"It must be awfully jolly and--er--all that sort of thing to be so famous," he observed, glancing up at the strong, dark, brooding face above him. "They had a picture of yours over in London once; I went to see it with my mother. It was called 'Le Poignard,' do you remember it?"
Gervase shrugged his shoulders carelessly.
"Yes, I remember. A poor thing at its best. It was a woman with a dagger in her hand."
"Yes, awfully fine, don'cher know! She was a very dark woman--too dark for my taste,--and she'd got a poignard clasped in in her right hand. Of course, she was going to murder somebody with it; that was plain enough. You meant it so, didn't you?"
"I suppose I did."
"She was in a sort of Eastern get-up," pursued Fulkeward, "one of your former studies in Egypt, perhaps."
Gervase started, and passed his hand across his forehead with a bewildered air.
"No, no! Not a former study, by any means. How could it be? This is my first visit to Egypt. I have never been here before."
"Haven't you? Really! Well, you'll find it awfully interesting and all that sort of thing. I don't see half as much of it as I should like. I'm a weak chap--got something wrong with my lungs,--awful bother, but can't be helped. My mother won't let me do too much. Here we are; this is the Princess Ziska's."
They were standing in a narrow street ending in a cul-de-sac, with tall houses on each side which cast long, black, melancholy shadows on the rough pavement below. A vague sense of gloom and oppression stole over Gervase as he surveyed the outside of the particular dwelling Fulkeward pointed out to him--a square, palatial building, which had no doubt once been magnificent in its exterior adornment, but which now, owing to long neglect, had fallen into somewhat melancholy decay. The sombre portal, fantastically ornamented with designs copied from some of the Egyptian monuments, rather resembled the gateway of a tomb than an entrance to the private residence of a beautiful living woman, and Fulkeward, noting his companion's silence, added: "Not a very cheerful corner, is it? Some of these places are regular holes, don'cher know; but I daresay it's all right inside."
"You have never been inside?"
"Never." And Fulkeward lowered his voice: "Look up there; there's the beast that keeps everybody out!"
Gervase followed his glance, and perceived behind the projecting carved lattice-work of one of the windows a dark, wrinkled face and two gleaming eyes which, even at that distance, had, or appeared to have, a somewhat sinister expression.