said, with gentle affability. "Will you permit
me to shaver you?"

I jumped out of bed and went to the window. It was closed, although a
ventilator at the top admitted plenty of the outside air, and the glass
was of the opaque bull's-eye variety through which it is impossible to
see. I tried to throw up the sash, but it would not budge.

I submitted in silence to the ministrations of Red-Fez, not choosing to
enter into any discussion with a servant. But I was sorely tempted to
protest when he proceeded to array me in an extraordinary robe of
cardinal silk in lieu of the ordinary masculine habiliments. Certainly
I could not leave the house enveloped in this ridiculous garment. My
dress clothes would have been bad enough, but there was no trace of
them to be seen. Evidently I should have to call Dr. Gonzales to
account, and having descended to the now familiar red drawing-room, I
sent Red-Fez with a request for an immediate audience. A few minutes
later he appeared.

"Am I a prisoner here?" I asked, abruptly.

"You await the Lady Allegra's pleasure," he answered, imperturbably.
"She is still indisposed. Possibly by to-night, but I cannot say
definitely."

"I do not wish--"

"Chut!" he interrupted, irritably. "It is a matter not of your wishes
but of her will. That is inevitable. Can you not understand?"

I looked at the immovable figures of two footmen at the door and then
walked out to breakfast. An excellent meal it was, although I
recognized that the food was only an ingenious variation upon the theme
of the night before; that mysterious substance resembling isinglass was
the basis of everything set before me. It was the same with luncheon
and again at dinner. And, as on the previous night, it was an empty
chair that confronted me. Well, what did it matter, after all. Can you
even imagine what Schubert's "Linden-Tree" might be when perfectly sung?

Is it an hallucination, then, that possesses me--some subtle
disturbance of the nerve-centres sapping the sources of will-power,
enfeebling even the physical energies? I do not know. Sometimes I am
ashamedly conscious that I do not greatly care. It is now a week since
I entered this house, and I have made but one attempt to reassert my
personal rights. Yesterday a sudden passion of resolution seized me; at
all hazards I must break the bonds imposed upon me by this invisible
enchantress. As I passed the door leading to the red drawing-room I put
my fingers in my ear