s all too true.
Very well, for that vaunted force of will, but to what base ends had
it been applied! He was merciless to himself, an egotist and a
vulgarian. How it would shock that woman, as yet unidentified, who
was one day to be the mother of the world's greatest left-handed
pitcher. Take the flapper--impossible, of course, but just as an
example--suppose she ever came to know about the Polish woman and
the actress, and the others! How she would loathe him! And you
couldn't tell what minute it might become known. People were taking
an interest in such matters. He wished he had cautioned the Countess
Casanova to keep the thing quiet. Probably she had talked.

He must go further into that past of his. Doubtless there were lessons
to be drawn from the Napoleonic episode, but just now, when he was all
confused, the thing--he put it bluntly--was "pretty raw."

"With Napoleon, to think was to act." So he had read in one chronicle.
Very well, he would act. Again he would stand, with fearless eyes, at
the portal of the vaulted past.

At eight o'clock that night he once more rang the third bell. He had
feared that the Countess Casanova might have returned to European
triumphs, but the solicitations of the scientific world were still
prevailing.

He stood in the little parlour and again the Countess appeared from
behind the heavy curtains, a plump white hand at the throat of her
scarlet gown.

He was obliged to recall himself to her, for the Countess began to tell
him that his aura was clouded with evil curnts.

"You told me what I was--last time, don't you remember? You know, you
said, it was written on the slate what I was--" He could not bring
himself to utter the name. But the Countess remembered.

"Sure; perfectly! And what was you wishing to know now?"

She surveyed him with heavy-lidded eyes, a figure of mystery, of secret
knowledge.

"I want you to tell me who I was before that--before _him_."

The Countess blinked her eyes rapidly, as if it hurried calculation.

"And I don't mean _just_ before. I want to go 'way back, thousands of
years--what I was _first_." He looked helplessly around the room, then
glanced appealingly at the Countess. The flushed and friendly face was
troubled.

"Well, I dunno." She pondered, eying her sitter closely. "Of course all
things is possible to us, but sometimes the conditions ain't jest right
and y'r c'ntrol can't git into rapport with them that has been gone
more'n a few