apparent
ignorance, of any subsequent history? What, too, of her wonderful and
awful loveliness? This, at any rate, was a patent fact, and beyond the
experience of the world. No merely mortal woman could shine with such
a supernatural radiance. About that she had, at any rate, been in the
right--it was not safe for any man to look upon such beauty. I was
a hardened vessel in such matters, having, with the exception of one
painful experience of my green and tender youth, put the softer sex
(I sometimes think that this is a misnomer) almost entirely out of my
thoughts. But now, to my intense horror, I _knew_ that I could never put
away the vision of those glorious eyes; and alas! the very _diablerie_
of the woman, whilst it horrified and repelled, attracted in even a
greater degree. A person with the experience of two thousand years at
her back, with the command of such tremendous powers, and the knowledge
of a mystery that could hold off death, was certainly worth falling
in love with, if ever woman was. But, alas! it was not a question of
whether or no she was worth it, for so far as I could judge, not being
versed in such matters, I, a fellow of my college, noted for what my
acquaintances are pleased to call my misogyny, and a respectable man
now well on in middle life, had fallen absolutely and hopelessly in love
with this white sorceress. Nonsense; it must be nonsense! She had warned
me fairly, and I had refused to take the warning. Curses on the fatal
curiosity that is ever prompting man to draw the veil from woman,
and curses on the natural impulse that begets it! It is the cause of
half--ay, and more than half--of our misfortunes. Why cannot man be
content to live alone and be happy, and let the women live alone and be
happy too? But perhaps they would not be happy, and I am not sure that
we should either. Here is a nice state of affairs. I, at my age, to fall
a victim to this modern Circe! But then she was not modern, at least she
said not. She was almost as ancient as the original Circe.

I tore my hair, and jumped up from my couch, feeling that if I did
not do something I should go off my head. What did she mean about the
scarabaeus too? It was Leo's scarabaeus, and had come out of the old
coffer that Vincey had left in my rooms nearly one-and-twenty years
before. Could it be, after all, that the whole story was true, and
the writing on the sherd was _not_ a forgery, or the invention of some
crack-brained, long