once the judge and the accuser, De
Marsay coldly condemned to death the man or the woman who had seriously
offended him. Although often pronounced almost lightly, the verdict
was irrevocable. An error was a misfortune similar to that which a
thunderbolt causes when it falls upon a smiling Parisienne in some
hackney coach, instead of crushing the old coachman who is driving
her to a _rendezvous_. Thus the bitter and profound sarcasm which
distinguished the young man's conversation usually tended to frighten
people; no one was anxious to put him out. Women are prodigiously fond
of those persons who call themselves pashas, and who are, as it were
accompanied by lions and executioners, and who walk in a panoply of
terror. The result, in the case of such men, is a security of action,
a certitude of power, a pride of gaze, a leonine consciousness, which
makes women realize the type of strength of which they all dream. Such
was De Marsay.

Happy, for the moment, with his future, he grew young and pliable, and
thought of nothing but love as he went to bed. He dreamed of the girl
with the golden eyes, as the young and passionate can dream. His dreams
were monstrous images, unattainable extravagances--full of light,
revealing invisible worlds, yet in a manner always incomplete, for an
intervening veil changes the conditions of vision.

For the next and succeeding day Henri disappeared and no one knew
what had become of him. His power only belonged to him under certain
conditions, and, happily for him, during those two days he was a private
soldier in the service of the demon to whom he owed his talismanic
existence. But at the appointed time, in the evening, he was
waiting--and he had not long to wait--for the carriage. The mulatto
approached Henri, in order to repeat to him in French a phrase which he
seemed to have learned by heart.

"If you wish to come, she told me, you must consent to have your eyes
bandaged."

And Cristemio produced a white silk handkerchief.

"No!" said Henri, whose omnipotence revolted suddenly.

He tried to leap in. The mulatto made a sign, and the carriage drove
off.

"Yes!" cried De Marsay, furious at the thought of losing a piece of good
fortune which had been promised him.

He saw, moreover, the impossibility of making terms with a slave
whose obedience was as blind as the hangman's. Nor was it this passive
instrument upon whom his anger could fall.

The mulatto whistled, the carriage ret