it, that she was
beautiful, unlike other women, and born to charm all living things.
She compared in her mind the powers she controlled at will, and the
influence she exercised without effort over every one who came near
her. It had always seemed to her enough to wish in order to see the
realisation of her wishes. But she had herself never understood how
closely the wish was allied with the despotic power of suggestion which
she possessed. But in her love she had put a watch over her mysterious
strength and had controlled it, saying that she would be loved for
herself or not at all. She had been jealous of every glance, lest it
should produce a result not natural. She had waited to be won, instead
of trying to win. She had failed, and passion could be restrained no
longer.

"What does it matter how, if only he is mine!" she exclaimed fiercely,
as she rose from her carved chair an hour after he had left her.

CHAPTER XII

Israel Kafka found himself seated in the corner of a comfortable
carriage with Keyork Arabian at his side. He opened his eyes quite
naturally, and after looking out of the window stretched himself as
far as the limits of the space would allow. He felt very weak and very
tired. The bright colour had left his olive cheeks, his lips were pale
and his eyes heavy.

"Travelling is very tiring," he said, glancing at Keyork's face.

The old man rubbed his hands briskly and laughed.

"I am as fresh as ever," he answered. "It is true that I have the
happy faculty of sleeping when I get a chance and that no preoccupation
disturbs my appetite."

Keyork Arabian was in a very cheerful frame of mind. He was conscious
of having made a great stride towards the successful realisation of his
dream. Israel Kafka's ignorance, too, amused him, and gave him a fresh
and encouraging proof of Unorna's amazing powers.

By a mere exercise of superior will this man, in the very prime of youth
and strength, had been deprived of a month of his life. Thirty days were
gone, as in the flash of a second, and with them was gone also something
less easily replaced, or at least more certainly missed. In Kafka's mind
the passage of time was accounted for in a way which would have
seemed supernatural twenty years ago, but which at the present day is
understood in practice if not in theory. For thirty days he had been
stationary in one place, almost motionless, an instrument in Keyork's
skilful hands, a mere reservoir of vitality