fore the
fact to the assassination of the Czar?" chimed in the Editor. "Why
didn't he go straight from Lady ----'s house to the nearest
police-station and put the police on the track of his 'Fascinating
Friend'?" "What a question!" the Romancer exclaimed, starting from his
seat and pacing restlessly about the deck. "How could any man with a
palate for the rarest flavours of life resist the temptation of taking
that woman down to dinner? And, besides, hadn't he eaten salt with her?
Hadn't he smoked the social cigarette with her? Shade of De Quincey! are
we to treat like a vulgar criminal a mistress of the finest of the fine
arts? Shall we be such crawling creatures as to seek to lay by the heels
a Muse of Murder? Are we a generation of detectives, that we should do
this thing?" "So my friend put it to me," said the Critic dryly, "not
quite so eloquently, but to that effect. Between ourselves, though, I
believe he was influenced more by consideration of his personal safety
than by admiration for murder as a fine art. He remembered the fate of
the German, and was unwilling to share it." "He adopted a policy of
non-intervention," said the Eminent Tragedian, who in his hours of
leisure, was something of a politician. "I should rather say of _laissez
faire_, or, more precisely, of _laissez assassiner_," laughed the
Editor. "What was the Fascinating Friend supposed to have in her
portmanteau?" asked Beatrice. "What was she so anxious to conceal from
the custom-house officers?" "Her woman's clothes, I imagine," the Critic
replied, "though I don't hold myself bound to explain all the ins and
outs of her proceedings." "Then she _was_ a wonderful woman," replied
the fair questioner, as one having authority, "if she could get a
respectable gown and 'fixings,' as the Americans say, into a small
portmanteau. But," she added, "I very soon suspected she was a woman."
"Why?" asked several voices simultaneously. "Why, because she drew him
out so easily," was the reply. "You think, in fact," said the Romancer,
"that however little its victim was aware of it, there was a touch of
the _Ewig-weibliche_ in her fascination?" "Precisely."

THE LOST ROOM

FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN

It was oppressively warm. The sun had long disappeared, but seemed to
have left its vital spirit of heat behind it. The air rested; the leaves
of the acacia-trees that shrouded my windows hung plumb-like on their
delicate stalks. The smoke of my cigar scarce rose