able mystery. I stood
baffled before it, as I had stood so often before Carlotta's soul. The
result of this portion of my search was the discovery, not of a new
theory, but of an old pain. I went back to the ship in a despondent
mood, and caused deep distress to one of the gentlest creatures I have
ever met. He was a lean, elderly German, who no matter what the occasion
or what the temperature wore a long, tight-buttoned frock-coat, a narrow
black tie, and a little bluish-grey felt hat adorned with a partridge's
feather which gave him an air of forlorn rakishness. His name was Doctor
Anastasius Dose, and he spent a blameless life in travelling up and
down the world, on behalf of a Leipsic firm of which he was a member,
in search of rare and curious books. For there are copies of books which
have a well-known pedigree like famous jewels, and whose acquisition,
a matter of infinite tact, gives rise, I was told by Herr Dose, to
the most exquisite thrill known to man. He brought me on that morose
afternoon a copy of the "Synonima," in Italian and French, of St.
Fliscus, printed by Simon Magniagus of Milan in 1480, and opened the
vellum covers with careful fingers.

"In all the assemblage of human atoms that inhabit this vessel," said
he, "there is but one who is imbued with reverence for the past and
a sense of the preciousness of the unique. I need not tell you, Herr
Baronet, who are a scholar, that of this book only two copies exist in
this ink-sodden universe. One is in the University Library of Bologna;
the other is before your eyes. It is also the only book known to have
been printed by Magniagus. See the beautiful, small Roman type--a
masterpiece. Ach, Herr Baronet! to have accomplished one such work in
a lifetime, and then to sit among the blessed saints and look down on
earth and know that the two sole copies in existence are cherished by
the elect, what a reward, what eternal happiness!"

I turned over the pages. The faint perfume of mouldy lore ascended and
I remembered the smell of the "Histoire des Uscoques" in the Embankment
Gardens.

"The _odor di femina_ in the nostrils of the scholar," said I.

"_Famina?_ Woman?" he cried, scandalised.

"Yes, my friend," said I. "All things sublunar can be translated into
terms of woman. St. Fliscus wrote because he hadn't a wife; Simon
Magniagus stopped printing because he got married and devoted his
existence to reproducing himself instead of St. Fliscus."

"Ach, th