sclose to him matters he would perhaps not wish a third
person to overhear. I see a line of mighty rulers, ruthless,
red-handed--the past of his soul."

The Countess murmurously withdrew. The two males faced each other.

[Illustration: "I feared he was discommoding you," ventured the
Countess, elegantly apologetic]

The professor was a mere sketch of a man, random, rakish, with head
aslant and shifty eyes forever dropping away from a questioner's face.
He abounded in inhuman angles and impossible lines. It seemed that he
must have been rather dashingly done in the first place, then half
obliterated and badly mended with fumbling, indecisive touches. His
restless hands unceasingly wrung each other as if he had that moment
made his own acquaintance and was trying to infuse a false geniality
into the meeting.

When he spoke he had a trick of opening his mouth for a word and holding
it so, a not over-clean forefinger poised above an outheld palm. It
seemed to the listener that the word when it came would mean much. His
white moustache alone had a well-finished look, curving jauntily upward.

"Sit there!" An authoritative finger pointed Bean to the chair he had
lately occupied.

He sat nervously, suffering that peculiar apprehension which physicians
and dentists had always inspired.

"Most amazing! Most astounding!" muttered the professor as if to his own
ear alone. He sat in a chair facing Bean and regarded him long and
intently. At brief intervals his face twitched, his body stiffened, he
seemed to writhe in some malign grasp.

Bean gripped the arms of his chair. His tingling nerves were accurately
defining his spine. He waited, breathless.

"I see it all," breathed the professor in low, solemn tones, his eyes
fixed above Bean's head. "First the pomp and glitter of a throne. You
wrench it from a people whose weakness you play upon with a devilish
cunning, you ascend to it over the bodies of countless men slain in
battle. Power through blood! You are cruel, insatiable, a predatory
monster. But retribution comes. You are hurled from your throne. Again
you ascend it, but only for a brief time. You fight your last battle;
you _lose_! You are captured and taken to a lonely island somewhere far
to the south, there to be imprisoned until your death. Afterward I see
your body returned to the city that was once your capital. It now lies
in a heavy stone coffin. It is in a European city. I can almost hear the
name, but no