ke you." Without moving, she touched a knob in the
wall. A trap-door beyond him sank, and out of the bowels of the earth
leaped three indescribable demons. Then, rising, she took a cake of
chalk from the table and, drawing a mystic half circle on the floor,
returned to the divan, lit a cigarette, and leaning comfortably back,
said in a low, monotonous voice, "Advance one foot within that magic
line, and on that head, although it wore a crown, I launch the curse of
Rome."

"I--only wanted to take you--with a kodak," he said, with a light laugh
to conceal his confusion, as he produced the instrument from his
coat-tail pocket.

"Not with that cheap box," she said, rising with magnificent disdain.
"Come again with a decent instrument--and perhaps"-- Then, lightly
humming in a pure contralto, "I've been photographed like this--I've
been photographed like that," she summoned the slave to conduct him
back, and vanished through a canvas screen, which nevertheless seemed
to the dazed Chevalier to be the stony front of the pyramids.

V

"And you saw her?" said the doctor in French.

"Yes; but the three-thousand-year gag did not work! She spotted you,
cher ami, on the instant. And she wouldn't let me take her with my
kodak."

The doctor looked grave. "I see," he mused thoughtfully. "You must
have my camera, a larger one and more bulky perhaps to carry; but she
will not object to that,--she who has stood for full lengths. I will
give you some private instructions."

"But, cher doctor, this previous-existence idea--at what do you arrive?"

"There is much to say for it," said the doctor oracularly. "It has
survived in the belief of all ages. Who can tell? That some men in a
previous existence may have been goats or apes," continued the doctor,
looking at him curiously, "does not seem improbable! From the time of
Pythagoras we have known that; but that the individual as an individual
ego has been remanded or projected, has harked back or anticipated
himself, is, we may say, with our powers of apperception,--that is, the
perception that we are perceiving,--is"--

But the Chevalier had fled. "No matter," said the doctor, "I will see
McFeckless." He did. He found him gloomy, distraught, baleful. He
felt his pulse. "The mixture as before," he said briefly, "and a
little innocent diversion. There is an Aunt Sally on the
esplanade--two throws for a penny. It will do you good. Think no more
of this woman! List