opean
capitals, Copenhagen is one of the pleasantest in which to idle a few
fine summer days away.

On the evening of the fourth day they were just sitting down to their
table by one of the windows overlooking the Oestergade when Nitocris
happened to look up towards the door through which the diners were
trickling in an irregular stream of well-dressed men and women. For a
moment her eyes became fixed. Then she bent her head over the table, and
said:

"Dad, there is Prince Oscarovitch. I wonder what he is doing here? He is
alone: please go and ask him to join us. I will tell you why
afterwards."

They exchanged glances, and the Professor got up and went towards the
door, while his daughter got through a considerable amount of hard
thinking in a very short time. She was, of course, perfectly conversant
with his share in the Zastrow affair, so far as her father had yet gone
with it; but she determined that when Copenhagen had gone to sleep that
night they would cross the Border and pay a visit to the Castle of
Trelitz at the time of the tragedy, and follow it out as far as it had
gone.

It has already been shown that on her first meeting with the Prince she
conceived an aversion from him which was then inexplicable save by the
ordinary theory of natural antipathy: but now she knew that she had been
Nitocris, Queen of Egypt, when he was Menkau-Ra, the Lord of War, who
would have forced her to wed him by the might and terror of the sword,
and the will of a blind and blood-intoxicated populace. She had hated
him then even to death, and now she hated him still in life; wherefore
she desired to make his closer acquaintance on the earth-plane on which
they had met once more after many lives.

As he had been in those far-off days, so he was now, a splendid specimen
of aristocratic humanity. Many eyes had followed her as she had walked
to her table, but there were more people in the room now, and as the
Prince walked towards her beside the famous Professor who had puzzled
all the mathematicians of Europe, the whole crowd of guests was looking
at nothing but these three.

"This is indeed good fortune, Miss Marmion, and as good as it is
unexpected--which, perhaps makes it all the better! Who would have
thought of finding you in Copenhagen?" he said, as he bowed low over her
hand.

"If there is any reason at all for it, Prince, it is that my father and
I always like to take our holidays at irregular times and in unexpected