de Vassart. A man
is what he makes himself. I have made myself--with both eyes open; and
I am now an acrobat and a tamer of beasts. I understand your goodness,
your impulse to help those less fortunate than yourself. I also
understand that I have placed myself where I am, and that, having done
so deliberately, I cannot meet as friends and equals those who might
have been my equals if not friends. Besides that, I am a native of a
paradox--a Republic which, though caste-bound, knows no caste abroad.
I might, therefore, have been your friend if you had chosen to waive
the traditions of your continent and accept the traditions of mine.
But now, madame, I must beg permission to make my adieux."

She sprang up and caught both my hands in her ungloved hands. "Won't
you take my friendship--and give me yours--my friend?"

"Yes," I said, slowly. The blood beat in my temples, almost blinding
me; my heart hammered in my throat till I shivered.

As in a dream I bent forward; she abandoned her hands to me; and I
touched a woman's hands with my lips for the first time in fifteen
years.

"In all devotion and loyalty--and gratitude," I said.

"And in friendship--say it!"

"In friendship."

"Now you may go--if you desire to. When will you come again?"

"When may I?"

"When you will."

XIV

THE PATH OF THE LIZARD

About nine o'clock the next morning an incident occurred which might
have terminated my career in one way, and did, ultimately, end it in
another.

I had been exercising my lions and putting them through their paces,
and had noticed no unusual insubordination among them, when suddenly,
Timour Melek, a big Algerian lion, flew at me without the slightest
provocation or warning.

Fortunately I had a training-chair in my hand, on which Timour had
just been sitting, and I had time to thrust it into his face. Thrice
with incredible swiftness he struck the iron-chair, right, left, and
right, as a cat strikes, then seized it in his teeth. At the same
moment I brought my loaded whip heavily across his nose.

"Down, Timour Melek! Down! down! down!" I said, steadily,
accompanying each word with a blow of the whip across the nose.

The brute had only hurt himself when he struck the chair, and now,
under the blows raining on his sensitive nose, he doubtless remembered
similar episodes in his early training, and shrank back, nearly
deafening me with his roars. I followed, punishing him, and he fled
towards the l