-a vague, indescribable charm that made her
different from all other women I had ever met.

The room in which we dined was a more sombre apartment than the others I
had seen. The walls were hung with heavy tapestries, unrelieved by light
or brilliant colour. The servants also struck me as remarkable. They
were tall, elderly, dark-skinned, and, if the truth must be told, of
somewhat saturnine appearance, and if I had been asked, I should have
given my vote against their being Italians. They did their duty
noiselessly and well, but their presence grated upon me, very much as
Pharos's had done on the first three occasions that I had met him. Among
other things, one singular circumstance arrested my attention. While the
dinner was in every respect admirable, and would not have discredited
the Maison Doree, or the Cafe de la Paix, Pharos did not partake of it.
At the commencement of the meal a dish of fruit and a plate of small
flat cakes were placed before him. He touched nothing else, save, when
we had finished, to fill a wineglass with water and to pour into it a
spoonful of some white powder, which he took from a small silver box
standing before him. This he tossed off at one draught.

"You are evidently surprised," he said, turning toward me, "at the
frugality of my fare, but I can assure you that in my case eating has
been reduced almost to a vanishing point. Save a little fruit in the
morning, and a glass of water in which I dissolve one of these powders,
and a meal similar to that you now see me making in the evening, I take
nothing else, and yet I am stronger than many men of half my age. If the
matter interests you I will some day give you proof of that."

To this speech I made some reply and then glanced at the Fraeulein
Valerie. Her face was still deathly pale, and I could see by the way her
hands trembled above her plate that the old fellow's words had in some
manner been the cause of it. Had I known as much then as I do now I
should no doubt have trembled myself. For the moment, however, I thought
she must be ill, and should have said as much had my eyes not met hers
and found them imploring me to take no notice of her agitation. I
accordingly addressed myself to Pharos on the subject of the journey
from Paris to Naples, and thus permitted her time to recover her
self-possession. The meal at an end, she rose and left the room, not,
however, before she had thrown another look of entreaty at me, which, as
I rea