"All thought is practical, Highness," replied Phadrig, "since there can be no action which is intelligent without thought. Wherefore, the higher the thought the more potent the action, and so he who has the Perfect Knowledge has also the Perfect Power."
"Then, do you mean to tell me seriously—and I can hardly think that you would trifle with me—that this man is now practically omnipotent, as far as we lower beings, as you seem to call us, are concerned?"
"Only the High Gods are omnipotent, Your Excellency; but, if I have seen rightly, he is as a god to us of the lower life, and therefore I would pray you again to utterly relinquish your lately and, as I have dared for your sake to say, rashly-formed designs to make the Queen who was, and his daughter that is, the sharer of your future throne. Is not the Princess Hermia noble and fair enough?"
"No, by all your gods, no!" exclaimed the Prince passionately. "Since I have seen the woman who, as you say, was once Queen of Egypt, there is, and shall be, no other consort for me. And who are you to advise me thus? Are you still the same man who made the condition that, if you used your arts, whatever they may be, to place her in my power, she should be, not only my Empress, but also Queen of Egypt? What has changed you? What hasmade you faithless to the promise that you gave me in exchange for mine? If you have forgotten that, do not also forget that we Russians have a short way with traitors."
"What has changed me, Highness," replied Phadrig, ignoring the threat, "is the knowledge that I have gained to-night. Though you believe me or not, the debt which I owe you makes it my duty to warn you. The matter stands thus: Nitocris, the daughter of Franklin Marmion, was the Queen. For all I know, she also may have attained to the higher life, and is therefore the Queen still, though that is a mystery beyond my comprehension; but I do know now that her father has attained to it, and that for this reason, unless you put this new-found love out of your heart, you will bring yourself within the sphere of this man's power—a power mighty enough to wreck every scheme you have ever shaped, and to doom you to a fate more horrible than mortal brain could conceive. You would be as a man who strove against a god."
"You may believe what you are saying, Phadrig, and I dare say you do," exclaimed the Prince again. "I don't, because I can't; but even if I did, I would claim your promise. I love this Nitocris, Queen or woman, and neither man nor god shall keep her from me, willing or unwilling. As for the Princess Hermia—well, her husband is not dead yet."
"Better he dead and his widow your wife, as was planned, Highness, than that you shoulddare the power of one who has attained to the Perfect Knowledge," said the Egyptian, with all the earnestness of absolute conviction. "But my duty is done. I have warned you of that which you cannot see for yourself. I have done it to my own sorrow and the destroying of my own dream; but my promise is given, and I will keep it, even to a fate that may be worse than death."
The Prince drained his glass and laughed.
"Well said, my ages-old adept, as you think you are! You shall follow me, for I will go on now even to death, or what there may be worse behind it, if I can only take my beautiful Queen with me. Yes, I swear I will, by God—if there is one!"
So by his ignorant blasphemy Oscar Oscarovitch, who once was Lord of War in Egypt, for the love of the same woman, fixed his fate for this life, and for many that were to come after it.