MOLNAR 
 
 VANWESTRUM
 
 U S 5A ND 
 
 K 
 
 j/ C/A^/y
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Founded on FerencMolnar'sPlay, as produced 
 
 by Harrison Grey Fiske at the Belasco 
 
 Theatre, New York 
 
 BY 
 
 ADRIAAN SCHADE VAN WESTRUM 
 
 MADE IN U. S. A. 
 
 M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO :: NEW YORK
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 PROLOGUE 9 
 
 I. SANDOR TATRAY 33 
 
 II. ENTER THE DEVIL 64 
 
 III. THE DEVIL'S STRATEGY .... 87 
 
 IV. THE DEVIL'S TACTICS .... 100 
 
 V. THE DEVIL'S PARABLE .... 132 
 VI. THE VOROSS BALL 157 
 
 VII. THE DEVIL IN SOCIETY .... 178 
 
 VIII. THE DEVIL'S PAWNS 202 
 
 IX. THE DEVIL'S MANTLE .... 227 
 
 X. THE DEVIL'S LETTER 251 
 
 XI. THE DEVIL'S WISDOM AND WO- 
 MAN'S 274 
 
 XII. THE DEVIL'S VICTORY . 300
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 AT MONTE CARLO 
 
 THE halls of the Casino at Monte Carlo were 
 crowded, for it was the height of the season. 
 Every table had its full complement of seated 
 players, and behind them the later comers, 
 forming a bank of gaily colored gowns and 
 soberer coats. The croupiers, expressionless, 
 observant, deft, kept uttering their monotonous, 
 "Faites votre jeu, messieurs! Faites votre jeul" 
 The vista of course was quiet, as always, with 
 its heavy gilding under the tempered light ; and 
 beneath the quiet, not over it, brooded the in- 
 tense unrest of a passion, the more intense 
 because always kept in control. 
 
 Sandor Tatray staked again, and lost. He 
 had been losing ever since his entrance, after 
 lunch, losing, perhaps, because it was so all- 
 important for him to win. He glanced at the 
 croupier who raked in the gold, and was it
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 possible ? the man smiled at him encouragingly. 
 Sandor looked again. 
 
 The man was evidently a Southerner an 
 Italian, a Spaniard, a South American, a Greek, 
 perhaps, or a countryman of his own a Hun- 
 garian. He had a sardonic face, smooth-shaven, 
 its complexion a yellowish olive. His eyes were 
 black as coal, circumflexed by arched brows 
 of a dead black, like his hair, which was parted 
 in the middle and sharply brushed back, leav- 
 ing a point in the centre of the forehead. The 
 point led down to a hooked nose, and that to 
 a long, sharp chin. An evil face it was, evil 
 with the understanding of the passions and 
 weaknesses of others, evil with the knowledge 
 that holds aloof. 
 
 The croupier smiled again briefly, almost 
 imperceptibly. Sandor risked his last louis 
 rouge, impair et manque. 
 
 He lost again. When he got up, relinquishing 
 his seat to a woman in a picture hat, gorgeously 
 bejeweled, with eager eyes and flushing cheeks, 
 a woman intent now upon her own weakness. 
 not upon that of others, which had furnished 
 
 10
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 her the means to gratify its cravings. Pardon, 
 Madame, he murmured mechanically, and 
 Merci, Monsieur, she answered, jeweled purse 
 in hand, her mind already intent upon colors 
 and numbers. 
 
 Sandor slowly made his way to the vestibule, 
 and thence to the vast terrace, towering over 
 the blue Mediterranean, shimmering in the 
 sunlight, among the flowers and the palms and 
 the greenery of this garden spot on earth. Its 
 beauty appealed not to him just now to him 
 the artist, the lover of color, of beauty in all its 
 forms. 
 
 So here he was, and this was the finish. He 
 had reached the end of his rope at twenty-five, 
 by his own act, in three brief days, just as he 
 had set the first foot on the path of success, just 
 as J Jie world of art the narrower world of 
 judges and connoisseurs, whose judgment the 
 wider world always follows sooner or later 
 had set the seal of its approval upon his work. 
 
 He had talent great talent. He had always 
 known it; now he had been told officially. But 
 a week ago he had won his first medal, in Paris, 
 
 11
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 too. But a week ago and now! The money 
 that his friend and patron in Budapest had 
 lent him to finish his studies, oh, yes, he knew 
 that he had still much to learn, the money that 
 was to take him to Munich and Rome and 
 Amsterdam and the Prado had gone to swell 
 the dividends of the stockholders of the Palace 
 of Chance behind him. Laszlo Voross, prosaic, 
 middle-aged business man, a speculator of com- 
 merce who frowned upon gambling with the 
 conscious virtue of the great, solid merchant, 
 would never forgive him. That he knew. 
 
 Sandor pulled out his silver cigarette case, 
 lighted a cigarette, threw the match out into 
 space, and folded his arms. 
 
 Que faire? he muttered in the French that 
 during the last two years had become more 
 familiar to him than his native tongue. Que 
 faire ? 
 
 He had not done with life. This he knew 
 quite well. The love of it filled his youthful 
 veins with ardor, the desire of its fulness 
 burned in his heart, but his career was 
 crippled. He could go back to the city on the
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 Donau which he had left with such high hopes, 
 he could paint pot-boilers, he might do quite 
 a little trade in old masters made to order : the 
 shops of a continent called for them, ever more 
 of them for innocent collectors from beyond 
 seas, he need not return to the drawing les- 
 sons from which Voross had rescued him, but 
 the contrast! 
 
 He had dreamt of other things. Of a palace 
 of art to dwell in, like Makart's or Alma Tade- 
 ma's, of portraits of beautiful women, the flower 
 of the aristocracy of his country. He had 
 dreamt of his masterpiece, the picture of the 
 well-beloved about whose identity future gen- 
 erations would speculate, marveling the while 
 at the love-light in her eyes. He had dreamt 
 of all the distinction, the honor, the grandeur, 
 the sensuous pleasures of a prince of art, whose 
 name is carried from continent to continent, 
 revered as that of a conqueror or a statesman, 
 sure of immortality as theirs. And through 
 it all had flitted visions of the tribute that 
 beauty pays to the conqueror of life the 
 master. 
 
 13
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 Ah, well, it was over, thanks to his own folly. 
 And now he must face a future of mediocrity, 
 of middle-aged Bohemianism, which means un- 
 orderly habits, threadbare clothes and indiffer- 
 ent food, a jaunty face put upon a bad business 
 an old age of indigence, and then oblivion. 
 
 Sandor made a rapid mental calculation. 
 Yes, he had his return ticket to Paris, and 
 enough in the bank there to carry him back to 
 Budapest. As for the woman who had led him 
 into this scrape by her extravagance well, 
 she must take care of herself. She was used 
 to doing this, and did it well. He smiled grimly 
 to himself. "The woman tempted me," he said. 
 
 A little color had crept into his handsome 
 dark face, with its large brown eyes, its finely 
 cut nose and cleft chin. He buttoned his frock- 
 coat, with its jaunty white flower, tightly 
 around him, gave his moustache a defiant 
 twist upward, and turned to go. 
 
 There, confronting him, dressed with exquis- 
 itely quiet good taste, stood the croupier who 
 had raked in his gold pieces no, it was not 
 he yes, it was was it? No, decided Sandor 
 
 14
 
 PROLOG UE 
 
 / 
 
 at last. This Stranger resembled the other man 
 
 in a general way, but, now that he looked 
 closely, he saw the difference. The likeness 
 lay only in the greenish yellowness of the com- 
 plexion and in the sardonic curl of the corners 
 of the mouth. 
 
 This man was a magnat a cavalier. San- 
 dor, in whom, as in all his countrymen of the 
 lower middle class, respect for the aristocrat 
 was deeply rooted, mentally repeated to himself 
 these Hungarian and Austrian equivalents of 
 the word. The Stranger looked, on closer in- 
 spection, like some grand seigneur incognito, 
 a member of a royal house, perhaps. One 
 meets all kinds of people at Monte Carlo, drawn 
 by a common magnet. 
 
 The Stranger smiled pleasantly. 
 
 "Pardon my intrusion," he said, with the 
 quiet assurance of a man sure of his station, 
 who addresses on socially equal ground a social 
 inferior, "pardon my intrusion, but I could 
 not help watching you a little while ago at the 
 tables. I was sitting quite near you." 
 
 That accounts for the fancied resemblance, 
 15
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 said Sandor to himself: I must have got him 
 mixed up with the croupier. He lifted his hat, 
 and bowed. 
 
 "Am I wrong," continued the Stranger, "in 
 assuming that you plunged rather too heavily?" 
 
 Sandor flushed painfully, a hasty word on 
 his lips. 
 
 "Pray, hear me out," continued the Stranger, 
 hastily, holding up his right hand, whose long, 
 tapering fingers caught the artist's attention. 
 
 "I am much older than you are," continued 
 the unknown, with unmistakable breeding and 
 a no less evident desire to conciliate "much 
 older than I look. I have seen much of this 
 world. It is my hobby I might say it is my 
 business to observe people and drawn con- 
 clusions." 
 
 "Monsieur is perhaps connected with the 
 Casino?" asked Sandor, with unpleasant intent. 
 
 "Young man" the reply was given with 
 impressive dignity "in the place that claims 
 me I am the master, undisputed. It is my 
 realm, my own. Its affairs are far larger, and 
 more enduring, than the bungling little enter- 
 
 16
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 prise in there. Believe me, I mean to be your 
 friend. Will you listen?" 
 
 The Stranger took his right elbow in his left 
 hand, and caressed his long, pointed chin with 
 his right. His coal black eyes gazed quietly 
 at the painter from deep, dark sockets under 
 the arched, finely pencilled eyebrows. 
 
 "Pardon me," said Sandor, surrendering to 
 an influence which he felt but could not define. 
 "I was very rude. But believe me, I am terribly 
 upset." 
 
 "Now we understand each other." The 
 Stranger took out a golden cigarette case, on 
 which Sandor saw a princely crown and an 
 undecipherable monogram, and lighted a long 
 and fragrant cigarette. 
 
 "You see," he continued, "now we have re- 
 turned to our starting-point, all misunderstand- 
 ings have been eliminated, and you have 
 acknowledged that I am right. I never make 
 mistakes ; that's what gave me courage to speak 
 to you, Sandor Tatray." 
 
 The artist gave a start. 
 
 "You know me?" he asked, much surprised. 
 17
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 "Oh yes," I know you," replied the other, 
 turning from faultless French to equally im- 
 peccable Hungarian. "You see, my dear sir, 
 in my leisure hours, which are scant, I am a 
 lover of art if I may boast, a connoisseur, a 
 discerning collector, and a patron of young 
 talent." 
 
 Here he bowed with inimitable grace and 
 dignity. A court sword, ruffles and a golden 
 snuff-box would have graced that bow much 
 better, the painter's trained eye discerned. 
 
 "When I speak of young talent," continued 
 the cultivated voice, "I mean you. Oh, I am no 
 stranger in Paris. I may say that I am no 
 stranger in any of the capitals of the world. 
 But to our affair, since you consent that I shall 
 make it mine as well as yours." 
 
 Here he glanced questioningly at Sandor, 
 who bowed but did not speak. The painter was, 
 in fact, nonplussed. Of this distinguished 
 stranger's kind intention he could no longer 
 doubt, but why why? The whim of an august 
 personage taking his vacation incognito? A 
 philanthropist finding work to his hand? A 
 
 18
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 collector bent on making a sharp bargain with 
 a promising talent in need? Sandor gave it 
 up. He began to have a kindly feeling, however, 
 for this courteous gentleman, who was so 
 tactful, so considerate, so patient. 
 
 "Well, sir," he said at last (the respectful 
 address fell from his lips almost unconsciously) , 
 "well, sir, since you seem to know so much, I 
 may as well own up. Yes, it is true. I have 
 made a mess of my life in three short hours. 
 All I can do now is to go to the Devil." 
 
 "Ah, the inexperience of youth," smiled the 
 Stranger. "And so you think you are going to 
 the Devil because you have gambled a little 
 only a little more than you could afford and 
 believe that you will have to take to painting 
 pot-boilers, or perhaps will have to go back to 
 giving drawing-lessons. Pray, what profit 
 would there be to the Devil in your sinking to 
 obscure mediocrity? That way drab virtue 
 lies, my young friend. The sins of the poor! 
 Do you think that they give him pleasure? 
 They are absolved of them by their clergy be- 
 fore they die, and with reason. They are rarely 
 
 19
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 great enough to be worth the Devil's while." 
 Sandor looked up in astonishment. 
 A grin passed over the Stranger's features, 
 and was gone in a flash, leaving only the sar- 
 donic smile at the corners of the mouth. 
 
 "You are astonished to hear me speak like 
 that? Well, it's true; I have strange fancies, 
 and perhaps the strangest of all is the way I 
 feel about the Devil. People know him so little, 
 and misunderstand him so much. You see, 
 Monsieur Tatray, it seems to me that the Devil 
 is too powerful a personage, and has too im- 
 portant affairs in hand, to bother about the 
 little sins of the obscure mass which may some 
 day fill the dark corners of his realm, suffering 
 as little as it has sinned. A Russian grand- 
 duke, now there's game for him ; or an English 
 statesman who sends thousands of children to 
 their graves for the sake of a peerage; or a 
 financier robbing the widow and the orphan ; but 
 the poor, why, he cannot possibly be interested 
 in them. There is a theory, I believe, that he 
 has hosts of inferior imps to attend to the small 
 fry. Perhaps that's true. I have observed that 
 
 20
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 mankind occasionally stumbles upon some eter- 
 nal verity. 
 
 "But pardon this whimsical reflection. 
 Everyone has his hobbies for example, a love 
 for speculating upon strange topics. Another 
 of my hobbies is art, and the encouragement 
 of young artists. And still another is to see 
 to it that young people are not mistaken when 
 they say they are going to the Devil. It makes 
 them feel important, when in reality they will 
 never get farther than his lowliest substitute 
 assistant-deputy. Going to the Devil means 
 the fulness of life, of its pleasures and its 
 pomps, not their denial. However, now I will 
 stop. You have borne with my hobby most 
 patiently." 
 
 The Stranger smiled amiably. In fact, he 
 beamed upon Sandor with affection. 
 
 "On the contrary," replied the young man, 
 "you have greatly interested me. These are 
 new ideas to me." 
 
 "So much the better, then. Now to return 
 to our muttons, as they say in dear Paris. You 
 have lost the money destined for your studies. 
 
 21
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 You are in a hole a little hole, which you be- 
 lieve to be a bottomless pit on earth. I am 
 going to prove to you that this is not so by 
 pulling you out, easily, with one hand, like this." 
 
 He held out his hand, filled with gold. It 
 glittered as no gold had ever glittered in the 
 young man's eyes, sparkling in the sun as if 
 there were brilliants of purest water among 
 the yellow. Sandor looked at it, attracted, 
 fascinated he who had always needed it so 
 much, but had never yet cared for money except 
 as a means to the fulfilment of his artistic 
 aspirations. It intoxicated him; for the first 
 time in his brief life he saw in it the key to all 
 that the world offers and asks payment for. 
 
 The soothing, persuasive voice came to him 
 from afar, as through a rosy, gilded sunrise 
 haze in a dream. 
 
 "Gold," it said. "The cure of little ills, the 
 palliation of great ones, the solvent of all 
 troubles. Phantom and reality, tempter and 
 savior, blessing and curse! It buys loyalty, 
 it buys hatred ; it sweetens and it embitters ; it 
 unites the loving and lures the wife from her 
 
 22
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 husband's side; it conjures up beauty and 
 engenders ugliness, cause of envy and crime. 
 It shrivels up the souls of those who are its 
 slaves, and kills the souls of those who are its 
 masters ! The second of my allies, dear to me, 
 but the first of them is Love !" 
 
 Sandor gazed at the glittering gold in a 
 state of hypnotic intensity, following the 
 sparkling rays it threw off into the blue sky, 
 over the parapet across the blue Mediterranean, 
 back into the windows of its Temple. Then 
 the vision faded. He came to himself with a 
 start. The stranger was gazing at him medita- 
 tively, his left hand supporting his right elbow, 
 his right hand softly caressing his long, pointed 
 chin. 
 
 "Why why," stammered the artist. 
 
 "I was just saying, Monsieur Tatray, that, 
 if you would permit me, I would help you out of 
 the very shallow little hole into which you had 
 stumbled. Let me be your banker. A little 
 loan, you return to the tables, win back what 
 you have lost, and go back to your studies. 
 What could be simpler? I render you a trifling 
 
 23
 
 service, and you give me a very real pleasure. 
 Shall we say, yes?" 
 
 "But but suppose I lose again?" 
 
 "In that case you shall paint my picture. 
 Many great artists have painted me, but none 
 has ever succeeded. They all paint me too 
 dark, I say do not know how to place me in 
 the right light, have no idea of the background 
 that suits me best." 
 
 "It's just like those confounded poets," he 
 added under his breath, "always misrepresent- 
 ing me. Literary tradition, I suppose." 
 
 "I beg your pardon?" asked Sandor, who had 
 not understood. 
 
 "Pardon me, I was only grumbling. Now 
 we have arranged our little affair, have we not? 
 You will let me lend you the money to repair 
 your losses. If you win, you pay me back; if 
 you fail, you paint my picture. You see, I stand 
 to lose nothing in either case." 
 
 "Thank you, yes; I will accept your offer 
 with much pleasure." 
 
 The Stranger drew out a well-filled wallet, 
 and took from it a handful of bank notes. San- 
 
 24
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 dor, who had expected another sight of the 
 magic gold, felt puzzled. Had he really seen 
 it in the Stranger's hand or what? 
 
 "Shall we say ten thousand francs?" asked 
 the friendly voice. 
 
 "Yes, thanks; whatever you think." 
 
 He took the notes, folded them, and put them 
 into his pocket. When he looked up again the 
 Stranger had disappeared. 
 
 The painter remained in the deserted terrace 
 a little longer, gazing out across the sea, no 
 longer with unseeing eyes. Hope had returned 
 to him, life smiled again upon him. There was 
 to be still another chance for him. He re- 
 viewed again all the hopes, the aspirations, 
 tumbled into ruins a short hour ago, now 
 rearing the pinnacles of their fairy structure 
 higher and prouder than ever. Success yonder, 
 emerging from the subtropical greenery, grace- 
 ful and promising. Fame over there, solid and 
 proud and vast, rising from the sea and aspiring 
 towards the blue dome, filling its expanse, the 
 sun gilding the smaller, slender steeples, here 
 and there ; of opulence and success ; fair women 
 
 25
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 smiling from their bowered windows, mysteri- 
 ous, alluring. 
 
 Sandor prolonged the vision, it was so fair, 
 so dear now that it had been found again, re- 
 built more temptingly beautiful than ever his 
 artist's imagination had been able to rear it. 
 He would enjoy it to the full before he put his 
 fortune again to the test. It might vanish 
 again at that green table, to lie in ruins forever. 
 There was his mysterious patron, to be sure, 
 but who knows? The whims of exalted per- 
 sonages rarely last long. 
 
 He took his courage into his hands, and 
 returned to the rooms, selecting the table at 
 which he had lost before in obedience to an 
 impulse he did not stop to analyze. The crou- 
 pier was still in his place, expressionless, ob- 
 servant, deft, repeating his monotonous, "Faites 
 votre jeu, messieurs! Faites votre jeul Rien 
 ne va plus!" Sandor glanced at him curiously, 
 and again the resemblance to the Stranger 
 struck him, and was it possible? did the man 
 really again give him that barely perceptible 
 smile? 
 
 26
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 The woman with the picture hat, the gorgeous 
 jewels, the eager eyes and flushing cheeks was 
 still in his seat, a pile of gold before her. Led 
 by the same impulse that had sent him back to 
 the table where he had lost, he placed himself 
 behind her. Ere ten minutes had passed, she 
 gathered up her winnings, poured them into 
 the jeweled purse, and got up. 
 
 "Pardon, Monsieur." 
 
 "Merci, Madame." 
 
 She looked at him, and recognized him. 
 
 "Your seat has brought me luck," she smiled. 
 Then, low, "If you are in luck, come to dine 
 with me. Hotel Cosmopolitain." 
 
 But Sandor was already intent upon the 
 game. Red ? No ! 
 
 Black it must be this time. Why? Impulse 
 again. But this time he stopped long enough 
 to realize that, somehow or other, it was his 
 strange friend's appearance that suggested the 
 change, or or he grew bewildered was it 
 that croupier, who persisted in resembling the 
 other one, and lost the resemblance the moment 
 one began to look for it. 
 
 27
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 Sandor began cautiously on black. He won 
 and doubled his stake. He kept on winning. 
 Then another impulse told him that it was time 
 to play the red. Again he won. And now he 
 began to feel as if some mind outside his own 
 was guiding him. He no longer planned his 
 play, he staked impulsively, following that 
 elusive suggestion. Some one was "thinking of 
 him," for him, perhaps. Flushed, intent, he 
 noticed subconsciously that the croupier was 
 watching him closely. 
 
 At the end of two hours the spell fell from 
 him. He came to himself, collected, calm, sane. 
 Gathering up his enormous winnings, there 
 was a crowd now around the table watching 
 him, a diplomat, a demi-mondaine, a duchess, 
 and a railroad magnate crowding each other 
 for his seat with polite eagerness behind his 
 back, he rose, stuffing the money into his 
 pockets as he made his way through the crush, 
 followed by envious eyes and audible whispers. 
 
 In the vestibule he stopped. The Stranger? 
 He had forgotten to ask him for his name, his 
 address. He must find him, however, to return 
 
 28
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 the money that had been his salvation. People 
 were streaming out, down the steps, for it was 
 the dinner hour. 
 
 At last, suddenly, he perceived his benefactor 
 standing quite near him, listening with an in- 
 describable expression upon his face, right 
 elbow in left hand, pointed chin in the right, 
 to a South American ex-president, who, after 
 wholesale murders of unprecedented atrocity, 
 had escaped by the skin of his teeth to Europe 
 and the enormous stealings which he had pru- 
 dently piled up in the Bank of England. 
 
 The Stranger smiled and nodded. Sandor 
 went over to him with boyish eagerness. 
 
 "Oh, sir," he exclaimed! the man had sud- 
 denly assumed his grand air again "Oh, sir, 
 how can I ever thank you? I have had such 
 luck! I won it all back, and more than I have 
 ever had before!" 
 
 He was eagerly fumbling in his stuffed 
 pockets, as he spoke, and drew out a handful 
 of notes, from which he counted with trembling 
 fingers the money lent him. Handing it over, 
 he continued:
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 "Thank you, again! And now, will you not 
 come to dine with me?" 
 
 "Do not mention it, Monsieur Tatray. I am 
 glad to have been able to render you this trifling 
 service. Only its results make it seem great in 
 your eye. But I am sorry I cannot accept 
 your invitation. I am off for Korea to-night. I 
 am beginning to have large interests there. 
 The Japanese are civilizing the country, you 
 know, according to the most approved Christian 
 methods." 
 
 Did the Stranger sneer? Sandor did not 
 s&p to observe. He continued rapidly his 
 taut nerves were beginning to relax: 
 
 "But shall I not see you again? Won't you 
 tell me your " 
 
 "Certainly, my young friend, you shall see 
 me again. Be sure that I will not lose sight 
 of you. Indeed, I have the highest hopes of 
 you for the future. Now take one of my cigar- 
 ettes to quiet your nerves, and then back to 
 your studies and to Budapest! We shall meet 
 again." 
 
 Sandor lighted the cigarette. When he 
 30
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 looked up, as earlier in the afternoon on the 
 terrace, the Stranger had disappeared. The 
 ex-president, still standing nearby, was looking 
 
 around him with a puzzled air. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Sandor Tatray went back to Paris that very 
 night, with a little fortune of over 100,000 
 francs securely tucked away in his breast 
 pocket. As he lay in his berth, too excited to 
 sleep, he reviewed again the happenings 
 crowded into that one short day. From de- 
 spair to comfort, to independence, to untram- 
 meled pursuit of his ambitions! 
 
 The Stranger! He had done it all. Sandor 
 wished that he knew his name, but the man 
 had been pointedly reticent on that point. In 
 fact, he had adroitly stopped Sander's inquiry 
 before it had been spoken. Undoubtedly he 
 was an exalted personage, strictly preserving 
 his incognito while amusing himself in his 
 own way, a way apparently of large means, and 
 talking strange things. Sandor wished, now 
 that it was too late, that he had offered to paint 
 his portrait. It would have been some recogni- 
 
 31
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 tion of the service rendered, some token of 
 gratitude. Perhaps later? He might attempt 
 the picture from memory, the man's personality 
 had impressed him so much. 
 
 But when he awoke in the morning, after an 
 unrefreshing short sleep, the Stranger's face 
 had grown dim beyond recall in his memory. 
 Try as he would, he could not keep his mental 
 vision of it from merging into the sardonic fea- 
 tures of the croupier. Their strange talk on 
 the terrace, too, had gone beyond recall. And 
 so, at the end of a week, there remained nothing 
 but an impression of a chance encounter, a run 
 of luck, a turn in the tide of Fortune. 
 
 That he would see the Stranger again he felt 
 sure. Would he recognize him when he came? 
 
 32
 
 The Devil 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 SANDOR TATRAY 
 
 THE bell tinkled twice in rapid succession in 
 the hall of Sandor Tatray's studio; then, as 
 Andre, his old servant, tarried, there was a 
 nervous fumbling at the knob. The door 
 opened, and the painter entered, meeting the 
 hurrying servitor on the threshold. 
 
 "How is this, Andre?" he said, irritably. "I 
 ring, you don't answer the door, and when I 
 try it, I find that it is not locked. Anyone 
 could have walked in." 
 
 "I don't understand it, sir. I'm sure I locked 
 it when you left. I am sorry." 
 
 "Has anyone been here?" 
 
 "Only the landlord's agent. He wishes to 
 know if you will renew the lease?" 
 
 "The lease? Is it possible that I have been 
 here three years?" 
 
 33
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Yes, sir. Three years since you came back 
 from Paris, and set up your easel here, engaged 
 me, and painted my portrait first of all. Ah, 
 sir, I often look at it as I set things to rights in 
 the studio. That portrait brought you luck, 
 sir, if I may be allowed to say so." 
 
 "Yes, that and Fanny's." 
 
 "But you painted me only once," said Andre, 
 with a touch of jealousy, "and you have painted 
 her a hundred times. All Budapest knows 
 Sandor Tatray's model." 
 
 "You mean that you made me famous with 
 a single picture, and that it took a great many 
 of Fanny's for me to make her name known. 
 Well, have it your own way, Andre, only don't 
 grow conceited." 
 
 "And my portrait was reproduced in illus- 
 trated papers all over the world," exulted the 
 old servant, with fond admiration. 
 
 "So was Fanny's, Andre, so was Fanny's." 
 
 Sandor had divested himself of his fur over- 
 coat and hat, taken off his frock coat, whose 
 buttonhole was adorned with a ribbon of an 
 order, and put on a velvet painting jacket. He 
 
 34
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 now glanced around the large den with his ever- 
 recurring delight in its contents and their 
 arrangement. 
 
 It was a delightful room, a pleasure to the 
 eye, the decorations in a sober, rich color effect, 
 its wealth of art treasures deftly disposed, 
 inviting inspection, but not insisting upon it. 
 There were antique embroideries and superb 
 Oriental porcelains, a bit of shining old Spanish 
 brass here and there where a higher note of 
 color was required, heavy hangings of brocade 
 and velvet, medieval and Japanese armor, some 
 excellent paintings, not all the artist's own, 
 and all the odds and ends picked up with dis- 
 crimination and arranged with the casual effect 
 that hides so much of study. Yes, it was a 
 delightful room, restful and inviting to the 
 chance lay visitor, of infinite interest and pleas- 
 ure to the connoisseur. The furniture was 
 comfortable as well as valuable: inviting easy- 
 chairs and low tables, a lounge, a huge bear- 
 skin before the hearth, priceless rugs upon the 
 floor, and, to one side, an old Gothic chair, the 
 gem of Tatray's collection, tall, with a pulpit- 
 
 35
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 like, four-pointed back an ecclesiastical throne, 
 perhaps, taken from some monastery, or per- 
 haps the chair of state of some belted knight of 
 old. 
 
 The studio was as pleasantly situated as it 
 was arranged. A glass door gave into the 
 huge north room, with its enormous skylight, 
 and through this door could be seen the Donau 
 and the graceful bridge spanning it that links 
 Buda to Pest. 
 
 Sandor threw himself down on the lounge, 
 and helped himself to a cigarette. The servant 
 pottered around the room, setting things a 
 trifle to rights here and there, waiting for 
 orders. 
 
 "Has my dress coat come back from the 
 tailor's?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "White gloves and ties in order? Shirt all 
 ready studs and all?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Well, then, run to the florist's, and tell them 
 not to forget the gardenia for my button- 
 hole." 
 
 36
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Are you not going to wear your Leopold's 
 order to the Voross reception? Oh, sir, you 
 should be so proud of it, you are the youngest 
 man on whom it has ever been bestowed." 
 
 "I am proud of it, Andre, but the gardenia 
 is Madame Voross's favorite flower, and we 
 must please our hostess first of all." 
 
 "She is a beautiful woman, sir, if an old 
 servant may make free to say so. I have often 
 seen her in her carriage. You ought to paint 
 her picture." 
 
 "I am going to paint her picture, Andre. 
 That's why I told you to get everything in 
 readiness, and see that this room was in order." 
 
 "You are going to paint her! Oh, I am so 
 glad! That portrait will be famous." 
 
 "Now run away, Andre, and see to that 
 flower." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 Left alone, Sandor Tatray looked around him 
 with infinite content. Yes, he had every reason 
 to be satisfied. Life had been good to him thus 
 far. He had succeeded not perhaps in the 
 full measure of his ambition, but he was cer- 
 
 37
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 tainly on the way to gain all for which he had 
 planned. 
 
 It was three years now since he had come 
 back to Budapest from his studies abroad, pre- 
 ceded by a reputation in art circles that many 
 an older man might have envied him. Since 
 then his career had been a succession of suc- 
 cesses; of portraits that had been features of 
 the exhibitions at which they had been shown. 
 The "Painter of Fair Women," they called him 
 now. The great beauties of his own country 
 had come first, then the great ladies of Austria. 
 And now he was beginning to attract them from 
 abroad, from Russia, from Italy a Spanish 
 duchess, then several royalties, and, quite re- 
 cently, the young wife of an American rail- 
 road king, whose fragile, intellectual beauty 
 had been a triumph of femininity, not of the 
 dignity of rank. Sandor had exulted : Sargent 
 drew them to London, he would draw them to 
 Budapest. He had engagements for two years 
 ahead. 
 
 Money flowed into his coffers, of course. He 
 lived well, but with a certain sober wisdom. 
 
 38
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 He committed a folly here and there, to be sure, 
 but remained always master of himself. His 
 heart, so it was said, none could touch, neither 
 the beauties of society and the stage whom 
 he painted, nor the women whom he met in 
 the houses of his friends, or elsewhere in the 
 prosperous Bohemia of which he was an orna- 
 ment. He had his bonnes fortunes, to be sure, 
 but they were calm affairs, in which he took 
 far more of sentiment than he gave, and ever 
 Fanny, the "famous" Fanny remained his 
 favorite model, the unofficial guardian of the 
 comforts and the treasures of his home. 
 
 She was not intellectual, this Fanny, but 
 she was very beautiful of face and form, and 
 she had temperament. A gay, thoughtless 
 creature, living but for the fleeting moment, 
 she cheered his dark hours, for he was moody, 
 like all men of genius and genius he undoubt- 
 edly had. That her presence was grateful to 
 him only because it served to make him forget 
 the absence of another, she suspected with a 
 woman's intuition, but never dared to question 
 him. If she was not intellectual or well-edu- 
 
 39
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 cated, Fanny was wise with the wisdom of 
 much experience of an impressionable heart. 
 
 Three short rings of the bell. Sandor knew 
 them. The model had come to make her daily 
 call, to see about posing and to give her capable 
 attention to the details of a bachelor's house- 
 hold. There was a standing feud between her 
 and Andre, who chafed under the authority 
 which Sandor had given her, still more under 
 that which she had gradually arrogated to 
 herself. 
 
 The painter opened the door. 
 
 "Good afternoon, Sandor. Oh, what a face ! 
 You are not the least bit glad to see me." 
 
 "Good afternoon, Fanny." 
 
 "Won't you kiss me?" 
 
 "Certainly. It is a pleasure. There! Now 
 sit down, and be a good girl." 
 
 "Do you want me to pose?" 
 
 "Not to-day." 
 
 "To-morrow?" 
 
 "Not to-morrow." 
 
 "Not to-day, not to-morrow, never again! 
 Oh, I know. I have seen it coming." 
 
 40
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "I make no plans beyond the morrow." 
 
 "I know you, I know men. Something is in 
 the air." 
 
 "Do be reasonable, Fanny." 
 
 "I am reasonable, I have always been reason- 
 able. Lord, haven't I, though! Women have 
 to be, because men won't. They can't," she 
 added with conviction. 
 
 A reminiscent look came into her eyes. She 
 \vas glancing down the long vista of her mis- 
 cellaneous experience of the unreasonableness 
 of man. After a while she began to talk rap- 
 idly, with growing excitement. 
 
 "What's the matter? You have painted me 
 hundreds of times. Why shouldn't you paint 
 me again? That's what I am here for. That's 
 what you pay me for. I am perfectly calm, 
 you see, I am per feet ly calm, am I not? 
 Tell me, am I not?" 
 
 "Be reasonable, Fanny." 
 
 "I am, I am. 'Be reasonable!' Answer me, 
 am I not perfectly calm?" 
 
 "Yes, you are, as phlegmatic as an old lady 
 playing solitaire." 
 
 41
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "It isn't true, I never play solitaire. I hate 
 cards." 
 
 "All right, all right. Have a cigarette. It 
 will quiet your calmness." 
 
 He took from his pocket an elaborately chased 
 cigarette case, and opened it. 
 
 "Who gave you that case?" asked the model, 
 much interested, forgetting all about her griev- 
 ance in anticipation of a new one. "Let me 
 see it ; it is very handsome." 
 
 She took it in her hands, and examined it 
 carefully. 
 
 "The monogram is beautiful," she com- 
 mented. "Why didn't you have a coronet put 
 over it?" 
 
 "Because I am not a nobleman, Fanny." 
 
 "All great artists are princes." 
 
 "Who told you that?" 
 
 "Henry." 
 
 "And who is Henry?" 
 
 "He was a poet." 
 
 "He was a poet? Is he dead?" 
 
 "No, indeed. He weighs two hundred pounds, 
 and has a wife and six children." 
 
 42
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Then he is no longer a, poet?" 
 
 "No. He is inspector of Belgian blocks ip 
 the Department of Highways and Streets." 
 
 "Sensible Henry. But then he is a noble- 
 man no longer?" 
 
 "Why don't you want me to pose any more?" 
 
 "Really, Fanny, your sudden changes of con- 
 versation are very disconcerting." 
 
 "That is what men call tact," commented 
 Fanny to the glowing tip of her cigarette. 
 "They always treat us as if we were children. 
 The child bumps its head, and begins to cry. 
 'Oh, look, at the nice black horsey with the long 
 tail/ says the nurse, and the child forgets all 
 about the bump. A woman is hurt and angry, 
 and tries to speak her mind. The man gets 
 scared. 'You have a smudge on your nose,' 
 he says, or 'Your veil is not tied right.' 
 Clever men! As if we didn't see through 
 them." 
 
 "But you have led the conversation from the 
 first." 
 
 "I am leading back to it now. What were we 
 talking about?" 
 
 43
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "About Henry and sonnets as the staff of life 
 for a wife and six children." 
 
 Fanny looked puzzled, then distrustful. Then 
 her eyes fell on the cigarette case in her lap. 
 Her face cleared instantly. 
 
 "Who gave you that cigarette case?" 
 
 "Would you like to know?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "You think I am jealous. Nothing of the 
 kind. I got over being jealous years ago. 
 It is a waste of time. Life is too short. I 
 want to know because I think it shows exquisite 
 taste." 
 
 "You think so? I am glad to hear it. That 
 case was given to me by someone of whom I 
 think a very great deal." 
 
 "More than of me?" 
 
 "I am afraid I do." 
 
 Fanny picked the cigarette case out of her 
 lap with the tips of her fingers, as if it were a 
 toad, and deposited it on the table. 
 
 "Who is it?" she asked, sternly. 
 
 "I thought this morning that I would make 
 44
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 myself a little present, and so I bought it." 
 
 Fanny sniffed. 
 
 "Why do you send me away day after day?" 
 she asked again. 
 
 "I shall not need you for a long time, Fanny, 
 because I am going to paint somebody's por- 
 trait." 
 
 "Oh, I know that, Madame Voross's." 
 
 "How do you know that?" 
 
 "Never mind, I know. But that is not the 
 reason. You are going to be married." She 
 looked at him triumphantly, then added: "But 
 that's not the reason either." 
 
 "Oh, it isn't?" 
 
 "No, the reason is that you are in love with 
 Madame Voross with Jolan, the beautiful 
 Jolan " 
 
 "That will do, Fanny." 
 
 "And she is in love with you. I know it, I 
 know it." 
 
 She continued to talk rapidly, heedless of 
 Sandor's attempts to stop her, her voice rising 
 to a scream. 
 
 "I know it! Why has she never come here 
 45
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 to see you with her husband? They are the 
 oldest friends you have in Budapest, and he 
 comes in often enough. Do you think I have 
 no eyes, that I cannot put two and two together ? 
 You two love each other, and you are afraid. 
 You haven't courage enough " 
 
 "Fanny, be silent. I forbid you to talk of 
 this. Never mention that lady's name again, 
 here or anywhere else. There are things that 
 are beyond your range of vision, beyond your 
 mental and moral understanding." 
 
 "Fiddlesticks! I know that she is virtuous, 
 and that you are good, just for this once; but 
 it would be far more honest for people who 
 love each other to to " 
 
 "Fanny, this is too much. You had better 
 go home at once." 
 
 "Oh, I am going! And I am never coming 
 back. I will never speak to you again, and 
 you needn't think it! The lease of this studio 
 is going to be renewed, now that she is coming 
 here, but Fanny's lease will not be renewed, and 
 for the same reason. Fanny must not pollute 
 the air here for her!" 
 
 46
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Are you going?" 
 
 "Yes, I am going. Oh, the strange virtue 
 of those high and mighty people! She loves 
 you, and because she loves you, she arranges 
 a marriage for you with a girl you do not 
 love. Poor Mademoiselle Vilma what's her 
 name? I do not envy her. Yes ; I do, I do. Oh, 
 Sandor, forgive me." 
 
 She dropped into the Gothic chair, rose from 
 it suddenly, and said very quietly: 
 
 "Forgive me, Sandor. I was wicked and 
 jealous. I will be a good girl. I will go away, 
 and you will let me come again." 
 
 "You had better never come here again, 
 Fanny. I shall come to see you. We have 
 things to settle between us." 
 
 "Money?" 
 
 "I want to make some provision for you. 
 We have been good friends so long." 
 
 "You can give me money when I earn it, not 
 otherwise. If I cannot pose for you, there is 
 nothing to pay me for. And I will accept no 
 more presents from you. Good-bye." 
 
 The door closed with a slam. Sandor sat 
 47
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 down again, half regretful that the resolution 
 he had taken had ended in this violent rupture. 
 Fanny had been a loyal friend, after all. Then, 
 with the selfishness of love, he forgot her, to 
 think of the thing nearest to his heart. 
 
 Yes, the one, the only woman, was coming at 
 last to have her portrait painted by him. San- 
 dor exulted. He had seen her constantly during 
 the three years since his return, for she was 
 the wife of his benefactor, Laszlo Voross, the 
 man who had lent him the money to go abroad 
 for his studies. 
 
 Deep down in his heart Sandor Tatray kept 
 inviolate, in the midst of his materialistic life, 
 two ideals which he worshipped with unending 
 fidelity and enthusiasm, with unquestioning 
 emotion Jolan Voross and his Art. Her he 
 put first, even though in hours of inspiration he 
 might forget her for a moment for the sake of 
 the canvas to which he transferred the soul 
 as well as the features of his sitter a shallow, 
 frivolous soul, perhaps, just suggested with a 
 touch of cynicism that made connoisseurs 
 chuckle when they discussed the truth of the 
 
 48
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 kikeness among themselves; or again, a noble 
 mind expressed with noble reverence. But 
 ever Sandor would return to the altar of his 
 divinity. Her he had sketched a thousand 
 times from the fulness of his ideal of her, which 
 he knew was but the truth. Yes, Andre was 
 right. That portrait would be his masterpiece, 
 since in the loving preparation for it, it was 
 already his life-work. 
 
 His worship of her was compact of reverence, 
 of high thoughts and noble purposes. Not a 
 flaw of earthiness, of unworthy desire marred 
 its beauty. It was the worship of the devout 
 believer for his divinity : 
 
 The desire of the moth for the star, 
 Of the day for the morrow: 
 
 The devotion to something afar 
 From the sphere of our sorrow. 
 
 What were her feelings towards him? He 
 knew not; he scrupulously refrained from ap- 
 proaching the question even in the most exalted 
 hours of his exaltation. She was his good 
 
 49
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 angel, his lodestar, his inspiration, the fount 
 of all that was noble in him, of the essen- 
 tial purity that had survived in him much 
 thoughtless living, the surrender to many 
 temptations. She was another's, and, if that 
 other's rights counted for nought in his philoso- 
 phy, her's counted for everything. She must be 
 inviolate, unapproachable, pure as marble on 
 the pedestal in his heart, never to be ap- 
 proached but with thoughts worthy of her per- 
 fection. 
 
 People said she had married for money, but 
 he understood. Life is difficult at its begin- 
 nings for a woman who is beautiful, delicately 
 nurtured, sensitive and penniless. 
 
 Her husband, Laszlo Voross, was fifty when 
 she married him ; now he was fifty-six, and the 
 richest man in the dual monarchy. The son of 
 a successful army contractor, he had developed 
 his father's business to international propor- 
 tions. The Balkan peninsula, wisely farmed, 
 had proved a veritable gold mine. He sold arms 
 and provisions to Turk, Greek, Macedonian, 
 Bulgarian and Servian with commercial im- 
 
 50
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 partiality. He smuggled rifles and cannon to 
 South American revolutionaries in his own 
 cargo steamers, and when there was peace 
 there, he transported emigrants in them. He 
 had sold horses to the British in South Africa 
 such horses! machetes to the Cubans and 
 Mausers to the Spaniards, shot-guns, it was 
 said, to the Herreros : he was the acknowledged 
 prince of a romantic trade. Occasionally his 
 government warned him; but rarely, for he 
 was shrewd. The wealth that rolled into his 
 coffers was invested in land, in factories, and 
 several millions of it had gone, during the last 
 two years, into the building and the adornment 
 of the grandest palace in Budapest. Sandor's 
 portrait of Jolan was to occupy in it the place 
 of honor. 
 
 Of the nature of her husband's business 
 activities Jolan Voross knew nothing; of this 
 Sandor was sure. She gave freely of his great 
 wealth to charities, and she gave of her sym- 
 pathy and brain as freely as of his gold. She 
 had established an institution for the education 
 and shelter of penniless girls of the better 
 
 51
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 classes such girls of whom she had been one 
 when she married with a foundation for 
 dowering them when they should wed. She 
 had borne her husband no children, but he gen- 
 erously refrained from ever alluding to the 
 disappointment she knew he felt. Sandor, 
 though he fought the feeling loyally, as un- 
 worthy of the quality of his worship, was con- 
 soled by her childlessness. He frankly rejoiced 
 that he had been able to repay Voross's loan to 
 him so soon, thanks to that lucky day at Monte 
 Carlo, even though he loyally acknowledged the 
 generosity of the rich man's intentions. 
 
 That day at Monte Carlo! Sandor had not 
 thought of it in years. Its events had become 
 blurred over night, he could not remember the 
 face of the Stranger who had saved him, his 
 second benefactor, nothing of their strange 
 talk (he dimly knew that it had been a very 
 strange conversation), nothing but the fact 
 that he had been penniless, that confession to 
 Voross of the use to which his money had been 
 put was out of the question, and that this 
 distinguished Stranger, with the air of a prince. 
 
 52
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 had helped him, and made possible the con- 
 tinuance of his career. 
 
 Sandor lighted a cigarette, a new brand 
 which his tobacconist had sent him for trial. 
 The first whiff was strangely familiar to him. 
 Surely, he had smoked these cigarettes before? 
 He looked at the package, then at the slender, 
 burning roll between his fingers. No, he did 
 not known this brand. But the cigarette was 
 very good, indeed, a blend of Egyptian, he 
 judged, with some unknown tobacco. 
 
 He smoked on with intense delight, and as 
 the light gray smoke rose in little spirals from 
 the tip, and softly penetrated his nostrils and 
 filled the air about him with a soft, aromatic 
 haze, his thoughts turned more definitely to 
 the gambling rooms, the vision on the Terrace, 
 of the castle of his hopes and ambitions, and to 
 the laughing seductive faces at its many case- 
 ments. Yes, it had come true, and he would 
 build far fairer than he had dreamt. 
 
 Sandor lighted another cigarette. The room 
 grew hazier and hazier, its far corners indis- 
 tinct. He closed his eyes, and behold ! the faces 
 
 53
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 at the windows of his dream castle had disap- 
 peared, all but one, which smiled upon him 
 alluringly, beckoning him gently, softly, mod- 
 estly to approach, holding out its arms suddenly 
 with a passionate gesture of surrender. 
 
 Impulsively the painter moved forward his 
 unapproachable queen, his Jolan, was calling 
 him, with the simple, silent cry of human love 
 seeking its own. She had stepped down from 
 her pedestal, his divinity no longer, but a 
 warm, palpitating, living woman. . . . 
 
 Sandor Tatray awoke, his brain in a whirl, 
 his heart beating fast. What! in a dream he 
 had dared to lower his idol to the level of 
 common, frail humanity? 
 
 He sat up and shivered, already doing penance 
 in his heart for his sacrilege, and yet she had 
 been nearly his, their lips had almost touched. 
 He put the vision from him, but it returned, 
 and would not be denied. Unconsciously he 
 faced it, and surrendered himself to the sensu- 
 ous allurement of the dream. 
 
 But not for long. 
 
 "No!" he said aloud, "No! I will not. Oh, 
 54
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Jolan, forgive me. I will reverence you more 
 than ever now!" 
 
 The door opened, admitting Andre. 
 
 "The florist will have the gardenia here by 
 nine o'clock to-night, sir. It is expected by 
 the eight o'clock train from Italy." 
 
 "All right, Andre." 
 
 "Pardon me, sir, has somebody been here 
 in my absence?" 
 
 "No; why?" 
 
 "The room is full of cigarette smoke, and 
 I don't know but it feels as if somebody 
 had been here." 
 
 Sandor was silent. Yes, he felt it, too. Ah, 
 yes, she had been here in that dream of a 
 moment. But no, that was not it. It was 
 something else it eluded him. He looked into 
 the dim corners of the apartment, then 
 shivered. 
 
 "Nonsense," he said, irritably. "Light the 
 fire. You had better see to it that the door is 
 closed hereafter, otherwise we shall be imagin- 
 ing that there are burglars in the house." 
 
 "I have looked in every nook and corner 
 55
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 already, sir, and there is nobody here but our- 
 selves." 
 
 "All right then. Now open the window in 
 the studio, and leave the door open. We want 
 some fresh air in here." 
 
 "Very well, sir." 
 
 Sandor sat down by the fire Andre had kin- 
 dled, which was now flaming merrily, casting 
 a red glow out upon the Persian rug before it 
 and up to the ceiling, playing on the way with 
 the elaborate carvings of the Gothic chair, dye- 
 ing purple its leather back, gilding as with gold 
 its elaborate oaken carvings.. 
 
 As he sat staring there into the glow, San- 
 dor's peace of mind returned to him. His 
 divinity regained her pedestal in his heart, 
 unapproachable, flawless as ever. And he bent 
 down before it with all the purity of his long 
 faith and worshipped with the old singleness 
 of purpose to keep her there, his good angel, 
 his lodestar, far above all other women. 
 
 The bell rang suddenly a decisive, com- 
 manding, domineering ring that would accept 
 no denial. 
 
 56
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "That's Voross," said Sandor to himself. 
 
 He got up from his low seat by the fire, 
 arranged his cravat, hastily took a look at his 
 face in the small Venetian mirror unobtrusively 
 standing at one side of the mantelpiece, an 
 ornament rather than a convenience, gave his 
 moustache the little twirl that was an uncon- 
 scious habit with him, and advanced into the 
 centre of the room. 
 
 The bell rang again, with a certain exaspera- 
 tion now added to its command. Andre came 
 running in. 
 
 "Hurry, Andre ; where have you been? Can't 
 you be more prompt?" 
 
 A moment later the servant opened the door 
 into the den, and said, with all the deference due 
 to a man of untold millions : 
 
 "Monsieur and Madame Voross." 
 
 "Pardon me, Sandor, for ringing so hard," 
 said Voross, as the painter kissed Jolan's hand, 
 "but I am in a hurry, always in a hurry. Ah! 
 business. What do you artists know about it?" 
 
 Laszlo Voross was a bulky man, not tall, but 
 broad of back and deep of chest, with a heavy 
 
 57
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 voice which success had made peremptory, as 
 it had given a touch of arrogance to his man- 
 mer. Prosperity was writ large over his cor- 
 pulent person, decision was spelled by his 
 narrow-lipped, firm mouth, but the eyes, small 
 and of an indecisive color, had a friendly 
 twinkle that attracted. Eyebrows he had none, 
 and his head was bald to the ear line. A solid 
 citizen, but not a romantic personage. But as 
 he turned to his wife, a change came over him, 
 of deference and fondness and indulgence, of 
 pride, also, in this the most treasured of all 
 his possessions. 
 
 "Well, Jolan, here you are at last in the exe- 
 cutor's hands," he said, with heavy jocularity. 
 Then to Sandor: 
 
 "I have often twitted her about her disin- 
 clination to have her portrait painted. Of 
 course, we could have none but you to do it. 
 You are a tradition in the family, and then, a 
 portrait by Sandor Tatray! My boy, you have 
 been successful. I am proud of you. I con- 
 gratulate you." 
 
 "Thank you, thank you," murmured Sandor. 
 58
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Jolan had begun to walk about the room, 
 inspecting its many treasures with evident de- 
 light and understanding. She knew that it was 
 her husband's habit to consider himself the 
 most important person present wherever he 
 was, and to act, still more, to talk accordingly. 
 Therefore she had said nothing beyond the 
 first few words of greeting. Voross now con- 
 tinued. 
 
 "Yes, for three years I have been trying to 
 persuade her to sit to you. I almost believe 
 she has some superstition about it. It was 
 only the house I have built for her that decided 
 her at last. A casket worthy of my jewel, you 
 know, and I want her face to be in it even when 
 she leaves it for a little while, to greet me on 
 my return. A little fancy of mine, you know." 
 
 He began to button up his overcoat again, 
 and to draw on his glove. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I must be off. An affair 
 of importance, you know, a large contract for 
 army supplies. I expect a telegram any mo- 
 ment. If the deal comes off, it will mean a 
 sable cloak for you, Jolan." 
 
 59
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "A sable cloak for me," repeated Jolan. 
 "What will you do when there is nothing left 
 in the world for me to desire?" 
 
 "I will trust you for that. A woman always 
 has unfulfilled desires, eh, Sandor?" 
 
 "Don't ask me," said the painter lightly. 
 "You know, I am not a married man." 
 
 Voross laughed significantly, and held out 
 his hand. 
 
 "Good-bye." 
 
 "Don't go yet," said Jolan hastily. "Isn't 
 this a delightful room a veritable curiosity 
 shop, an art museum, I should say." 
 
 "Yes, yes," said the husband, "very interest- 
 ing place. Who is the lady of the portrait over 
 there, Sandor? Oh, of course, that's the famous 
 Fanny. Is she about? I should like to see her." 
 
 "No, she is not about," answered Sandor, 
 shortly. This reference, in Jolan's presence, to 
 the model embarrassed him. 
 
 "Well, my son, I wonder if you will paint 
 her very often after you are married. I dare 
 say Vilma will see to that. You understand 
 that we give this great house-warming chiefly 
 
 60
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 for you and her. Jolan has set her heart on 
 this match, and you could not please us better 
 than by announcing your engagement to-night 
 in our new home, on the day of its formal 
 opening." 
 
 "I shall speak to her about it." 
 
 "Vilma is a charming girl," said Jolan, 
 softly. "She will make you a good, loyal, lov- 
 ing wife." 
 
 "Well, I'm off," repeated Voross. 
 
 His wife again detained him. 
 
 "Wait a moment," she said. "Now about 
 the portrait. Let us understand each other 
 clearly." 
 
 "Half-length, seated, decolletee, in ball- 
 gown," said Sandor. "The portrait is to be 
 painted for the library, and is to hang over the 
 mantel. Color scheme of library, green and 
 gold. I have seen it, I have sat in it and looked 
 at it and at the mantelpiece; I have made the 
 proper preparations here in the studio. I think 
 I can promise that you will be content with 
 me." 
 
 "We know, we know," broke in the husband 
 61
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 again, with his unconscious patronage. "We 
 expect nothing less from you. We want you 
 to be known hereafter as the painter of the 
 Voross picture. And now I'm really off. What 
 time shall I come back for her, Sandor?" 
 
 "It will be dark in an hour, and you know, 
 unlike you, I can work only by daylight." 
 
 "That does not give you much time for the 
 first sitting." 
 
 "We can find the pose, and the proper light, 
 and I can make the sketch so as to have it ready 
 for when shall we have the next sitting?" 
 
 "Oh, we can arrange that later on," Jolan 
 broke in, somewhat nervously. "No, no, better 
 settle it right now," she added, eagerly, as Vo- 
 ross took up his hat. 
 
 "My dear," he said fondly, "never before in 
 the six years of our married life have you 
 detained me from my business so long. It is 
 highly flattering to me, but really, I must be 
 off. Think of that sable cloak!" 
 
 "What will you do if you cannot return in 
 time?"
 
 "I will send the carriage back for you. Don't 
 worry, I shan't forget you." 
 
 He began to move towards the door, but 
 stopped again half way. 
 
 "Well, Sandor, I leave you my dearest pos- 
 session. I trust you." 
 
 He resolutely turned around, and walked 
 swiftly to the door. Sandor opened it, and 
 closed it behind him. The painter was alone 
 with the woman at last. 
 
 63
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ENTER THE DEVIL 
 
 SANDOR closed the door behind Voross, and 
 stood for a moment in the dark hall, with his 
 hand on the knob. His temples throbbed, his 
 blood leaped, his brain raced with confused 
 thoughts that vainly sought to bring some 
 order, some reason, into his riotous emotions. 
 
 She was here, alone, with him! The realiza- 
 tion of the fact crowded every other thought 
 into the background. It was the fact itself that 
 thus affected him : its possibilities, its meaning, 
 did not come home to him. Jolan still stood 
 on her pedestal in the temple of his heart, 
 serene and unapproachable, but she was 
 present in the body, closer to him than she 
 had been for even a single minute during 
 the three years since his return the years 
 of calm, friendly intercourse under the pro- 
 tection of her husband's roof. She was now 
 
 64
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 sitting by his fireside, probably, awaiting him. 
 
 The painter closed his eyes. He must com- 
 pose himself, must be master of himself before 
 he went into her presence. He was young, he 
 was impulsive he realized that good resolu- 
 tions may be overthrown by an unexpected rush 
 of irresistible emotion. And so he waited, 
 exerting all his will power to subdue this un- 
 foreseen tumult in his breast. The dream image 
 of the afternoon, in the delicate blue-gray haze 
 of the cigarette, rose before him. He warded 
 it off, mechanically with his hand banished 
 it from his insurgent memory. 
 
 Calm returned to him. The pure, distant 
 worship of three long years reasserted itself, 
 and when he re-entered the room it was 
 with the feeling of a devotee whose idol has 
 been transported from some strange shrine to 
 that erected by his own hands, to be adored 
 there more worthily than ever. 
 
 Jolan was till standing in the centre of the 
 room, her coat still tightly buttoned, her hands 
 still gloved. Something in her attitude sug- 
 
 65
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 gested the departing casual visitor rather than 
 the arriving sitter. 
 
 "Why, you look as if you were going to take 
 your leave at once," said Sandor, on the impulse 
 of the moment. 
 
 "I wish that I had gone with my husband. I 
 should have made some excuse a headache 
 anything at all." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "I cannot tell, but I feel that I want to go 
 away, that it would be better if I did not have 
 my picture painted. I have always felt about 
 it that way ; I have refused for three years, but 
 Laszlo has insisted. Call it superstition, if you 
 will, or premonition, but there it is, and I 
 feel it stronger now than ever before. On the 
 way here, in the carriage, I wanted to protest, 
 to appeal to my husband, but I dared not. 
 What reason could I have given?" 
 
 She shivered a little, as Sandor had shivered 
 earlier in the day. 
 
 "Sit down a moment by the fire, Jolan. The 
 drive may have chilled you. It is very cold to- 
 day." 
 
 66
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "It is not that, for my hands are warm and 
 my cheeks burn." 
 
 "Why should you feel that way about it? 
 Having one's portrait painted is a very simple 
 experience. One finds the pose, and there 
 you are. When you are tired, we stop for the 
 day." 
 
 "I know, Sandor, I know but I feel so 
 strange here." 
 
 "Ah, yes, in all these three years that I have 
 been a welcome friend in your house, I have 
 never been able to induce you to visit me in 
 mine. Laszlo always had some perfectly nat- 
 ural story to account for his coming alone it 
 never has seemed to strike him, but I knew, 
 and felt it, and it made me sorry that you 
 should thus evade me." 
 
 "Well, I have come at last, have I not? Here 
 I am, and now I know that my feeling in the 
 matter was right." 
 
 "But surely, Jolan " 
 
 "I cannot help it, Sandor. I feel as if I were 
 utterly alone in the world, without protection. 
 I ought to have brought my maid." 
 
 67
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Did Laszlo suggest it?" 
 
 "I do not believe that he gave the question a 
 moment's thought, and yet why did he say 
 just now that he trusted you?" 
 
 "Did he? Oh, yes, I believe he did. I doubt 
 that he attached any particular meaning to it. 
 You know, one often says things that sound 
 quite differently from the speaker's intention." 
 
 "I do not know, Sandor. I have often 
 thought that he knew well, of our friendship 
 six years ago." 
 
 "To tell the truth, Jolan, the same idea has 
 occurred to me. Indeed, I have a suspicion 
 that he lent me the money to go abroad just 
 after your marriage because because he may 
 have thought that it would be better for me, 
 easier for me, if I did not see you for some 
 time." 
 
 "You mean if we did not see each other, do 
 you not? We might as well be frank." 
 
 "Well, yes. I mean no disloyalty to Laszlo, 
 who has been a true friend to me from first to 
 last, ever ready to be of service, using all his 
 great influence in my behalf, always anxious, 
 
 68
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 in the early days, that I should not be hampered 
 by lack of money. But he is a clever man, 
 a manager of large affairs why should he not 
 have undertaken to manage his young wife a 
 little, and her young friend a very great deal?" 
 
 "And oh, he was wise, was he not, Sandor? 
 Your success proves that." 
 
 "Yes, he was wise. It was fate, I suppose, 
 that shaped our fortunes. And yet, I some- 
 times dream of another life, humble, obscure, 
 harassed by poverty, that still might have been 
 infinitely sweet." 
 
 "Don't, Sandor, don't." 
 
 Jolan had grown very pale. There were 
 tears in her eyes, her lips trembled, and she 
 plucked nervously at her gloves. 
 
 "It is a selfish dream," continued Sandor, 
 slowly, "which would rob you of all that makes 
 your existence beautiful and wide, that fills it 
 with the fulness of gratified desires." 
 
 The fire burned dim and low. The room was 
 filled with the mysterious silence of falling twi- 
 light. The two heads bent a little closer to- 
 gether in their chairs by the fender. 
 
 69
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Sandor," said Jolan, softly, "we can afford 
 now to talk about the past. It is over and done 
 with a boy-and-girl fancy that would have 
 died a natural death in any event." 
 
 "A boy-and-girl fancy," answered the painter, 
 in the same low, level tones. "Yes, we were 
 young, very young. You were barely nineteen, 
 and I was twenty-two. It was a hard life for 
 both of us, Jolan for you, the poor governess 
 in the rich man's house ; for me, the poor strug- 
 gling drawing-master who had cold water and 
 dry bread for his breakfast, and often could 
 not paint because, with all his self-denial, he 
 could not buy paint and brushes and canvas. 
 My widowed father had had ambitions for me, 
 he had done his best to fit me for my career, 
 but he died when I was eighteen, and you know 
 that government clerks do not leave compe- 
 tences behind them when they die. Oh, it was 
 a hard struggle, a bitter struggle, until I earned 
 my first few guldens in the house of your hus- 
 band's father, teaching the little son of his 
 second marriage how to sharpen a pencil." 
 
 "It was a hard, a bitter struggle for me, 
 70
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Sandor. Like you, alone in the world; like 
 you, the daughter of a poor government em- 
 ployee, an assistant teacher in a girls' school 
 at seventeen, nursery governess in reality, 
 harassed by unruly, spoiled children of rich 
 people on the one hand, snubbed by the head- 
 mistress and the teachers on the other, I felt 
 as if heaven had opened to me when I entered 
 the Voro'ss home as companion to that dear 
 little child that died so soon." 
 
 "And Laszlo was there." 
 
 "And Laszlo was there the oldest son, a 
 man grown, serious, full of affairs, his father's 
 pride." 
 
 "He seemed so old to me then," said Sandor, 
 reminiscently. "He was nearly fifty at that 
 time." 
 
 "He seemed so old to me then," echoed Jolan, 
 under her breath, surrendering more and more 
 to the charm of their innocent reminiscences. 
 She felt at ease now, comfortably ensconced 
 before that softly glowing fire. 
 
 "And then," continued the painter, "and 
 then we began to meet in the school-room. Your 
 
 71
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 little pupil was so interested in what my little 
 pupil was doing, that you must bring her in to 
 look on a moment at every lesson." He laughed 
 softly, with fond raillery. 
 
 "I brought her in to look on," she repeated, 
 dreamily, her gaze upon the dying glow of the 
 fire. 
 
 "How long was it? I don't remember," con- 
 tinued Sandor, almost in a whisper. "Those 
 lessons, twice a week, became the only happiness 
 in my narrow, hopeless existence. I forgot that 
 I could have no future without the means to 
 lay its foundations. I forgot my shabby clothes, 
 my cold room, my hunger, my misery. You 
 would be there, at the end of the hour, to talk 
 to me for a moment, to smile that wondrous 
 smile which your eyes reflected from your lips, 
 to give me courage to live through the days 
 until that hour came around again." 
 
 "And I counted the hours that intervened." 
 
 "Then do you remember, Jolan, do you 
 remember that day when the little girl was 
 indisposed, and you came in alone to tell the 
 boy that his new pony was in the stable? Do 
 
 72
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 you remember how he rushed from the room 
 without thinking of asking permission, how he 
 left us alone together?" 
 
 "He left us alone. It was the first time and 
 the last." 
 
 "And then we kissed each other one timid, 
 gentle kiss. I have never forgotten it. That 
 same evening you accepted Laszlo." 
 
 "Oh!" cried Jolan, "Oh, you did not under- 
 stand! I feared you would not, I have feared 
 it all these years." 
 
 "I did understand, Jolan dear. Misery 
 teaches us to understand early. You were alone 
 in the world, with none to guide or advise you ; 
 you were inexperienced, you knew nothing of 
 life, and Laszlo was very gentle and good to 
 you, as he was friendly and encouraging to 
 me." 
 
 "Gentle and good, and friendly and encourag- 
 ing. Yes, Laszlo has been all these things. 
 He is masterful only in his business dealings. 
 He has to be, he says." 
 
 "He was masterful, and he took you, a little 
 girl knowing nothing of life, as he would have 
 
 73
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 plucked a rosebud. How could an awakening 
 sentiment, hardly realized, how could one single, 
 timid kiss have barred his way?" 
 
 "Yes, it was a boy-and-girl affair." 
 
 "But it was sweet, unspeakably sweet." 
 
 "You have forgotten it, Sandor. Tell me 
 that you have forgotten it?" 
 
 "Have you, Jolan? Oh, forgive me, I have 
 no right to ask you." 
 
 "I am Laszlo Voross's wife." She said it 
 very gently, robbing the rebuke of all its sting. 
 "I have a husband who is ever kind and thought- 
 ful, whose wisdom smoothes many a rough place 
 on my path, who indulges me in all my desires, 
 who would spoil me utterly if I would let him." 
 
 Jolan sat upright. The spell was passing. 
 One look she gave him in which there was a 
 world of feeling. Then she got up. 
 
 "Of course you have forgotten that boy-and- 
 girl affair," she decided for him, with a frank 
 smile, "for are you not going to be married? 
 Have you not promised to announce your en- 
 gagement at the formal opening of the new 
 Voross home to-night? Think of the eclat in 
 
 74
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 the papers. 'The great portrait painter, San- 
 dor Tatray, and Mademoiselle Vilma Toth, the 
 heiress, last night announced their coming 
 marriage at the great ball given by Monsieur 
 and Madame Voross in their new palace.' 
 Laszlo will be content. He has his little vani- 
 ties. And to-morrow morning you will have 
 forgotten altogether." 
 
 "I will put away the memory, Jolan, but 
 once in a long while I shall open the secret 
 drawer in which it is kept, and take it out, and 
 remember the sweetest moment of my youth." 
 
 "And now," said Jolan, rising briskly, "to 
 work. I am glad now that I came, Sandor. 
 We shall be better friends now than ever, loyal 
 friends on the journey through life you and 
 I and Laszlo and Vilma. 
 
 "Monsieur Tatray," she went on with playful 
 formality, "you have consented to paint my 
 portrait, and have arranged for the first sitting 
 to-day. What must I do?" 
 
 "Madame Voross, the first thing to do is to 
 take off that blouse and arrange this scarf 
 around your shoulders. It is the color of the 
 
 75
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 ball-dress in which you are to be painted, but 
 you need not bring it until we have decided 
 upon the pose, and I have made the sketch. I 
 made a charcoal drawing yesterday : it is on my 
 easel, but since I have seen you here, I know 
 that it will not do. I have always wished to 
 paint you, though I carefully refrained from 
 telling you you know why. I have sketched 
 you a hundred times, and kept the sketches 
 in a portfolio under lock and key. Yours is 
 going to be my best picture. I feel it, I know 
 it. 
 
 "And now I shall leave you alone while you 
 exchange your blouse for the scarf. I lock the 
 door into the hall so. Now I lock this door, 
 which leads to my dressing-room and the rest 
 of the apartment so. Then I go through this 
 door into the studio, and you lock it behind 
 me. Nobody is here, nobody can get in. You 
 will be alone." 
 
 Sandor went towards the glass door that 
 led into the studio, and looked through it and 
 through the great north window beyond it. 
 
 "It is growing dark," he said, "there is a 
 76
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 snow storm coming up. I am afraid that the 
 light won't be very good, and that it won't 
 last long." 
 
 "Why not put it off till-to-morrow?" asked 
 Jolan, entirely without afterthought. Sandor 
 turned from the door, and looked at her. 
 
 "And your husband?" he said. 
 
 "How my husband? What do you mean?" 
 
 "What are we to tell him? He will naturally 
 ask what we have been doing during more 
 than an hour. He is very observant. He will 
 note that this storm is coming up, and say to 
 himself, 'Well, Sandor had time to work a little 
 before the light failed him, anyhow.' ' 
 
 Jolan was silent. All the doubts, the vague 
 fears, the premonitions that had kept her 
 away from this place for so long, that had 
 prompted her through three years to persist 
 in her refusal to have her picture painted there, 
 came trooping back to her. She knew that 
 deep in his heart Laszlo was passionately jeal- 
 ous, with the jealousy of an elderly man for 
 his young wife the jealousy of proud pos- 
 session rather than of love. 
 
 77
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Then what are we to do?" she asked, 
 blankly. 
 
 "Get to work as soon as possible." 
 
 "Next time I .will bring my maid." 
 
 "You cannot do that now." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Laszlo will want to know the reason. He 
 will grow suspicious, don't you see? Of me, of 
 course, not of you," he added, hastily. 
 
 "Oh, I wish I had never begun it. Some- 
 thing told me." 
 
 "Not at all, Jolan. You are only a bit nerv- 
 ous. You are locked in, now lock me out, and 
 when you are ready, open this door and call 
 me." 
 
 He went out, and Jolan turned the key be- 
 hind him. 
 
 Left alone, she stood a moment undecided. 
 She felt unutterably depressed, as if warned 
 of some unknown danger ahead of her. She 
 shivered again, and resumed her seat before 
 the fire, facing the Gothic chair, which the low 
 fire no longer crimsoned and gilded with its 
 leaping flames, leaving it in the semi-obscurity 
 
 78
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 of the shadow cast by the fading daylight on 
 its tall, four-peaked back. 
 
 She sighed a little, got up, took the scarf 
 from the table on which Sandor had placed it, 
 resumed her seat, and unbuttoned the collar 
 of her blouse. 
 
 Then she stopped, and looked around the 
 room. She was alone, she knew, locked in, 
 safe from all intrusion there was no one, there 
 could be no one there, and yet, she felt as if 
 she were being watched, from afar. She was 
 conscious of the partial disrobing she was about 
 to begin conscious as she had been on the 
 night of her wedding. 
 
 The comparison struck her. So that was 
 it? And this was the total result of six years of 
 constant self-discipline, of loyalty in deed and 
 word and thought. Their long, tender talk just 
 now, innocent of all harm had it set in mo- 
 tion the springs of forbidden thought sum- 
 moned from the tomb the dread ghost of a 
 lost love decently interred? Had she not 
 killed that love and forbidden its very memory 
 an entrance to the chamber of her heart? No; 
 
 79
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 here it was clamoring for admission, demand- 
 ing its rights simply because she was about 
 to bare her shoulders for a simple purpose in 
 the house of the man she loved alone with 
 him. 
 
 Alone with him! The consciousness of that 
 fact would not leave her. It obsessed her: it 
 obtruded itself as if suggested by some mental 
 power from without. 
 
 Jolan was no prude. She had bared her 
 arms and shoulders before in public, at dinners, 
 at dances, at receptions, at the opera. But 
 it was the first time the coincidence struck 
 her Sandor had never seen her on these cere- 
 monial occasions; had he kept away from 
 them on purpose, and for that very reason? 
 Had he been afraid? 
 
 But then 
 
 A thought sprang suddenly into being in her 
 agitated mind, a thought that changed into a 
 wish, a wish that for a moment took on the 
 strength of intensest impulse. . . . She turned 
 towards the door of the studio. 
 
 Jolan recovered her poise with an effort. 
 80
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 She grew pale, then began to blush, the red 
 spreading from her cheeks to the stately column 
 of her white neck. She felt it burning the 
 flesh under the thin silk of her blouse, as it 
 burned her ears and smarted her eyes. She 
 hastily began to button the collar again, gaz- 
 ing before her with unseeing eyes. She recog- 
 nized the potency of a force which hitherto she 
 had held to be subject to a resolution that is 
 honestly exerted. She who, from her sheltered 
 pedestal, had somewhat scornfully pitied and 
 judged, suddenly understood. 
 
 Ah, but she was not like these others. She 
 was strong, not weak! she would prove it, and 
 vindicate her right to sit in judgment. 
 
 "No," she said aloud, as if to convince her- 
 self, "this is unworthy of me, unworthy of the 
 high standard I set for myself when I promised 
 to give loyalty where I could not give love. It is 
 unworthy of that love where it has been be- 
 stowed by a force outside myself, unworthy of 
 Sandor, so true to Laszlo and to me to honor. 
 Oh, if he could have read my thoughts, if he 
 could have surprised that one moment of temp- 
 
 81
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 tation, how I would fall from the eminence on 
 which he has set me." 
 
 She resolutely began unfastening the waist 
 from first button to last, drawing it apart to 
 the shoulders. Then she stopped again, con- 
 scious once more of that vague, disconcerting 
 feeling that she was being watched. She took 
 another look around the room, shook off the 
 impression, got up from the chair, and took 
 oif the waist, baring her fine shoulders, her 
 firm, lovely arms tapering from shoulder to 
 wrist. 
 
 She turned to the Venetian mirror over the 
 fire and looked at herself. Yes, she was beauti- 
 ful. The serenity that was the great charm of 
 her face had returned to it; her large brown 
 eyes gazed steadily and frankly back at her, 
 their depths untroubled. The full mouth smiled 
 a little over the rounded chin. The masses of 
 her chestnut hair crowned the smooth brow 
 and framed the small ears. The fire leaped up 
 at this moment, illuminated her features with 
 a high light, flickered over them with a strange 
 effect of semi-shadows, then settled down again 
 
 82
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 to its soft red glow under white-gray ashes. 
 
 This glimpse of her beauty, of its dignified 
 calm, the outward expression of a long and 
 intense inner struggle won, reassured Jolan. 
 She felt again the model wife of her elderly 
 husband a dignified, stately woman, without 
 reproach, who pays in virtue and the fulfilment 
 of duty the price that she cannot pay in love. 
 
 Now the scarf. She took it from the chair 
 where she had placed it, and looked again in 
 the mirror. No ; the glass was too small to aid 
 her in any satisfactory arrangement of its filmy 
 mass. She must just throw it around her, and 
 look in the larger looking-glass that she would 
 undoubtedly find in the studio itself. She 
 turned around, the drapery in one hand, the 
 waist in the other, looking for some place to 
 hang it upon. 
 
 The peaked back of the Gothic chair : it would 
 be safe there until it would be needed again. 
 
 Jolan went towards it, then gave a muffled 
 cry of astonishment and fright. Her heart 
 stood still for a moment, then began to beat 
 fast, sending the blood racing to her temples. 
 
 83
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 She spasmodically grasped veil and blouse and 
 instinctively held them up to her chin. 
 
 Out of the depths of the chair, empty but a 
 moment before, there rose, with a smile 
 of politely dissimulated mockery, a Stranger, 
 who advanced towards her and bowed with 
 courtly grace. 
 
 Jolan's unnerved fingers dropped the blouse. 
 The Stranger stooped, picked it up, and said 
 in a deep, well-modulated voice, the voice of a 
 man of culture and breeding: 
 
 "Allow me, Madame." 
 
 Jolan continued to stare at him in speechless 
 amazement. Where had he come from? 
 
 The Stranger was a man between thirty-five 
 and forty, swarthy of complexion, swarthier 
 even than most Hungarians, with the stamp 
 upon him of tropical heats. His coal-black eyes 
 were set deep under curiously arched eyebrows, 
 his lustreless black hair was parted in the mid- 
 dle and brushed abruptly backward, leaving 
 an arrow-point in the middle of the high fore- 
 head, which indicated the beginning of a line 
 that was continued in the long, bowed nose and 
 
 84
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 the lean, prominent chin. His complexion had 
 a tinge of olive in it. It was a striking face, 
 and it had great distinction. The man was 
 immaculately dressed in a frock coat and trou- 
 sers of dark material, with a quiet, sober ele- 
 gance that suggested good taste, an accom- 
 plished valet, and a London tailor. The only 
 bit of color in his appearance was a red scarf, 
 a triumph of the sense of felicitous contrast. 
 
 Jolan continued to stare at the man, fright- 
 ened, indignant, yet attracted and at the same 
 time repelled by that strange face, with its 
 unmistakable aristocratic stamp and its elusive 
 mockery. 
 
 "Permit me to explain, Madame," he resumed, 
 in a deep, cultivated voice that had a soothing 
 quality. "Permit me to explain. I am an old 
 friend of Sandor's. I had not seen him for 
 several years. I arrived here suddenly this 
 afternoon. No one answered my ring at the 
 bell I tried the door, it was open. I entered, 
 sat down in this chair, and fell asleep. I awoke, 
 I saw you in the act of disrobing. Imagine 
 the position in which I was placed. What 
 
 85
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 should I do? Keep quiet, since you evidently 
 had not seen me when I entered. But then 
 you might have discovered me later, and your 
 confusion would have been all the greater. I 
 could never have persuaded you that I had 
 been asleep all the time. And so I awoke just 
 as you had taken off your waist I thought it 
 best to make my presence known before " 
 
 Jolan saw the insinuation, and found her 
 voice. 
 
 "Monsieur," she said, "be silent. Monsieur 
 Tatray will speak with you." 
 
 Turning to the studio door, she struck the 
 glass sharply with her fist. "Sandor!" she 
 called, "Sandor! Come here immediately." 
 
 The Stranger smiled to himself, and mur- 
 mured, under his breath: 
 
 "A good beginning. At the very first words 
 I speak, she admits that she is in a false posi- 
 tion. Now they will begin to explain. Satan, 
 you grow cleverer every year." 
 
 86
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE DEVIL'S STRATEGY 
 
 SANDOR entered the den through the door 
 which Jolan had unlocked with fumbling haste. 
 
 "There is a stranger here," she began ex- 
 citedly, slipping into her coat, and buttoning it 
 to the chin "an old friend of yours, he says. 
 He he saw me, and and " 
 
 The painter turned toward the Stranger and 
 looked at him in speechless astonishment. 
 
 "Well, Sandor, don't you recognize me?" 
 
 "Will you explain?" The artist's question 
 had a menacing ring in it. 
 
 "You really do not remember me? At Monte 
 Carlo, one day, six years ago, and more? Oh, 
 Sandor, you hurt my feelings! Here I arrive 
 with a heart overflowing with affection and 
 good intentions, rejoicing to press the hand of 
 the dear fellow in whose brilliant career I. too, 
 can claim a little share, and " 
 
 87
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "The Stranger of Monte Carlo! Indeed, in- 
 deed, I remember you. I was ruined, my future 
 was spoiled beyond repair, I had lost every 
 penny money that had been lent me for an- 
 other purpose and you saved me. Ah, you 
 are indeed welcome, sir, and may Heaven bless 
 you." 
 
 The Stranger shrank back for an impercepti- 
 ble moment, a pallor creeping under his olive 
 skin. Then he straightened his graceful figure, 
 and said, jauntily: 
 
 "We'll waive the blessing. Heaven has its 
 prejudices. But I accept the welcome. Ah! I 
 was not mistaken." 
 
 "No, I have not forgotten that day," con- 
 tinued Sandor, with growing animation, "but 
 the memory of it is confused. You gave me 
 a handful of gold that glittered strangely " 
 
 "Gold always glitters more when others have 
 it in abundance, and we ourselves are penniless. 
 But I lent you the money in bank notes " 
 
 "I had forgotten I thought . . . Are you 
 sure? And you said strange things " 
 
 "It was you who said strange things, Sandor,
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 of a girl whom you loved, who had pledged her 
 troth to you, and on the same day accepted 
 another man." 
 
 Sandor and Jolan stared at each other in 
 frightened amazement. 
 
 "You raved that you could never for- 
 get her, that you knew she loved you, that 
 you must keep away from her for both 
 your sakes. . . .Oh, you did not blame 
 her. She was young, you said, and alone, 
 and poor, and that other man rich and 
 masterful." 
 
 "I do not remember anything of the kind," 
 said Sandor, shortly. 
 
 "Nor of the castles in Spain about which 
 you told me?" 
 
 "Yes; that I remember very well, but I 
 never told you about the woman." 
 
 "But how should I know otherwise? You 
 were excited that day, Sandor ; remember, your 
 nerves were all unstrung. I had to give you 
 a cigarette to calm them. And even then you 
 left me twice; suddenly, unaccountably. First 
 on the Terrace, and then in the vestibule, with- 
 
 89
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 out a word. I looked up. You were gone. But 
 no wonder. I forgive you. 
 
 "But," he continued, changing his abrupt 
 utterance, which chopped his words into brief 
 sentences, to the soft speech of the well-bred 
 man, "won't you introduce me?" 
 
 "I I don't know your name," stammered 
 Sandor. . . . "Have I forgotten that, 
 too?" 
 
 "No, no. Truth to tell, I desired to preserve 
 my incognito. I always travel incognito, I 
 have to; I am too well known to do otherwise. 
 Call me Dr. Nicholas, but before you introduce 
 me, let me assure you that my social standing 
 is unimpeachable : I have the entree to the close- 
 est circles in the world, I am a member of all the 
 respectable clubs of Europe, including the 
 Jockey of Budapest, and I belong to one of 
 the oldest families. By birth I am entitled 
 to be received at Court in Vienna, in Ma- 
 drid, in London, in Berlin, in St. Peters- 
 burg. I owe you this egotistical explanation, 
 so that you may feel safe in introducing 
 me." 
 
 90
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Dr. Nicholas," said Sandor, considerably 
 impressed by his benefactor's credentials, "Ma- 
 dame Laszlo Voross." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas bowed with the elaborate defer- 
 ence of continental Europe. 
 
 "I must again offer you my apologies, 
 Madame Voross," he said, smoothly, "and beg 
 that you will accept them. I am most horribly 
 embarrassed. To surprise the secret of a 
 woman of the world . . . ' 
 
 "But there is no secret. I came here to have 
 my picture painted." 
 
 "Ah, yes! ah, yes! of course. I forgot that 
 Sandor is a portrait painter. I only remem- 
 bered that he is a gay young bachelor." 
 
 "This is infamous!" 
 
 "I acknowledge it. But then, I plead in ex- 
 tenuation the strange look of the whole affair. 
 I have seen so much of the world, you know, 
 one gets cynical, I fear. Honi soil qui mal y 
 pense, as the dear Prince used to say, with equal 
 right no doubt, before the cares of state began 
 to weigh heavily upon him. You may count 
 on my discretion." 
 
 91
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Fear began to struggle with indignation in 
 Jolan's heart. 
 
 "There is no need of your discretion," she 
 said, agitatedly ; "it is all open and above board. 
 There is no secret to be kept from anyone. The 
 truth can be told to anyone who wants to 
 hear it." 
 
 "No doubt, no doubt. But what avails truth 
 against false appearances? You know how it 
 is. Discretion is more necessary in a case of 
 false appearances than where the plain truth is 
 concerned. You will agree with me on that?" 
 
 Jolan made a hopeless gesture. Sandor 
 looked puzzled. 
 
 "Then you will also agree that my promise 
 of discretion cannot offend you. I promise to 
 be silent about false appearances, which have 
 been explained to me at considerable length. 
 I can swear to that, if it ever becomes neces- 
 sary." 
 
 "Don't you understand, Sandor?" Jolan broke 
 out. "Don't you see what is in his mind? 
 His apology is more insulting than his sus- 
 picion." 
 
 92
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Do you mean to say that you suspected this 
 this lady of" 
 
 Sandor choked with rage. The insult now 
 was clear to him. It was too much. This man 
 assumed . . . He could not put the abomina- 
 ble thought in words. With all his voluble 
 protestation, it was clear that he clung to his 
 evil thought. 
 
 "You shall answer to me for this," muttered 
 the painter, darkly. 
 
 "But that would only make the wrong ap- 
 pearances worse. Don't you see that we are 
 all in the same boat? That all we can do is to 
 agree to keep silence? Both of you must rely 
 upon my discretion, as, I assure you, you can. 
 Suppose you fight me? What follows ? My name 
 and titles cannot be hidden. The duel will be 
 reported the world dver. People begin to look 
 for the cause of the quarrel. You have a ser- 
 vant. No doubt he is discreet, but all servants 
 talk among themselves about their masters. 
 That's their way of belonging to the aristocracy. 
 Madame was brought here by her husband in 
 a brougham, with coachman and footman. 
 
 93
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Monsieur was taken away by them, alone. The 
 servants meet . . . they put two and two to- 
 gether . . . the footman tells it to his sweet- 
 heart, who is maid in another house; the maid 
 tells the story to her lady while brushing her 
 hair and there you are. There are people 
 who dare not look at a horse, least of all when 
 they have been caught leading others away 
 many a time, which is your case, Sandor. 
 Madame, we know, has never even thought of 
 looking at the horse. So there you are. False 
 appearances had better be ignored." 
 
 Jolan, who had been listening nervously, sud- 
 denly asked: 
 
 "How do you know that I arrived with my 
 husband in our carriage? Then you were not 
 asleep?" 
 
 "I assure you, I was. I only considered it 
 likely that Madame Voross would not come on 
 foot. Now, if you had come heavily veiled, 
 how much worse the case would be." 
 
 "You persist in suggesting that there is 
 something wrong. Sandor, make him stop." 
 
 "Pardon me, but is not your husband the 
 94
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 proper person to appeal to? If this is anybody's 
 business, which it cannot be according to your 
 own explanation, it is his." 
 
 "Sir," said Sandor, with great dignity, "you 
 will stop talking about this matter. I forbid 
 you to doubt this lady's word." 
 
 "But that is exactly what I proposed twenty 
 minutes ago. So we will say no more about 
 it. I accept Madame's explanation, she accepts 
 my apology. Now let us talk of something 
 else." 
 
 Jolan had been looking around the room, her 
 gaze fixing itself ultimately upon the Gothic 
 chair. An uncanny thought struck her. 
 
 "Sandor," she whispered, awestruck, "that 
 man was not in that chair when Laszlo and I 
 arrived. I know, because I looked at it and 
 admired it." 
 
 "Yes, Dr. Nicholas, there is something about 
 this that has a very queer look. It is your turn 
 to explain now, and perhaps we will believe 
 you. Wrong appearances, you know," he added, 
 sarcastically. 
 
 The Stranger took his right elbow in his 
 95
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 left hand, and caressed his long chin with the 
 right Sandor suddenly remembered the atti- 
 tude and turned towards the chair. He gazed 
 at it long and earnestly. 
 
 "Madame is sure that I was not seated in 
 that chair when she arrived?" 
 
 "I am," said Jolan, positively. 
 
 "Then, of course, it is impossible that I 
 should be here now. I did not arrive since 
 she came in, for Sandor locked the doors. . . . 
 If I am not here now, I can have seen nothing. 
 So now it is all explained satisfactorily. I am 
 really glad that I am out of the affair entirely." 
 
 He continued, in a conversational tone: 
 
 "You have had Bonci here for six weeks, I 
 understand. I am sorry that I missed him. He 
 is a glorious artist. His 'Ottavio' is a flawless 
 work of vocal art." 
 
 Jolan and Sandor did not answer, but the 
 Stranger continued, undismayed: 
 
 "I was in New York last fall, and saw St. 
 Gaudens' Sherman. It is a magnificent work 
 of art, but I agree with that American author 
 who lives in England ah, yes, Henry James 
 
 96
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 is his name that the Victory guiding the 
 hero and his horse spoils the statue. With her 
 anxious face and her hand uplifted in warning, 
 she looks as if she were afraid that the auto- 
 mobiles might run into him, and was trying to 
 stop them. You have seen pictures of it, of 
 course?" 
 
 Jolan and Sandor remained standing, in the 
 expectant attitude that suggests departure. 
 But the Stranger sat down with great self-pos- 
 session, took a cigarette from the table, and 
 looked at it with great interest. "Madame per- 
 mits, I know," he said. 
 
 "Why," he continued, "this is my favorite 
 brand. I congratulate you, Sandor, they are 
 very hard to get. I always carry a supply with 
 me, and I am almost out of them. I must wire 
 for a fresh supply. Meanwhile you can tell 
 me where you got those. They are most sooth- 
 ing to nerves and brain. I suspect that there 
 is just a trace of opium in them, but what 
 matter? You know this is the tobacco that 
 is specially raised for the Sultan and the 
 Khedive. I believe that the Czar, the Emperor, 
 
 97
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 and King Edward are supplied with them, as 
 a special courtesy. I receive them in the same 
 way. Where did you get them? Now that I 
 think of it, I gave you one or two of them 
 at Monte Carlo you remember?" 
 
 Sandor glanced at the man. He was holding in 
 his long, tapering fingers one of the cigarettes 
 that the tobacconist had sent him that day 
 the cigarettes that had soothed him over there 
 on the lounge, and evoked visions. But he 
 kept silence. Jolan made an impatient move- 
 ment. The Stranger smiled to himself, a mock- 
 ing smile which gave a sardonic upward twist 
 to the corners of his mouth. He lighted the 
 cigarette, crossed his legs comfortably, and 
 continued : 
 
 "Now you both want me to go. You think 
 that the tact of a man of the world, the tact 
 that does not look beyond the present moment, 
 should tell me so." 
 
 Sandor nodded with a frankness that was 
 insulting in its decision. 
 
 "Well, now, I am not a man of ordinary tact 
 mine is extraordinary. The tact that in inter- 
 
 98
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 national affairs is called diplomacy. I have been 
 in the diplomatic service, you know. I have 
 had charge of some very important negotia- 
 tions. If I tell you this, it is only to assure you 
 again of my social status and of my discre- 
 tion." 
 
 "Again discretion," murmured Jolan, with 
 helpless fury. There was something devilish 
 in the way in which this man had insulted them 
 both, and yet had succeeded in remaining thera, 
 forced them to accept his company, and ended 
 by dominating the situation. 
 
 "To return to the subject of tact," pursued 
 the Stranger, "or, rather, to what tact requires 
 in our situation. You both suggest, with a 
 silence that is far more eloquent than words, 
 that in your opinion I cannot do better than 
 take my leave." 
 
 "Indeed, your presence is very disagreeable 
 to me," said Jolan with decision. 
 
 "I knew it, I felt it," avowed the Stranger, 
 frankly; "and you will understand me when 
 I say that I would much rather take my hat and 
 go than prolong this embarrassing situation. 
 
 99
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 But let us look a little further. I leave here, 
 as you wish me to do. Your husband arrives 
 to fetch you home. 'How is the portrait getting 
 on?' he says. 'I have not even begun it/ says 
 Sandor. Your husband is astonished. He prob- 
 ably has tact enough to say nothing before 
 Sandor, but he thinks to himself. 'Well, then, 
 what have they been doing together this whole 
 hour and more?' You feel, of course, what he 
 is thinking. Guilt does not make us nearly so 
 uneasy as false appearances. Monsieur Vo- 
 ross's wonder, uneasiness I will not call it 
 suspicion gets into the atmosphere of this 
 bachelor's home. It is the very place to breed 
 suspicions in a husband's heart. So, either 
 Sandor and you begin to make voluble explana- 
 tions of the truth, of course or you keep an 
 embarrassed silence, and in either case you 
 communicate the wrong look of the thing that 
 struck me, to the very man who should be kept 
 in utter ignorance, for Madame's sake and his 
 own. With or without explanation, the husband 
 begins to wonder. On the way home, in the 
 carriage, he preserves a gloomy silence. He looks 
 100
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 at his wife sideways ; she blushes for no reason 
 at all and none can tell how far things will 
 go. Now do you see the soundness of the ap- 
 parently tactless tact that bids me stay on, 
 painfully aware though you make me feel that 
 I am unwelcome? Nothing has been done, and 
 here is Dr. Nicholas. We'll say nothing of the 
 chair; it might cause new complications. If 
 I may suggest it, Madame had better put on 
 her blouse again. Monsieur Voross might be 
 ahead of time. And don't forget to put on 
 your hat, Madame. Let us go into the studio, 
 Sandor." 
 
 "I will go there," said Jolan, hastily 'taking 
 up blouse and hat. The Stranger's logic had 
 impressed her; she was anxious now to fall in 
 with his plan. Sandor opened the door for her 
 and came back to his unwelcome visitor, seat- 
 ing himself on the lounge at the table. 
 
 "She is beautiful," said that worthy from 
 the depths of the Gothic chair, in a colorless 
 voice void of all intention, "and she has tem- 
 perament enough to make a man happy. What 
 an inspiration she would be to a man of genius." 
 101
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Monsieur Voross is very successful, one of 
 our greatest merchants," answered Sandor, 
 formally. "Pardon me, but suppose we talk of 
 something else?" 
 
 "Certainly, certainly," agreed the other, 
 hastily, "but you misunderstand me. I was 
 not going to discuss the lady; I was thinking 
 of you. A great merchant ! What need has he 
 of a temperament like that? It is thrown away 
 upon him a wasted life that might find its 
 fulfilment as one long inspiration to an artist." 
 
 Jolan re-entered the room, her cloak over 'her 
 arm, her hat on her head,, and sat down at a 
 little distance. 
 
 "I am just discussing a pet theory of mine 
 with Sandor," said the Stranger, who had risen 
 with the painter, and now sat down again. 
 
 "You know how moody the great artist is? 
 You, too, have your moments of deep dejection, 
 have you not, Sandor? hours when you doubt 
 your talent, your future moments when you 
 question whether it is all worth while. You 
 have felt in your depression as if it would be 
 best to end it all. I see I have guessed right. 
 102
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Well, now, I associate much with artists, with 
 painters and poets they interest me, they give 
 me a welcome change, a mental stimulus after 
 hours, nay, weeks of intense labor." 
 
 Sandor was beginning to be interested. Did 
 he not know it, this utter dejection, this har- 
 rowing doubt of himself, this despair of re- 
 action with which he paid for success and 
 inspiration ? 
 
 "Now," continued the Stranger, "I have a 
 theory that accounts for this swing of the 
 pendulum from exaltation to despair. You see, 
 the genius puts months, years, of his vitality, of 
 the mysterious something that makes him what 
 he is, into a few weeks of intensest work. Some- 
 times part of the inspiration comes from 
 without he may have an interesting subject; 
 but even so it has to live during those weeks 
 upon what is within him. He draws upon his 
 vitality, upon his stock of genius recklessly in 
 advance. The work is finished, the fire sud- 
 denly dies out, he collapses. He needs a coun- 
 ter influence to strengthen him, to tide him 
 over this period of physical and temperamental 
 103
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 destitution. If that counter influence be strong 
 enough, the reaction may even be entirely elimi- 
 nated. What is that influence? Now, listen, for 
 this is my theory. Look into the work of the 
 world's greatest masters. You will find in 
 nearly every case that with their masterpieces 
 is linked the name of the Beloved Woman. Her 
 name may be unknown to the world, her iden- 
 tity an unsolved puzzle; she may share his 
 glory only anonymously, the unthinking, the 
 common mass may not know of her at all. But 
 there she is. What was the inspiration of 
 Tristan und Isolde?' The One Woman, the 
 woman of temperament, who understands, who 
 gives of herself freely, lovingly, for his sake 
 first of all, but, if she be truly his mate, for the 
 sake of his art as well. She effaces herself 
 when the inspiration seizes him; she is not 
 jealous of that rival in his affections, her col- 
 laborator in the building of the temple of his 
 greatness. She rests while he aworks and 
 consumes his vitality with reckless prodigality, 
 counting not the cost; she lays up a store of 
 her temperament for his return from the arms 
 104
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 of that other mistress, exhausted, depressed, 
 to her arms, and she gives of it from her 
 inexhaustible riches of love, that he may re- 
 cover the quicker may escape paying the cost 
 altogether." 
 
 The Stranger mounted the chair, speaking 
 over its back, as from a pulpit Jolan and San- 
 dor on either side of him. Suddenly he reached 
 over, joined their hands, and extended his own 
 in a gesture that was a travesty of blessing. 
 
 "Ah!" he said, "what a wonderfully beauti- 
 ful pair you would make thus, you two!" 
 
 Jolan turned away, pressing her hand to her 
 forehead. 
 
 It had grown very dark now in the room, 
 but the fire flamed up again, casting its dark 
 reds far into the room, crimsoning the Gothic 
 chair from which the Stranger had descended. 
 He stood in its deepest shadow, and continued 
 softly, as from afar: 
 
 "That is why the world that lives by the 
 intellect as well as by the emotions, the world 
 that understands, is grateful to the One Woman 
 through the ages has enriched its treasures 
 105
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 of art and of achievement. She serves that 
 world through the man of whom her grandeur 
 makes her the worthy mate." 
 
 Jolan was now seated by Sandor's side. She 
 could not have told when or how she had taken 
 that place. Both hung in eager silence upon 
 the voice of the unseen man, reaching them 
 softly, persuasively, out of the gloom. 
 
 "The genius who does not find the Woman, " 
 it continued slowly, the words dropping one by 
 one into their consciousness, "will burn up the 
 tissue of his gift before he has reached the 
 fulness of his powers. And if he has found 
 her and she withholds herself from him because 
 she places her name, her position, fancied duties 
 and obligations above the mission for which 
 she was sent into the world, she is his mur- 
 deress, even though she return his love in the 
 secret chambers of her heart." 
 
 The two figures on the lounge had drawn 
 closer together. Their hands were clasped, but 
 they knew it not, intent as they were on the 
 significance of the words out of the dark that 
 had awakened the echo slumbering within them. 
 106
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 The fire flamed up again and cast a lurid 
 light upon the Stranger's figure. He stood 
 erect, intensely straining towards these two. 
 His face was a startling contrast of high pur- 
 plish lights and darkest shadows. His eyes 
 burned in caverns of impenetrable blackness, 
 and he smiled to himself, gleefully, satanically. 
 He looked the incarnation of evil, but the two 
 saw him not, preoccupied with the revelation 
 of their inmost selves, come to them from with- 
 out. 
 
 The Stranger once more mounted on the 
 seat of the chair and leaned over its high 
 back, with a low laugh of derision. They 
 heard it not. Then he grew intense again in 
 attitude and look. He pitched his voice lower 
 still, making it infinitely more convincing and 
 more seductive. It affected them as if they 
 themselves were saying softly aloud the 
 thoughts that were welling up from the pro- 
 fundities of their denied passion. 
 
 "Honor, duty, respectability, what are they 
 but high-sounding names for the bonds that 
 keep the common herd from breaking loose 
 107
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 and perishing in chaos like the animals of the 
 fields, dragging with them all beauty, all intel- 
 lect, the work of the small minority that makes 
 life worth the living. Shackles put upon the 
 mob by the few that really live for their own 
 preservation." 
 
 The voice changed again, and now the 
 speaker rose to his full height. He put all his 
 energy into his speech, his arched brows drawn 
 together in a frown of commanding purpose. 
 
 "Have you missed that influence in your life, 
 Sandor Tatray?" he asked. "Do you not know 
 where the Woman can be found if you be but 
 strong enough to take her? Are you content 
 to remain the talented painter of women, whose 
 reputation will die a decade after his death? 
 Do you not aspire to paint your masterpiece, 
 to write your name on the scroll of the Immor- 
 tals? Is your genius to flicker out and die 
 because you dare not act as they did, because 
 you dare not demand your right, which cannot 
 be judged by the moral laws of weaklings, dare 
 not take what is your own, in the face of silly 
 conventionalities? Are you really not of their 
 
 108
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 stature, Sandor? And is your love not great 
 enough ? 
 
 "You, Jolan, do you not know whose is the 
 temperament that will cause his genius to blos- 
 som and bear its fruit, that can give a new joy 
 enduring to all the world? Do you put an un- 
 loved husband, a palace, security, the respect of 
 your circle of mediocrities, above the great mis- 
 sion that life has bestowed upon you ? You have 
 denied your love its due, will you deny it to his 
 great need?" 
 
 Jolan gave a sob. Tears were rolling softly 
 down her cheeks. Her face burned, her heart 
 leaped up within her with an impulse of utter 
 surrender, in which there was no trace of self, 
 made up entirely of loving service to the man. 
 
 "Sandor," she whispered, "Sandor!" 
 
 They turned towards each other, he put his 
 arms around her, gently, reverently, their heads 
 drew close together, the kiss that would seal 
 them to each other trembled on their lips . . . 
 
 The bell rang. With a start they drew apart, 
 brought back to reality from afar, from visions 
 ecstatic beyond words, of glad surrender and 
 eager taking. 
 
 109
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE DEVIL'S TACTICS 
 
 JOLAN and Sandor rose, their minds return- 
 ing but slowly to the reality of their surround- 
 ings from the heights of exaltation. They peered 
 at each other in the dark like two who, having 
 long sought each other, have at last met and rec- 
 ognized the ties that drew them. The exaltation 
 faded, but left in its place a serenity, like a pleasant 
 awakening after a refreshing sleep. Sandor won- 
 dered. Was this the influence which he had 
 lacked so long, the salvation from his fears, the 
 banishment of his long periods of listless indif- 
 ference? Had she already brought him the 
 strength of which the Stranger had spoken? 
 The One Woman! 
 
 She stepped dreamily into the centre of the 
 room, a vague smile on her lips, her eyes staring 
 vacantly at some vision of perfect happiness. 
 
 The bell rang again, peremptorily. 
 110
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "My husband!" Jolan said, awakening with a 
 start. "Oh!" The exclamation escaped her, 
 significant of a world of perplexity and fear. 
 
 "Wake up, Sandor," said the Stranger, briskly. 
 "I have been talking too much in this dim, warm 
 room. It is a weakness of mine when I get upon 
 that subject. Had you not better unlock the 
 door so that your servant can get through to 
 admit Monsieur Voross? And, if I were you, I 
 would turn on the light." 
 
 Sandor did as he was bidden. Andre, who had 
 evidently been waiting behind the closed door, 
 anxious to do his duty, gave a wondering look at 
 the trio, stared hard at the visitor, whom he cer- 
 tainly had not admitted and had never seen 
 before, passed out in the hall, and a moment later 
 ushered in Voross. Jolan and Sandor were stand- 
 ing now by the fire, facing each other. The 
 Stranger had discreetly withdrawn into the back- 
 ground. 
 
 "Well, I am twenty minutes late," began the 
 
 husband, briskly. "Not so bad for a busy man, 
 
 eh? But that cable never came, and I waited 
 
 till the last moment. I ordered it forwarded to 
 
 111
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 the house. It will be a welcome guest if it comes 
 to our ball to-night. One of the biggest things I 
 have ever pulled off." 
 
 He let Andre help him off with his fur-lined 
 coat, handed him his hat and gloves, and came 
 forward. 
 
 "Bitter cold," he continued, with his usual 
 assurance that everything he said was of the 
 greatest importance, "and snowing hard. I hope 
 it will not keep our guests from coming." His 
 vanity was set upon the success of the affair, 
 which in a way was his official announcement of 
 his desire to be ranked thereafter among the 
 acknowledged money kings of the world. 
 
 "You have quite a color, Jolan," he went on, 
 with the irritating assertion of approving pro- 
 prietorship that is a characteristic of the remarks 
 addressed in public by so many elderly husbands 
 to their handsome young wives. 
 
 Then he fondly touched her cheek. 
 
 Jolan shrank a little under this exhibition of 
 
 uxuriousness. She had been used to it for six 
 
 years, she had learned to take it with an air of 
 
 unconsciousness; in fact, most of the time she was 
 
 112
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 really unconscious of it. But now! She gave 
 a hasty glance at Sandor. who was looking 
 away. 
 
 "And now the portrait/' continued the pom- 
 pous voice. "How have we been getting along 
 this first hour? Quite satisfactorily, eh, quite 
 satisfactorily? Of course, with such a subject 
 and such a painter!" He gave two stately, 
 patronizing bows. Quite a neatly turned com- 
 pliment, he thought. 
 
 "The fact is," began Sandor, hesitatingly, "that 
 we have done nothing at all." 
 
 "Nothing at all? But then what have you 
 been doing for an hour and a half? " 
 
 He took a swift, alert look at the painter, then 
 at his wife. Both read in that look more than it 
 really conveyed a dawning suspicion. 
 
 The Stranger here sauntered easily forward 
 from behind the shelter of the draped easel on 
 which he had been admiring a spirited sketch of 
 Fanny in Hungarian peasant costume. He was 
 the perfectly mannered, perfectly dressed, dis- 
 tinguished Stranger again. 
 
 Sandor welcomed him in his heart. 
 113
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Dr. Nicholas," he said, swiftly. "Monsieur 
 Voross." 
 
 The two bowed ceremoniously, the Stranger 
 with his usual quiet dignity, a little haughtily, 
 the merchant with profound respect. He knew 
 the stamp of the grand seigneur so well. He en- 
 deavored so hard to imitate it. 
 
 "I am very glad to make your acquaintance, 
 Monsieur Voross," said the Stranger, "but it is only 
 a pleasure anticipated by a few hours, for I met 
 Prince Vasarhely in Paris, the other day, and he 
 gave me a letter of introduction to you. You 
 have had extensive business dealings with him, 
 he told me. Forests in the Bukowina, I believe. " 
 "Just so, just so, "assented Voross, much gratified. 
 "He has real business talent, even though he is 
 an army man." 
 
 "That is high praise from you, but I received 
 the same impression. His wife, it seems, doubts 
 this a little. She and I are very old friends." 
 
 Voross was duly impressed. A man of such 
 
 distinction calling himself Dr. Nicholas? Some 
 
 great noble in disguise, no doubt, perhaps a prince 
 
 of royal blood? He must be at the ball to-night, 
 
 114
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 he resolved at once. He must tell Jolan to invite 
 him before they left the studio. He glanced at her. 
 She was seated in one of the armchairs near the 
 fire, talking desultorily with Sandor. The Stranger, 
 too, looked in their direction. Voross caught the 
 look, as it was intended that he should. He looked 
 again, conscious of an unaccountable feeling of 
 irritation. 
 
 "Budapest has beautified itself since I was here 
 last," resumed the other, having waited just long 
 enough to let the picture of his wife and the artist 
 stamp itself upon the husband's mind. 
 
 "Yes," somewhat absent-mindedly; "we are 
 very proud of our little capital on the Donau. 
 There is a great deal of public spirit here." 
 
 "I am sorry that I cannot stay long enough 
 to inspect all your improvements." 
 
 "Your visit here will be a short one?" 
 
 "Yes, I leave to-night for China. I am going to 
 look into the coal deposits there. This question of 
 fuel is beginning to be a serious one for manufac- 
 turers." 
 
 "You are a manufacturer?" 
 
 "Well, no, not exactly; but I am the owner of 
 115
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 an enormous plant, and the coal it consumes is 
 really ruinous. I have tried oil but you know 
 the head of that industry? " 
 
 "A most remarkable man/' said Voross, with 
 reverence for the possessor of so much money. 
 
 "A most remarkable man," assented the 
 Stranger. "I look forward with much pleasure 
 to making his acquaintance by-and-by. But 
 his oil costs me more than the coal." 
 
 "I have tried denatured alcohol in my factories 
 with rather satisfactory results." 
 
 "I tried that, too, but they drank it faster 
 than I could buy it." 
 
 "Drank it!" exclaimed Voross, aghast. Who? 
 Your firemen? Did it not kill them? " 
 
 "Not a bit of it. Nothing can kill them. One 
 of them told me that it was the best stuff he had 
 tasted since he used to spend his summer vacations 
 in Maine." 
 
 Voross was a little puzzled. So he changed the 
 conversation. 
 
 "You talk Hungarian without any accent," he 
 observed, "yet you are not one of us. I would 
 know you, I think, if you were." 
 116
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 " No, I have not the pleasure of being a country- 
 man of yours. In fact, I am a citizen of the 
 world, and it is only by constant moving about 
 that I succeed in preserving my incognito. You 
 know my name, Monsieur Voross, yet you will nev- 
 er connect it with my person. But then, I never 
 have it announced in the Court Circular that I am 
 going to such and such a place incognito." 
 
 "Ah, ha! " said the merchant to himself; "he has 
 given himself away, and does not know it. I was 
 right a royal prince in disguise. He shall come 
 to the ball, and I will let them know, mysteriously, 
 that he is an exalted personage. I will pretend, 
 of course, that I know who he is." 
 
 The other watched him with a twinkle in his 
 eye. He read his mind as clearly as if he had 
 spoken the words aloud. 
 
 ' You see, my dear Monsieur Voross, that I do not 
 mind taking you into my confidence. I know that 
 I am safe, even though you would be much aston- 
 ished if I told you my name. If somebody else told 
 you, the chances are that you would not believe 
 him. We were bound to meet, you and I. The 
 world of business, as you transact it, and mine, 
 117
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 which has for ages looked down upon it, are drawn 
 so close together nowadays." 
 
 "I catch your idea, Monseigneur," said the 
 flattered merchant. "The Czar is interested in 
 timber lands, the Emperor distills denatured 
 alcohol, King Leopold sells rubber and mahogany, 
 King Edward is interested in the stock markets, 
 and you " 
 
 "A half word goes a long way with you, Mon- 
 sieur Voross," smiled the Stranger. "I am a 
 little interested in all these things, and in many 
 others, and the result is that I use more coal each 
 year." 
 
 Jolan and Sandor had endeavored hard during 
 this conversation to assume an unconcerned 
 demeanor, and to talk naturally on indifferent 
 topics. Both felt uneasy, guilty; the woman re- 
 morseful. But fear was uppermost in her mind. 
 This uncanny man, come she knew not whence 
 nor how, had her good name, her future tran 
 quillity, in his keeping. One unguarded word, one 
 allusion made with malicious intent, would suffice 
 to rouse in her husband the demon of jealousy, 
 whose existence, well guarded, she had long 
 118
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 known. She lent but half an ear to Sandor's 
 labored commonplaces, avoiding his eyes that 
 spoke of other things, straining hard to overhear 
 what these other two were saying. The Stranger 
 was exerting his charm, and succeeding, she could 
 see. But for what purpose? Sandor, following 
 her glances, asked himself the same question. A 
 sudden thought darted through his mind. The 
 man was young, handsome in a striking fashion, 
 of a charming distinction of manner, evidently 
 well born, and rich. Why was he exerting him- 
 self so much to please that pompous, middle-aged 
 moneybag? Did he plan to reach the wife through 
 the husband? The suspicion grew almost im- 
 mediately into a certainty. So that was it? A 
 raging jealousy awoke in him who had never 
 given a thought to the husband. 
 
 The Stranger and Voross now approached 
 the two at the fire, still chatting animat- 
 edly. 
 
 "Fancy, Jolan," said Laszlo, with exaggerated 
 
 interest, "Dr. Nicholas is a friend of the Vasar- 
 
 helys. They have been telling him about our 
 
 new house and the house-warming to-night. He 
 
 119
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 knows all about it." He glanced at her signifi- 
 cantly. 
 
 Unwillingly, a premonition warning her, Jolan 
 felt compelled to extend the invitation unmistak- 
 ably suggested to her. 
 
 "Perhaps Dr. Nicholas will give us the pleasure 
 of coming to-night, if he has nothing better to 
 do." 
 
 "Yes, we shall be delighted." 
 
 "I accept with much pleasure, indeed. Truth 
 to tell, I am anxious to see this new house of which 
 I have heard so much. I understand it is one of 
 the ornaments of Budapest."' 
 
 "Not not bad," murmured Voross, with an 
 insufferable assumption of modesty, And, in 
 the exuberance of his joy at having secured so 
 distinguished a guest, he added with jocular 
 mysteriousness: 
 
 "Since Sandor is such an old friend of Dr. 
 Nicholas, I may perhaps commit the indiscretion 
 of telling him that he is expected to make a most 
 interesting announcement in the course of the 
 evening." 
 
 "0, ho! Sandor, you sly boy, and you never said 
 120
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 a word. I understand, you are going to be mar- 
 ried ! Happy you ! Now your talent will produce 
 its best. The One Woman, eh? The only true 
 inspiration for an artist." 
 
 Jolan started inwardly. 
 
 "Yes," continued her husband (oh, how could 
 he be so garrulous, how could he give such an 
 exhibition of bad taste) "Yes, we flatter our- 
 selves that this is a little our work, or rather my 
 wife's." 
 
 Jolan felt a sinking of the heart, a dull despair. 
 Was it possible that she had done this thing, that 
 she had worked assiduously for many weeks to 
 bestow this, her greatest treasure, upon another? 
 Yes, it was her own deed. The gnawing pain 
 grew into jealousy, almost hatred. 
 
 The Stranger was watching her closely. 
 
 "Perhaps," he suggested gently, "I have seen 
 this lady's portrait just now? " 
 
 "You mean the one on the easel?" asked 
 Voross, with elephantine humor. "No, no; you 
 are on delicate ground now. That is Fanny, the 
 famous Fanny, Tatray's model. But that is all 
 over and done with now. What!" 
 121
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 He laughed the fat laugh of the man who wishes 
 to insinuate that he, too, has been a gay dog in 
 his day. 
 
 Jolan did not heed him. She had reached a 
 crisis. She could endure no more. This Stran- 
 ger, with his easy perfection of manner, stumbled, 
 in his ignorance, upon every fact that hurt her. 
 First Sandor's marriage, now the model! The 
 jealousy gnawing at her heart bit deep. She 
 shuddered, then got up. 
 
 "It is time for us to go," she said. 
 
 But Voross had strolled over to Fanny's picture, 
 and Sandor had followed him. They were stand- 
 ing before it now, discussing some detail of cos- 
 tume. Jolan took a sudden resolution. 
 
 "I must speak to you a moment alone," she 
 said to Dr. Nicholas. "Here, now, before we 
 leave." 
 
 "I will arrange it, Madame. I am always at 
 your service. Leave it to me." 
 
 "Sandor," he said, raising his voice, "you have 
 not shown Monsieur Voross the charcoal sketch 
 for the portrait. Madame just spoke of it." 
 
 "Then you did work a little? Just now you 
 122
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 said that you had done nothing at all." The 
 merchant looked dissatisfied. 
 
 "Oh, well, I am not content with it," rejoined 
 the painter, negligently. " It is not worth looking 
 at. I am not going to use it." 
 
 "Never mind, I should like to see it." 
 
 "Go into the studio with them," said Dr. 
 Nicholas under his breath to Jolan, "then make 
 some pretext say that it is cold in there and 
 rejoin me." 
 
 She obeyed him unquestioningly, wondering a 
 little the while. Walking to the door, she passed 
 through it as Sandor held it open for her, followed 
 by her husband. The door was shut again. Dr. 
 Nicholas was alone. 
 
 He rubbed his hands, then he smiled, finally he 
 laughed silently. He strolled to the table, took 
 another cigarette, and murmured gleefully: 
 
 "The situation is developing. We certainly 
 have progressed far this afternoon. Everybody 
 is jealous of everybody else, and they all dance to 
 my pulling of the strings. Oh, it is an old game, 
 but these poor mortals never seem to learn wis- 
 dom. The woman is suffering from a reaction. 
 123
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 I had foreseen that. We had better have Fanny 
 on the scene. That will be another turn of the 
 screw." 
 
 He turned expectantly towards the door lead- 
 ing into the hall. A moment, and then a 
 knock. 
 
 "Come in." 
 
 Fanny, looking contrite and humble, entered 
 timidly. 
 
 "Well, my dear, what do you want?" 
 
 "I want to see Monsieur Tatray." 
 
 "Is it very important?" 
 
 "Oh yes, sir." The poor girl wiped her eyes 
 with a handkerchief, twisted nervously into a 
 tight little ball. 
 
 "Well, Monsieur Tatray is busy very im- 
 portant. You cannot see him now. Go in 
 there." He began to lead her gently towards 
 the door of the bedroom. "I shall attend to it 
 for you." 
 
 He turned the key behind her, and came back 
 to the centre of the room. "We will keep Fanny 
 in reserve," he murmured. 
 
 Jolan came in hastily. 
 124
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Sir," she said, firmly, "I have come to ask 
 you to revoke your acceptance of my invitation. 
 I gave it under pressure. You surely will not 
 come when I tell you frankly that you are not 
 wanted. I do not know who you are, or where 
 you come from. You were there, suddenly oh, 
 no; you were not in that chair when I arrived. 
 You had hidden yourself. 
 
 "Leave me alone, I beg of you; do not unsettle 
 me with your theories. I have been loyal to my 
 husband in word and deed for six years. I have 
 nothing to reproach myself with. I do not love 
 him, you know that you who look people 
 through and through. Why should I deny it? 
 But I respect him, and still more, I respect my- 
 self. Honor, fidelity, respectability may be idle 
 words to you; to me they mean everything. Just 
 now I was carried away by your false logic I 
 cannot explain it, I cannot understand it. But 
 I have regained command of myself. I will do 
 my duty as I see it to the end." 
 
 "Madame, so much has happened this after- 
 noon, that I do not wonder you are upset. You 
 do not want me to come to your ball because you 
 125
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 are afraid that I might be indiscreet. You may 
 rely upon me. Your secret and Sander's, which 
 I surprised, and you no longer deny why should 
 you? will never pass my lips." 
 
 Jolan stared at him with renewed fear. The 
 man's reasoning was now unanswerable. If he 
 chose to relate what could she do? False ap- 
 pearances, he had said. Well, they were against 
 her. She must rely upon his honor. She took 
 a rapid resolution. 
 
 "Listen," she said; "you say that you leave to- 
 morrow, perhaps never to return. What are we 
 to you? You will not come? " 
 
 "I will not come, Madame, as you desire, un- 
 less well, unless you invite me again in the 
 presence of your husband. Is that a bar- 
 gain?" 
 
 "You will certainly not come," she smiled, 
 gaily. "Pardon my rudeness." 
 
 "A charming woman is never rude, Madame 
 Voross. Rudeness in her we call caprice." 
 
 "Now you are nice again. Let us shake hands, 
 and bear no malice." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas took her hand, and, as Sandor was 
 126
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 entering the room, kissed it, looking at the 
 painter out of the corner of his eye. Voross 
 followed immediately afterward. 
 
 "Well, how about the sketch?" said Dr. 
 Nicholas, pleasantly. 
 
 "Sandor does not like it, so that settles it. 
 Come, Jolan, we must go home. Till to-night, 
 then, Dr. Nicholas." 
 
 "Dr. Nicholas has just told me that he cannot 
 possibly come. He has important matters to 
 attend to." 
 
 "Too bad, too bad, can you not look in for a 
 moment? " 
 
 "I am afraid it is impossible. I have thanked 
 Madame and made my excuses. I lose a pleasant 
 evening, more's the pity." 
 
 "Well, we regret this exceedingly. Come, 
 Jolan, I am anxious about that cable." 
 
 "Pardon me," said Dr. Nicholas, with sudden 
 interest, "but does it refer to that transaction in 
 arms and blankets for the Russian army? " 
 
 "How do you know? It is a deep secret." 
 
 "Ah, Monsieur Voross, I am in a situation 
 where I know everything that is going on. Take 
 127
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 my advice, do not close that deal. You can do 
 better." 
 
 "But how do you know?" 
 
 "Ah, that is a long story. The situation in the 
 Far East will change shortly very much. I have 
 not all the facts yet; I shall not have them until 
 later in the evening. Sorry that I shall have no 
 opportunity to explain things to you at length, 
 for, of course, you cannot be expected to take my 
 unsupported word for it." 
 
 "But this is of the utmost importance to me, 
 sir." Voross's voice trembled with excitement. 
 "Can I not see you for a moment can you not 
 drop in for an hour later in the evening? Jolan, 
 do beg Dr. Nicholas to come to-night. There is 
 more at stake than your sable cloak." 
 
 Obediently, against her will, frightened by this 
 unmistakably adroit management, Jolan mur- 
 mured: 
 
 "Do come, Dr. Nicholas, if only for a moment. 
 Can we count on you? " 
 
 "Madame, I am your servant. Yes, I will 
 manage it. You may count on me." 
 
 "And now home," said Voross, joyously. "Be 
 128
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 sure that you come early, Sandor," he added. 
 
 "I shall probably be a little late. I expect an 
 intimate friend who will keep me for some time." 
 
 Jolan stepped forward and took the painter's 
 hand as Dr. Nicholas and her husband walked 
 towards the entrance. 
 
 "Good-bye, Sandor," she said, softly, "and 
 farewell. We shall never meet again alone. I 
 am sorry, and yet I am glad that this has hap- 
 pened, but you see that it is impossible for you 
 to paint my picture. It won't do, my friend, it 
 won't do. My friend! Ah, yes; you will always 
 be that, won't you? Marry Vilma, Sandor, and 
 protect me against myself, against ourselves. I 
 will remain an honest, an honorable woman." 
 
 At this moment there was a loud knock at the 
 door of the bedroom. Sandor looked puzzled. 
 
 "The friend you expect, no doubt," said Dr. 
 Nicholas, going toward it. "Shall I open it, 
 Sandor?" 
 
 Without waiting for an answer, he turned the 
 key, admitting Fanny. 
 
 "You wish to see me, Mademoiselle?" Sandor 
 looked disconcerted. "Please be seated," he 
 129
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 added gruffly. Fanny sniffed, and applied the 
 ball of filmy linen to her eyes. 
 
 Dr. Nicholas smiled discreetly; Voross winked. 
 His wife saw both wink and smile. 
 
 "That is the famous Fanny," he told her, sotto 
 voce, for her edification. Jolan, a high color on 
 her cheeks, did not answer, but turned towards 
 the chair on which were lying her cloak and gloves. 
 
 "Had we not better go?" suggested the Doctor, 
 discreetly. 
 
 Andr6 came in, and began to help Voross into 
 his overcoat. Dr. Nicholas held Jolan's cloak for 
 her. 
 
 "I will return in a moment," he whispered over 
 her shoulder, "and put an end to this tete-a-tete." 
 
 "What is it to me?" she answered, scornfully; 
 but there were tears in her eyes, and her lips 
 trembled. 
 
 " It is improper." She caught the gleeful smile 
 over her shoulder in the Venetian glass. "It is 
 improper. I have strong convictions in such 
 matters. Think of his engagement to-night, and 
 then after what has happened this afternoon!" 
 
 Jolan walked briskly towards the entrance, 
 130
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 looking neither to right nor left, and joined 
 her husband. Sandor was standing by the table, 
 ill at ease, undecided what to do. His departing 
 guests took no further notice of him. 
 
 "Here, Andre", my coat," said Dr. Nicholas, 
 briskly thrusting a garment into the servant's 
 hands, and slipping into it. "Now my hat and 
 my gloves. So, take care of my bag, will you? 
 You hadn't seen it before? Well, there it is, and 
 it is heavy enough to be felt as well as seen." 
 
 "Monsieur is to pass the night here?" 
 
 "Yes, I am going to the ball with your master. 
 See to my dress clothes and things, yes? There's 
 a good man." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas slapped his hat on his head and hur- 
 ried after Monsieur and MadameVoross, overtaking 
 them as they were about to enter their carriage. 
 
 "To-night then, Doctor," said its owner. 
 
 "To-night, with pleasure." And looking into 
 the carriage, he added the customary Hungarian 
 phrase, "I kiss your hand, gracious lady." 
 
 As the footman closed the carriage door, he 
 cried gaily: 
 
 "I have to go back. This is not my coat." 
 Jolan saw him standing on the sidewalk, a smile 
 on his face, as they drove off. 
 131
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE DEVIL'S PAEABLE 
 
 THE moment the door closed behind his 
 fleeing guests, Sandor turned angrily to Fanny. 
 
 "Why did you come back?" he asked, sternly. 
 "Have I not told you to keep out of the way 
 when I had callers?" 
 
 "I thought that you wanted me, Sandor," 
 she faltered. "I was sitting in the cafe, wait- 
 ing to see if you would come in, and then 
 I felt as if you were calling me, as if I were 
 needed. I ran all the way, Sandor ; I could hear 
 your voice." 
 
 "Nonsense. Nerves, or are you making 
 this up?" 
 
 "No, no, Sandor! It's the truth." 
 
 "How did you get in?" 
 
 "The outside door wasn't locked. I was in 
 such a hurry that I tried it before I rang." 
 
 "The door was open! Again!" 
 132
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "And then that strange gentleman let me in 
 here. I knocked, Sandor ; honestly, I knocked." 
 
 "He let you in? And then?" 
 
 "He pushed me into your bedroom and told 
 me to wait. Then I thought you called me and 
 I tried to come in, but the door was locked. So 
 I knocked." 
 
 "And Dr. Nicholas let you in." 
 
 Sandor had repeated her words mechanically, 
 a look of enlightenment on his face. 
 
 "Well," he continued, "you have placed me 
 in a nice situation. What did you come back 
 for, anyhow?" 
 
 "Won't you forgive me, Sandor, for what I 
 said this afternoon? Do, please, forgive me. 
 I'll be good. I promise never to be jealous 
 again." 
 
 "That's all right, Fanny. Don't cry any more 
 now." 
 
 "Are you really going to get married to that 
 rich young lady?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And that other the one you really love, 
 the married one ..." 
 133
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Fanny! Stop it! How dare you begin 
 again ! Here, I'll give you a glass of Tokay . . . 
 Or have you already had just a little bit more 
 than is good for you . . .No? Then it's 
 nerves? All right, we will set that in order. 
 Now make yourself comfortable. Let me help 
 you off with your jacket." 
 
 Fanny obediently held out her arm, and, as 
 she slipped out of the sleeve, fondly pressed 
 herself against his breast, putting her arms 
 around his neck, and drawing his head down to 
 her lips. 
 
 Dr. Nicholas came in at this moment. 
 
 "Really, Sandor," he said, mockingly, "you 
 shock me. Every time I come in I find you busy 
 helping ladies to change from dresses to draper- 
 ies. It's all right, but you should at least see 
 to it that your locks are in order. It is crimi- 
 nal in a bachelor to neglect this greatest of all 
 precautions. Why, you would end by compro- 
 mising someone. Your servant gave me the 
 wrong coat a moment ago. I return for my 
 own, try your door, it opens just like that. I 
 enter here, and find you engaged in what 
 134
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 appears to be the chief occupation of your life. 
 Suppose I had been this lady's husband?" 
 
 "I have no husband, sir," said Fanny, indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 "Pardon me, Mademoiselle, for this apparent 
 reflection upon your virtue. You are not mar- 
 ried, Sandor is not married; Mrs. Grundy her- 
 self could not have a word to say." 
 
 "Who is Mrs. Grundy?" asked Fanny. 
 
 "She is a lady with no brains, a malicious 
 tongue, and a prurient imagination, Madem- 
 oiselle Fanny. She has relatives in America, I 
 believe." 
 
 Andre entered. 
 
 "The house agent about the lease again, sir. 
 He says he must know before twelve o'clock 
 to-night." 
 
 "Tell him I cannot see him. I don't know 
 yet ... I haven't decided ..." 
 
 "You are going to get married?" burst out 
 Fanny, "Oh, oh!" 
 
 "I will see him," said Sandor. irritably. "Dr. 
 Nicholas, you are a physician? Well, anyhow, 
 see if you cannot help her." 
 135
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "You had better stay away for a little while, 
 then. I am afraid that you have upset her. And 
 oh, send in some tea, and don't forget the rum." 
 
 "Now then, Mademoiselle Fanny, let us sit 
 down," said Dr. Nicholas, in his softest manner, 
 when Sandor had gone, "and let us talk a 
 little. You love Sandor, don't you?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I love him very, very dearly." 
 
 "You only think you love him. You have 
 loved before, have you not?" 
 
 "But never, never like this." 
 
 "Of course not, and you have never lost like 
 this before?" 
 
 "I shall never get over it." 
 
 "You will, dear child, you will. I will help 
 you. An inconsolable Fanny would be of no 
 earthly use to me." 
 
 "What do you want of me?" 
 
 "I wish you to be gay and happy, to forget 
 Sandor, to fall in love with that young stu- 
 dent ..." 
 
 "He is nice," admitted the model, with con- 
 siderable animation, "but," dolefully, "he is 
 not Sandor, famous and great." 
 136
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "He will be great some day, Fanny, and the 
 first book of poems that will bring him fame 
 will be all about you. You remember it was 
 your portrait that brought Sandor good for- 
 tune?" 
 
 "Yes, it was printed all over the world. It 
 is in the picture shops now, in beautiful colors, 
 for 20 guldens." Fanny's eyes shone with 
 happiness. Then her eyes clouded again. 
 
 "And now he is going to send me away," she 
 concluded, tearfully. 
 
 "Poor little thing," said Dr. Nicholas, softly 
 to himself, "with your intense joys and your 
 shallow griefs all emotion, all impulse, a sin- 
 ner who harms no one but herself. And yet 
 people believe that I seek to destroy you. How 
 little they know me! What should I do with 
 you? What honor would there be, what satis- 
 faction, in a conquest so easy, so insignificant? 
 Mine is the realm of the pride of intellect, of 
 the arrogance of ruthless achievement, of the 
 master-spirits of this earth. Where should I 
 place you ? With Messalina and Faustina ? Go 
 your little way, bring some sunshine into the 
 137
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 lives of budding artists. You need fear no 
 harm from me." 
 
 "You are talking in a strange tongue, Mon- 
 sieur," said Fanny, interested again. 
 
 "Here's our tea. Now, one lump, two lumps 
 for you? Right, and a little rum. No lemon? 
 Very well. Now a sandwich. And lemon for 
 me and sugar, and rum, and a bit of caviar. 
 Now we are comfy." 
 
 Fanny fell to eating ravenously, stopping 
 from time to time to wipe her eyes, an opera- 
 tion which soon became unnecessary. The rum 
 revived her spirits and ere long she was telling 
 this sympathetic, entertaining stranger all the 
 successive events of her life naively, with per- 
 fect confidence in his comprehension. 
 
 "And now the end has come," she concluded, 
 dolefully. "Sandor loves me no longer." 
 
 "Let me tell you a secret, Fanny. I have 
 already told you that your student will be 
 famous. Now, listen. You are going to like 
 him very much, so much that you will not 
 care whether Sandor marries or not." 
 
 "It is impossible." 
 
 138
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "But it is true. Now, go and sleep well and 
 don't cry, for it spoils your lovely eyes." 
 
 Obediently, Fanny allowed him to help her 
 with her jacket. Then, at the door, she turned 
 and said: 
 
 "Good-bye, Monsieur, and thank you. You 
 have made me feel much better." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas sat down again, lighted a cigar- 
 ette and made himself a cup of fresh tea. 
 Sandor returned. 
 
 "Have you got rid of her?" he asked, in 
 astonishment. 
 
 "Yes; she has gone home." 
 
 "That is something to worry about, too. She 
 is so impulsive and she loves me so much, I 
 really dread to think of what she may do when 
 she sees that all is really over. She may throw 
 herself into the Donau." 
 
 "My dear Sandor, what an inexperienced boy 
 you are and what a timid sinner ! Fanny throw 
 herself into the Donau? Why, she will console 
 herself for your loss within a month." 
 
 "You don't know her." 
 
 "I know all her kind." 
 139
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "But she loves me to distraction." 
 
 "That's the only way in which she can love 
 while it lasts. She has loved to distraction 
 before, she will love to distraction again. She 
 will be teaching young men their A B C's of 
 love when she is forty-five. Really, Sandor, 
 you are too ingenuous. But, of course, she will 
 come back several times before she forgets 
 you." 
 
 "Let us sit by the fire," said Sandor, briefly. 
 The two rose and went over to the fireplace, 
 Sandor picking up the package of cigarettes 
 and switching off the lights. 
 
 "So! this is cosy," he said. 
 
 He placed a low smoking-table between 
 them, leaned back in his chair, and closely 
 scrutinized the face of the strange guest, who, 
 in some unaccountable manner, had in a few 
 hours wrested from him the great secret of 
 his life, who appeared to know all his past, and 
 Jolan's and Voross's. 
 
 Whence did he come? Who was he? With 
 all his frankness and the volubility of his ex- 
 planations, he remained the enigma he had been 
 
 140
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 on the terrace at Monte Carlo. Well, here he 
 was, the visitor of a night, entitled to hospital- 
 ity. On the morrow he would disappear, mys- 
 teriously as he had come, perhaps never to 
 return again. Why not make the best of him? 
 
 "Of course you will dine with me and stay 
 overnight?" 
 
 "With pleasure, Sandor. The fact is, I 
 counted on you. But after dinner I shall have 
 to leave you for a while and go on direct to 
 the ball. Nor do I know when I shall return 
 to-morrow morning. More mystery, you see. 
 I wish that I could tell you more, but let it 
 suffice that Budapest is midway between 
 Vienna and Constantinople." 
 
 Andre entered the room and looked ques- 
 tioningly at his master. 
 
 "Dr. Nicholas will dine here, Andre." 
 
 "Very well, sir." 
 
 While they were waiting for dinner, the host 
 and his guest sat silent. The Devil was resting, 
 content to let what had already been done sink 
 deep into the emotional nature of the artist. 
 He knew what Sandor was thinking about, the 
 141
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 struggle between his higher and his lower self 
 that was going on in his breast. He foresaw 
 the resolution he would take, and with confident, 
 sardonic amusement anticipated the delight of 
 upsetting it before they parted to meet again 
 at the Voross ball. 
 
 "Dinner is served," said Andre, standing 
 aside at the door. The two entered the small 
 dining-room, cosy with its heavy oak and white 
 napery and silver, under the steady, soft candle- 
 light, and sat down. 
 
 A thin soup and sherry, paprika chicken and 
 champagne, a strudel, some sheep cheese with 
 more paprika, a demi-tasse and some fiery 
 brandy: the meal was simple, but cooked to 
 perfection, and Dr. Nicholas made it a feast. 
 He charmed Sandor away from the dark mood 
 in which Fanny represented a repugnant past, 
 done with beyond recall ; Jolan an unattainable 
 present; Vilma an indifferent future. 
 
 Dr. Nicholas talked on desultorily, grad- 
 ually shortening the intervals of silence in 
 which the painter would indulge in his de- 
 pressing thoughts. The range of his informa- 
 
 143
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 tion, the sharp decison of his opinions and 
 judgments, which with a single turn of phrase 
 revealed the conventionality of accepted stand- 
 ards, achieved their work. Sandor became 
 interested. 
 
 Politics, travel, history, culture and civiliza- 
 tion in their varying manifestations among the 
 nations of the earth, anecdote, just one or two 
 good stories, the true inwardness of the current 
 scandal in the highest of high life if ever 
 guest "paid for his dinner," it was Dr. Nicho- 
 las that evening, never for a moment losing 
 sight of his aim. The man had an inexhausti- 
 ble stock of topics to draw upon, an infinite 
 wealth of wit and wisdom to display and eluci- 
 date. When, towards the end of the dinner, he 
 touched more definitely upon painting, Sandor, 
 who had drunk most of the wine, was won. Dr. 
 Nicholas had visited the great galleries of 
 Europe, it appeared, not once, but a hundred 
 times. He knew of masterpieces hung in dark 
 corners, unrecognized as yet ; he spoke of weak- 
 nesses in collections ; and the great private gal- 
 leries, it was evident, had always been open to 
 143
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 him. Here was a man from whom he could 
 learn much in his own chosen field, Sandor 
 reflected, whether it were of Velasquez or Sar- 
 gent, Frans Hals or Whistler, Rembrandt or 
 Holbein. And he had an unerring eye for be- 
 ginners. He reeled off names that had come 
 within Tatray's observation in the art reviews, 
 with illuminating remarks on the work con- 
 nected with each, making daring yet well- 
 connected transitions from Budapest to Munich, 
 to Berlin, to Rome, to Madrid and Paris, to 
 London and New York. 
 
 "Painting," he said, "there lies the future 
 of American art. They think it is music over 
 there, but it isn't. They have the opera fashion 
 and the conductor craze; a cultured minority 
 is delicately receptive to music, but I doubt if 
 the majority will ever learn to like anything 
 better than musiquette. I am certain that they 
 will never find the true expression of their 
 artistic temperament in that medium. The 
 Anglo-Saxon formative influence has been too 
 strong. However, we shall see. They cer- 
 tainly are doing interesting things over there. 
 
 144
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 You will visit the country, Sandor, some time, 
 when New York is the new Rome, the empress 
 of the modern world." 
 
 "Who knows? We do not pay enough atten- 
 tion to American art over here ; we are blinded 
 by their huge material achievements and by 
 the magnitude of their scandals." 
 
 "Yes, we suppress ours over here much more 
 carefully," commented Dr. Nicholas, drily, "and 
 the unthinking mass believes in consequence 
 that it is morally far superior. No harm is 
 done, since America looks down on Europe with 
 the same self-congratulatory condescension." 
 
 "Let us go back to the den for another cigar 
 before we begin to think of dressing," proposed 
 Sandor, putting down his napkin and rising. 
 
 "By all means." 
 
 As the two re-entered the room, the fire, 
 replenished by Andre, flared up and threw its 
 glow upon them. Dr. Nicholas's face was set 
 again; his eyes glowed with determination in 
 their deep sockets, accentuated by the curiously 
 arched brows. The arrow-point of coal black 
 hair pointed to the eagle nose with its sensitive 
 145
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 nostrils, the mouth closed pitiless, the long, 
 bony chin continuing the sharp effect in a 
 shadow on the red cravat. 
 
 "It is warm in here," said Sandor, "we had 
 better not go near the fire. Sit down, Doctor." 
 
 He flung himself upon the lounge, but the 
 other strolled slowly around the room. 
 
 "It was most unfortunate," he began tenta- 
 tively, "that Fanny should have come in this 
 afternoon." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because it jarred upon the mood of the 
 hour Madame Voross's mood and yours, not 
 to mention mine of benevolent interest in your 
 case." 
 
 "Pardon me, but you force me a second time 
 to suggest that we change the subject." 
 
 "I know that I have no right to speak, that 
 I commit a breach of good taste, but hang it 
 all, Sandor, I know how things stand. I have 
 surprised your secret and you know it You 
 are a young man. I am not so much older 
 than you, though sometimes I feel as if the 
 weight of ages rested upon me. I have seen 
 
 146
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 so much of the world, so much of unhappiness, 
 of ecstasy lost through this respect for con- 
 ventionality clothed in high-sounding words. 
 Life is short, Sandor, and fleeting, and the ful- 
 ness of it offers itself but once." 
 
 "You talk like the tempter ..." 
 
 "Let us agree on that point," assented Dr. 
 Nicholas with ironical smoothness. "I am the 
 tempter to what? I am not so much con- 
 cerned with your happiness, the sunward flight 
 of your genius; I am thinking of Jolan and 
 what you are to her." 
 
 "I am nothing to her now. Henceforth we 
 shall be good, frank friends, as we have been 
 in the past. We shall be able to look her hus- 
 band in the eyes without a tremor, I shall be 
 able to clasp his hand honestly, and to honor 
 him for what he did for me when I was poor." 
 
 "Why did he do it, Sandor? For love of art? 
 He cannot distinguish between a daub and a 
 Murillo. You were better out of the way, just 
 then. Oh, simple, ingenuous Sandor!" 
 
 "I have known it, I have forgotten it ! What 
 matters the motive, since the end was good?" 
 147
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Spoken like a man. Do you have no thought 
 for Jolan ? Do you not know that she loves you 
 to distraction that you are all the universe 
 to her, all her world of loving service, all her 
 heaven of ecstasy? Does she count for nothing 
 in your thoughts?" 
 
 "She will have tranquillity of mind, her 
 honor, the respect of all her world." 
 
 "The morality of the slave ! Have you never 
 heard of the morality of the Master, Sandor, of 
 the Higher Law that justifies the breaking of 
 the Lower?" 
 
 The painter was silent. Often, in his mid- 
 night hours of hopeless longing, he had strug- 
 gled with that problem. 
 
 "The higher law," whispered Dr. Nicholas, 
 softly, seductively. "I always preach it the 
 morality of the Master." 
 
 Sandor wavered, his desire prompting his 
 acceptance of the new creed. With a desperate 
 effort of his waning will he turned from it, 
 however, and rejoined : 
 
 "She told me that I must forget her." 
 
 "Don't you know women better than that? 
 148
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 She wishes to be taken; her love is too great, 
 too noble to offer itself. She trembled in your 
 presence, she clung to her husband's arm for 
 protection the instinct of the woman to delay 
 the hour she knows must come. What is Vilma 
 but another obstacle placed by her on the path 
 you both must tread? Don't you see that the 
 fate of both of you is in stronger hands than 
 your own, that you both are playing but the 
 old game of luring flight and ultimate capture, 
 in all good faith that there is to be no end to 
 it but this?" 
 
 Dr. Nicholas came closer and knelt behind 
 Sandor on the lounge where he was sitting, his 
 elbows on his knees, his face buried in his 
 hands. 
 
 "You have only to cast your eyes on her, and 
 she is yours," continued the voice "yours 
 whenever you shall want her as she wants you. 
 You have only to stretch out your arms and 
 you hold her in your embrace. Another man 
 must struggle a lifetime for a treasure such 
 as you find in your path " 
 
 "I do not want it ! If she be not unapproach- 
 149
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 able, if she be not far beyond my boldest 
 thought I do not care for the treasure. The 
 things we really value must be striven for, 
 fought for, lived for!" 
 
 "Listen, Sandor, and you will understand. 
 Last year it was the sixth of September ; the 
 very date was impressed on me I had a terri- 
 fying experience. I had ordered my man to 
 put away my summer things and take out my 
 heavier clothing. While putting on a waist- 
 coat, I found in one of the pockets a gold coin 
 left there when it was laid away. 
 
 " 'Found money/ I said to myself, trying to 
 remember when I had put it there. Suddenly 
 it slipped from my fingers and rolled away. I 
 stooped to pick it up, but could not see it. A 
 trifle annoyed, I got down on my hands and 
 knees. It had disappeared. Would you believe 
 it? I lost my temper. I moved all the furni- 
 ture, I upset things. At this moment my valet 
 came in and joined me in the search. The 
 sweat rolled down my forehead. I swore. 1 
 was determined to find that coin. My rage 
 increased I, habitually cool, became gradually 
 
 150
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 frantic. In the irritation of the moment I 
 turned on my servant and accused him of 
 pocketing the coin. He has a nasty temper, 
 has Antonio. His eyes sparkled and he 
 whipped out a stilletto. I reached for my re- 
 volver ..." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas took from his pocket a small 
 revolver and laid it on the table within Sander's 
 reach and continued slowly: 
 
 "See? With this revolver I almost killed a 
 human being for a small coin a coin that I 
 did not need and had known nothing about a 
 moment before, but which had suddenly became 
 precious as I saw it roll out of my reach." 
 
 "I when I find money, I give it away as 
 a tip." 
 
 "So do I. I meant to give it to Antonio as 
 a tip, but you see it rolled away from me. 
 What we lose, we run after. Such is man. 
 You will run after your treasure so unex- 
 pectedly found, once you have lost it, and you 
 will move heaven and earth to recover it. 
 
 "In the same way the value of this woman 
 will grow in your eyes. You will suddenly 
 151
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 realize that you owe the wings of your inspira- 
 tion to her, that without her it cannot soar 
 aloft to the sun that her breath was the 
 breath of your life. When she rolls away, you 
 will say to yourself, 'Only she could have made 
 me happy !' Your art you would give it up 
 give up everything in exchange for a caress." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas took up the shawl with which 
 Jolan had covered herself and continued, ever 
 lower, ever more temptingly: 
 
 "This is the shawl that has caressed her 
 glorious shoulders . . ." 
 
 "Her glorious shoulders," repeated Sandor 
 as in a dream. 
 
 "In her arms is the dreamland of the 
 blest . . ." 
 
 The echo came back, softly, from afar, 
 "... the blest!" 
 
 "Her hair has the fragrance of the sweet- 
 ness of awakening spring ..." 
 
 "... the sweetness!" 
 
 "Her eyes are like twin stars ..." 
 
 " . . twin stars!" 
 
 "You are intended for each other, you were 
 152
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 fated to meet from the beginning of time 
 and you will it that you two shall live 
 apart . . . ' 
 
 "You are trying to tempt me. Stop ! Stop !" 
 
 "The morality of the slave ! You timid miser ! 
 I tell you, life is a treasure only when we freely 
 spend it." 
 
 "Why do you say these things? What is 
 your object? Who has sent you?" 
 
 Dr. Nicholas raised himself from his stooping 
 position over the unseeing man's shoulder and 
 frowned. 
 
 "Nobody has sent me. I came. I am here." 
 
 Sandor sat up. His face was pale and wrung 
 with emotion. His voice trembled, but his 
 purpose was firm. 
 
 "Well," he said, standing up and facing his 
 tempter, "this is my decision. I don't want 
 the gold coin." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas looked at him, long, steadily, 
 inscrutably. Then he asked, with a slow dis- 
 tinctness of utterance, making each word tell: 
 
 "And when the treasure rolls away when 
 some one else possesses it?" 
 153
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Who ?" shouted Sandor ! "Who ?" 
 
 "I! I myself." 
 
 The painter faced the man who was con- 
 fronting him with iron decision expressed in 
 his features, but an expectant look in his eyes. 
 Thus they stood for a full minute, in silence, 
 intent, watchful. 
 
 "You!" gasped Sandor, struggling for utter- 
 ance, "You!" 
 
 "I. This very evening, to-night, she shall 
 be mine. I'll make her follow me where I will ! 
 Ah! For six thousand years I have not had 
 such a sweetheart!" 
 
 "You say?" 
 
 "She has turned to you in the need of her 
 longing heart and you have failed her. I will 
 not fail her. The higher law rules in her 
 breast ; yours is the morality of the slave, mine 
 of the Master! She will judge us, she will see, 
 my sweetheart! She will bend to my will 
 gladly, she who needs support so much. Come 
 this evening, beneath the brilliant lights, into 
 the perfumed air of her ball-room and learn 
 how a beautiful woman is conquered . . ." 
 
 154
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Stop! Enough!" 
 
 "You will be there, Sandor, seeking the gold 
 coin that has rolled away. You will know 
 where she is when she is missing and cannot 
 be found with me! You will see us every- 
 where, you will hear us laughing, you will be 
 groping on your knees for the treasure you 
 have disdained . . . You will roam the streets 
 all night, seeking, seeking, and we shall see you 
 pass under our window, and smile, and em- 
 brace . . ." 
 
 "Stop! Stop! I say!" 
 
 "Yes, we'll smile at you, poor fool. And her 
 laugh will be loudest . . ." 
 
 Sandor gave a cry of rage and snatched the 
 revolver from the table. Dr. Nicholas grasped 
 his hand and held it down with muscles of iron, 
 without exertion. The fury of the artist sud- 
 denly died down; he bowed his head and stood 
 motionless. 
 
 His adversary deliberately turned his back 
 on him as Andre entered. 
 
 "Did you call, sir?" 
 
 "Yes ; my coat. I have to go out for a little 
 while." 
 
 155
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 The servant helped the Stranger into his 
 fur-lined coat, handed him his hat and went out 
 to open the door for him. Dr. Nicholas turned 
 to Sandor, quietly took the revolver from his 
 unresisting fingers and slipped it into his 
 pocket. 
 
 "See, my poor boy," he said, very gently, 
 with paternal admonishment, "for a gold coin 
 that rolled away, you, too, would have killed 
 a man." 
 
 156
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE VOROSS BALL 
 
 THE Voross mansion stood in grounds that 
 proved louder than words that its owner could 
 afford to buy city lots by the acre instead of 
 the front foot. A heavy hand-wrought iron 
 fence on a marble base, with imposing gates, 
 high-arched, hanging on elaborately carved 
 marble posts, surrounded it, giving full view 
 of it to the admiring passer-by, yet keeping him 
 at a proper distance from the abode of so 
 much wealth and heightening the impression 
 which the pile, with its vast marble terrace and 
 balustrade, could not fail to make. 
 
 The mansion itself palace were the better 
 word was also of whitest marble. It was the 
 work of a young architect, a Hungarian, who 
 had put into it all his talent, all his enthusiasm, 
 all his hope of the future. The structure had 
 already made his success : he had been engaged, 
 157
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 before it was finished, to draw the plans for 
 the new house of an Austrian prince whom 
 the growth of Vienna had enabled to turn his 
 immense ancestral domain, once far beyond 
 the city's confines, into a private residence park, 
 and to blossom into a splendor unprecedented 
 in the long and eventful history of his race. 
 
 The young man had had a free hand in the 
 designing and building of Voross's pile. The 
 merchant had at first bothered him with sug- 
 gestions whose taste was as bad as their costli- 
 ness was great ; he had suggested overelabora- 
 tion, heaviness and ugliness where stateliness 
 and distinction were his aim. But Jolan had 
 very gently, very tactfully persuaded him to 
 desist, surrendering to him, however, in the 
 matter of interior decoration, whose over- 
 lavish effects the architect, however, filled with 
 gratitude towards her for good offices that had 
 meant so much to him, had disguised and tem- 
 pered and frustrated with infinite resourceful- 
 ness. 
 
 The building was an oblong square, pilastered 
 and pedimented, an inspirational adaptation 
 158
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 of Greek and Renaissance models, the classic 
 predominating. The carriage drive led in a 
 semicircular sweep to an entrance under the 
 terrace, below the main door, which, flanked 
 by sixteen windows on each side, piled three 
 stories high, was approached by an imposing 
 flight of broad marble steps. An orangerie 
 was built out at the back; the stables were 
 not in the grounds, but in the adjoining street. 
 
 The citizens of Budapest admired the building 
 as an added ornament to the beautiful capital 
 of which they are so proud, but shook their 
 heads a little over its owner and the use he 
 could possibly make of his gorgeous state 
 apartments. They were more fit for the 
 ceremonial life of some minor German court; 
 in fact, in all Germany could be found no 
 princeling boasting the possession of such a 
 palace, not even though some eighteenth-cen- 
 tury ancestor had left him a petit Versailles 
 in imitation of the great. 
 
 But Voross had always got what he wanted, 
 had always worked undeviatingly towards his 
 aim. So now, if this superb palace stood there, 
 159
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 it was only because it must serve a purpose. A 
 title, said some; public life, said others. The 
 majority believed the ambition, whose outward 
 expression the building was, to be Jolan's. And 
 a few, wise with the cynical inventiveness of 
 the world, wondered if, in the course of time, 
 when Voross should be gathered to his fathers, 
 this palace of commerce would not be trans- 
 formed into a temple of art. These, the circle 
 in which the Voross couple moved, smiled tol- 
 erantly. Scandal there was none, they will- 
 ingly admitted, but if there were, after all 
 (one never knows) well, there was a beauti- 
 ful and constant attachment to justify, nay, 
 to sanction it. Budapest is a gay city, loving 
 the joys of life with intensity, tolerant like 
 all the continent, ready to acknowledge the right 
 of others to judgment under the flexible Higher 
 Moral Law. 
 
 On the night of the ball, the night of the 
 day on which the Stranger had come to Sandor 
 Tatray, the day on which the painter and Jolan 
 had tacitly confessed to each other the secret 
 that long had been no secret to either, the night 
 160
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 which was to witness the entrance of Laszlo 
 Voross upon his glory, the marble mansion 
 stood white in its snow-covered grounds, sil- 
 vered by the moon. Its upper stories were dark, 
 the windows of the state apartments heavily 
 draped, emitting no ray of the ocean of light 
 within. The effect was one of flawless beauty, 
 an idea of the architect, perhaps incongruous 
 with the festal occasion, but certainly impres- 
 sive. Laszlo had wanted to light the place 
 from top to bottom, and to light it from without 
 with electricity thrown upward against the 
 pure lines of its columns. The architect had 
 won him over by pointing out the effect of the 
 contrast within, compromising at the same time 
 upon ample lights, thrown downward, upon the 
 carriage way. 
 
 Crowds had gathered at the entrance gate 
 early in the evening for a glimpse of the arriv- 
 ing guests, in all their finery, through the win- 
 dows of their carriages. 
 
 The scene within beggared all that a vivid 
 imagination could have pictured for itself. On 
 emerging from the reception rooms to right 
 161
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 and left of the carriage entrance, where they 
 left their wraps, the guests found themselves 
 at the foot of a monumental marble stairway, 
 at whose head Jolan stood, smiling, welcoming, 
 gently propelling the arrivals with a little twist 
 of the hand to right and left, inviting them to 
 enter and admire. She was proud and happy, 
 and yet preoccupied. 
 
 She wore a dress of palest pink, from which 
 rose her firm white bosom and gleaming shoul- 
 ders, her stately neck and the distinction of her 
 face more beautiful in repose than in the ani- 
 mated smiles required by the hour. Her 
 chestnut hair was piled high on her forehead, 
 a single gem of great beauty and size scintilla- 
 ting in its masses. She wore gorgeous jewels, 
 whose quality was not marred by quantity. 
 Her eyes shone like twin stars, but ever and 
 anon they clouded over. And ever she kept 
 a watchful eye upon the throng of guests 
 mounting towards her on the stately marble 
 stairway. 
 
 It was a happy crowd, come to amuse itself, 
 eager to be amused ; a crowd of dark faces and 
 162
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 raven tresses and plump shoulders and dazzling 
 smiles ; a Southern crowd, full of abandon, free 
 from all self -consciousness, surrendering to the 
 festive atmosphere the moment it entered upon 
 it, adding to it with all its will, under the 
 influence of the soft strains of the Zigani band 
 beyond. 
 
 There were the business friends of Laszlo, 
 and their wives and daughters, their sons and 
 cousins and nieces, youth thoughtlessly happy, 
 couples spying each other from afar and ex- 
 changing greetings at a distance. There were 
 representatives of art and letters, Sander's 
 contribution to the Voross circle. There w r ere 
 darker men still, in diplomatic uniforms, sec- 
 retaries of legation and military attaches of 
 the Balkan principalities, come from Vienna 
 to give lustre to the feast offered them by a 
 man with whom they were in close and constant 
 communication, glancing with pleased surprise 
 at the beautiful young woman who was his 
 wife. With them had come a consul-general 
 or two, of far-away little Central American 
 republics, daintily built little men, with ex- 
 163
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 quisite feet and slender, perfect hands, immacu- 
 late in manners as in dress, wearing large 
 decorations, and flashing from their large black 
 eyes looks of undisguised admiration at their 
 hostess. Graceful, untiring dancers these, 
 captivating partners, perfectly at home among 
 these their fellow-dwellers under a Southern 
 sun half way around the world. 
 
 The vast marble apartments, with their rich 
 hangings and the brilliant softness of innum- 
 erable wax candles, were filling with the gay, 
 soft roar of light conversation, of laughter, 
 exchanged compliments and glad greetings. 
 And still the guests arrived, and still Jolan 
 kept her post, peering anxiously down the vista 
 of the majestic staircase at her feet, her smile 
 growing ever more mechanical, her preoccupa- 
 tion greater. 
 
 The Countess von Biederstein-Marleburg, 
 an American with an Austrian husband, 
 arrived, laughed her jolly little laugh, and 
 passed on, her handsome partner and a bevy 
 of officers in her train, as always. They were 
 the only representatives of the higher nobility 
 
 164
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 whom Vorosg had been able to capture his 
 star guests. There were many lesser nobles 
 present, of course, since one cannot throw a 
 stone in the dual monarchy without hitting one, 
 but they were already somewhat small game 
 to the man of millions, more eager to know him 
 than he was to know them, indebted to him for 
 innumerable small favors, from commissions 
 for wine or cigarettes to commissions in some 
 small Balkan army; occasionally for loans. 
 Still, they helped to adorn the occasion. 
 
 Then came Vilma Toth, the orphaned heir- 
 ess, the young girl whom Jolan had taken under 
 her wing on her entrance upon the world. 
 
 The two women looked at each other and 
 smiled, and blushed a little, Vilma with all her 
 old frankness, Jolan with a sudden reservation 
 which was instinctive and beyond her power 
 of rapid realization. 
 
 "Oh, Jolan," said the girl, admiringly, "how 
 beautiful it is. What a palace! You must be 
 very happy and proud to-night." 
 
 "Do you like it? I am so glad." She evaded 
 a direct answer; it was beyond her. 
 165
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Has Sandor arrived yet?" 
 
 Jolan involuntarily looked down the stair- 
 case again. 
 
 "Not yet," she said, briefly. She shook with 
 effusion the hand of a new arrival and retained 
 her a moment in conversation. Vilma looked 
 at her in a puzzled way, then passed on, fol- 
 lowed by the poor relation who was her chap- 
 eron and dame de compagnie. 
 
 The young architect, one of the first arrivals, 
 claimed her and proudly showed her the apart- 
 ments. On his arm she progressed quietly from 
 room to room, her slender form gracefully 
 swaying in a movement that was her own, her 
 piquant face, with its aureole of golden blond 
 hair, nodding greetings on all sides. 
 
 Vilma Toth, heiress, young and more than 
 passably good-looking, with the cachet that 
 wealth has learned to copy so deceivingly from 
 rank, was the daughter of one of Laszlo Voross's 
 occasional partners in enterprises of the great- 
 est magnitude, and had been left, at the age of 
 twelve, the only possessor of her father's large 
 fortune, which during the nine years that had 
 166
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 since elapsed had been more than doubled in 
 Voross's capable hands. On her marriage, 
 Jolan had taken an interest in the lonely child 
 in her convent school, with not a single relative 
 to go to for her vacations, and the difference in 
 age between them being so slight the relation 
 had gradually grown into friendship. It was 
 under Jolan's wing that Vilma had made her 
 bow to the society of finance and commerce 
 into which she had been born ; it was Jolan who 
 tried to form her character, to soften certain 
 traits of the girl whose loneliness had engen- 
 dered not melancholy, but self-will ; but in vain. 
 Suitors, Vilma and the fortune that went 
 with her had had many, almost before she left 
 the school-room ; friends she had very few, for, 
 following the bent of her mind, she had de- 
 veloped into an independent young woman 
 whose unconventionality of speech and action 
 were ascribed to haughty disdain of others, 
 whereas in a girl less fortunately situated they 
 might have been thought rather unattractive 
 little eccentricities that would be subdued by 
 direct contact with life. She had threatened 
 
 10?
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 to run a racing stable of her own, had traveled 
 with no chaperon but a maid, had led on a 
 music teacher until the poor boy was distracted, 
 and had played fast and loose with two or 
 three men of title, disregarding all advice, 
 
 ready even, she had plainly intimated, to resent 
 
 i 
 
 it. Jolan had grown rather weary of the task 
 she had taken so gladly upon her shoulders and 
 welcomed with genuine relief the sudden pas- 
 sion which the girl developed for Sandor. Him 
 she would marry and none else! So Jolan had 
 undertaken the task to bring them together, 
 combating the painter's lukewarmness with all 
 her power, ascribing it to Fanny's influence, 
 though, of course, she knew the reason of his 
 disinclination well enough. 
 
 She had pondered much over the situation, 
 with all the earnestness of a conscientious^ 
 virtuous woman. That she and Sandor had 
 been drifting for a long time, ever so little, 
 almost imperceptibly, she was well aware. 
 Nothing would ever come of it, of course, so 
 why not cut the knot heroically, put all this 
 behind them and ensure safety for them both? 
 
 168
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 This had been her reasoning and upon it she 
 had acted. Sandor, susceptible to her silent 
 influence as ever, had ultimately acquiesced. 
 Only yesterday he had made known to her his 
 resolution. She had felt so content, so safe, 
 relieved of a long, if vague and distant, anxiety. 
 She had hastened to tell Vilma to be ready for 
 the proposal that very evening. 
 
 And now? 
 
 Vilma continued her tour of the rooms, ad- 
 mired, envied, coveted. In the library they 
 found Laszlo Voross, with a little group of men, 
 drinking champagne, smoking cigars and chat- 
 ting. They all got up, but Vilma begged them 
 to remain seated. Her glance ran over them 
 rapidly, and Sandor was not among them. 
 She took a cigarette, lighted it elaborately, 
 perched herself on the arm of one of the deep 
 leather chairs and said, casually: 
 
 "All your guests must have arrived by 
 now?" 
 
 "Mostly all. One or two are still missing. 
 Two I know, for sure." 
 
 "You keep close count of your invitations, 
 169
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Monsieur Voross. Method is everything, is it 
 not so?" 
 
 She spoke a little absent-mindedly, her eyes 
 upon the marble corridor through which couples 
 flitted to and from the ball-room in a ceaseless 
 stream. She was watching. 
 
 "In this case I have kept close count," re- 
 joined Voross, with a laugh, "for both are 
 guests worth watching for. One of them is 
 Sandor Tatray, the pride of our artistic world, 
 the other" here he turned to Count Bieder- 
 stein-Marleburg as the proper person, on ac- 
 count of his rank, to receive this information 
 direct "is a distinguished foreigner, I may 
 add an exalted personage, whose name and title 
 I am not at liberty to disclose." 
 
 The Count looked politely interested. 
 
 "What name does he use?" he asked. 
 
 "He calls himself Dr. Nicholas." 
 
 "Don't know. Cannot place him under that 
 name. I will take a look at him by-and-by." 
 
 Voross swelled with pride. His announce- 
 ment had had the effect he hoped it would have. 
 He saw with delight a few of the men leave 
 170
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 the library to spread the news that some royalty 
 incognito was expected, and quietly took an- 
 other sip of champagne. 
 
 Vilma got up, deposited on an ash tray the 
 cigarette which she had allowed to go out the 
 moment she had lighted it, gave the architect a 
 signal with her fan, and, taking his arm again, 
 began to admire the superb carving of the 
 wainscoting, gradually edging towards the door- 
 way. In the hall she sighed a little, looked at 
 its impressive marble height and width, and 
 said, a little wistfully: 
 
 "Will you build me a house by-and-by. not 
 quite so grand as this, but just as beautiful?" 
 
 The architect blushed with pleasure. 
 
 "Indeed, I will, Mademoiselle, and it shall be 
 the best of which I am capable." 
 
 "Thank you. It will be beautiful. Perhaps 
 it will be soon." 
 
 She felt strangely subdued this evening, 
 eager to see Sandor and hear his plea, but calm 
 in her knowledge of what would be the end. 
 
 "Now, show me the ball-room," she said, 
 rousing herself. "I hear that is the real tri- 
 171
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 umph of the house, to which everything else on 
 this floor only serves as introduction." 
 
 "I hope you will not be disappointed." 
 
 They strode rapidly on, and entered the ball- 
 room, filled with dancing couples. 
 
 Vilina gave a little cry of admiration. 
 
 "How beautiful!" she said. "It is like a 
 dance in fairyland, in the Princess's pal- 
 ace." 
 
 The room filled in height two stories of the 
 building, its depth and width being all in per- 
 fect proportion. At the back, facing the en- 
 trance, tall windows opened into the conserva- 
 tory, the full width of the room, the openings 
 banked with green, with ferns and mosses and 
 flowers in masses, reaching up to the fronded 
 palms in the background. It was semidark in 
 there, under the snow-covered glass roof, but 
 in the ball-room itself a regal crystal chande- 
 lier shed from its innumerable branches the 
 pure, steady, soft light of wax candles. It 
 bathed the walls of inlaid marbles with their 
 malachite pilasters, it shimmered in the gilding 
 of the foliated capitals, and gave the radiance 
 172
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 of fairyland to the white dresses, the gleaming 
 shoulders, the stiff white shirt bosoms, and the 
 gold and red and blue and white of the uniforms 
 of the couples moving on the vast expanse of 
 floor. 
 
 The music in the gilded balcony high above 
 their heads, there in the entrance, continued its 
 soft, dreamy valse. The vast room was hushed, 
 nothing was heard but the languorous invita- 
 tion of the strings, and the faint murmur of 
 rhythmically sliding feet. It was a vision of 
 sensuous beauty, appealing to the eye, soothing 
 the ear. 
 
 Then the music stopped, and the magic 
 broke. Laughter rose, and loud chatter, cir- 
 cling couples stopped, the men offering them 
 their arms and fanning them as they began to 
 move towards the corridor, or into the con- 
 servatory, in search of seats and refreshments. 
 There was a scurrying to the gilded chairs 
 against the walls for articles deposited there 
 filmy shawls, dainty boas. In the centre of the 
 floor, however, a dozen young couples had 
 stopped, their dark eyes gleaming, their teeth 
 173
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 flashing, children of the soil, these, craving a 
 new delight after the Viennese valse. 
 
 "Czardas!" the young men cried, looking up 
 at the famous swarthy leader in the balcony, 
 "Czardas!" 
 
 Clapping of hands, huzzahs, followed. The 
 guests came running in from all directions, 
 conversations were dropped without an unneces- 
 sary word of explanation, the room became 
 crowded, the foreigners huddling together in a 
 corner in eager expectancy, tingling with the 
 communicated enthusiasm of the national 
 dance. 
 
 "Czardas ! Czardas !" 
 
 The leader rose. They cheered him, loud and 
 long. Then he put his violin under his chin, 
 caressed it with his cheek, whispered to it, 
 closed his eyes, and began to play. 
 
 Eyes lighted up, faces grew wistful. The 
 violin sang softly to these children of the city, 
 telling them of the pusta which their race had 
 made its home for a millennium. They saw it 
 at dusk, they heard the wind sweeping over its 
 vast distances, the violins supporting the 
 
 174
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 leader, the zymbalon adding its deeper note. 
 The melancholy of this music held them; born 
 of them, it returned to claim its kinship. Then 
 the measure quickened; a reckless note crept 
 into the music, and the dance was on. 
 
 It was a czardas such as rarely is seen nowa- 
 days in Budapest not the dance of the schools, 
 but the true expression of a national character, 
 reckless in its abandon, bewitching in its 
 poetry, enchaining by its passion and fire. 
 
 The Voross ball was a success, there could be 
 no doubt of that. 
 
 Jolan had remained standing at the head of 
 the stairway, welcoming the few late comers. 
 Still she was watching, still she was peering 
 down its length into the hall below. 
 
 Sandor had not yet arrived. He must come, 
 she knew, and soon. Why did she thus tarry, 
 what would she say to him, what was her pur- 
 pose? She did not know, she had no plan. She 
 had been on the point of joining her guests 
 when Vilma had arrived; then, at the sight of 
 her, yesterday her friend, to-day her enemy, 
 175
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 her rival, she had lingered on. She was more 
 determined than ever to bring on this marriage, 
 to place herself and Sandor beyond the reach 
 of danger. She would remain true to her hus- 
 band, true to honor, true to herself, her mind 
 was made up, and yet . . . 
 
 She sighed. How she regretted the events of 
 that afternoon, and yet how sweet had been 
 that revelation, that moment of tacit confession 
 which had been all but sealed by their kiss! 
 
 Her thought reverted to the Stranger, with 
 his polite insolence, and the magic of his elo- 
 quence. She hated him, she feared him. He 
 had proved himself her master, he had forced 
 her even to ask him again to her house, after 
 she had told him that he would not be welcome. 
 Well, he had not come. Perhaps, having won 
 his victory, he was content, and would respect 
 her wishes by staying away. 
 
 For him, too, she had watched closely, anx- 
 iously, during the two hours of her duty at 
 the head of that stairway, welcoming her 
 guests. She had scrutinized each dark head 
 coming up the broad steps until the face came 
 
 176
 
 THE DEVIL 
 within the level of her vision. He had not 
 
 come, of this she was sure, and in her heart 
 she felt thankful to him for that. 
 
 But Sandor? She lingered a moment longer, 
 then the opening strains of the czardas struck 
 upon her ears. She must join her guests. 
 
 She turned, and gave a low cry of fright. 
 
 Dr. Nicholas stood before her. 
 
 17?
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE DEVIL IN SOCIETY 
 
 JOLAN recovered herself at once. If this 
 strange man had a mysterious habit of slipping 
 into other people's houses, why, after all, it 
 might be only an eccentricity, a sort of "parlor 
 trick" as amusing to him as it was disconcert- 
 ing to those upon whom the trick was played. 
 He was going out of her life the next afternoon. 
 She was through with him, and must make the 
 best of him during the few crowded hours of 
 the evening. 
 
 Dr. Nicholas offered her his arm with all 
 the distinction of his manner. 
 
 "Your palace is superb," he said with serious 
 appreciation, "a masterpiece of pure art, 
 worthy of its beautiful mistress." 
 
 "Have you been here long?" she could not 
 help asking. 
 
 "A little while. Long enough to take a good 
 178
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 look around. Your architect is a master of 
 stately proportions and imposing perspective. 
 He will go far. I must look him up." 
 
 They were moving slowly down the long, wide 
 marble corridor towards the ball-room. Jolan 
 suppressed the question that rose to her lips, 
 but Dr. Nicholas answered it none the less. 
 
 "I came alone," he said. 
 
 The animated, colorful crowd on the dancing 
 floor welcomed her with a cry of welcome and 
 homage. Sets had been formed for a lancers, 
 which was immediately transformed into a 
 quadrille d'honneur, space being made in the 
 centre of the room for Jolan and Dr. Nicholas, 
 the Countess Biederstein-Marleburg and Vo- 
 ross, the Count and the Burgomaster's wife, the 
 Burgomaster and his sister, the still youthful 
 widow of a general. 
 
 The dance started with all due ceremony. 
 Jolan, always stately, went through it with the 
 dignity of a chatelaine, Dr. Nicholas with infin- 
 ite distinction in which there was not the 
 slightest touch of affectation. The Count made 
 bows as if he were at the Hofburg, treating not 
 179
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 only the ladies, but the quadrille itself with 
 the greatest deference. Voross and the Burgo- 
 master worked hard and conscientiously, feel- 
 ing that the eye of the world was upon them. 
 The Burgomaster's wife remembered that she 
 had a second cousin who had married a mag- 
 nat, and rose to the occasion; the American 
 Countess and the general's widow laughed a 
 great deal and romped. In fact, the quadrille 
 d'honneur ended in a general romp, crowned by 
 long glissades along the polished floor, the 
 Countess setting the example, countenanced by 
 Dr. Nicholas, more distinguished than ever, 
 cool and immaculate in his perfectly fitting 
 dress clothes, as he slid along, the American's 
 little hand clinging to his arm. 
 
 The ball was certainly a great success, and 
 it was tending towards an unforgettable climax. 
 
 When the dance was over, introductions 
 were in order. The Countess, all amiability, 
 smiled, and said, "Come to talk to me, Doctor, 
 by-and-by." The Count showed himself a man 
 of the great world, putting enough reserve into 
 his deference to save his face should the 
 
 180
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 stranger prove, after all, not to be the august 
 personage he was represented to be ; the whole 
 company pressed around for introductions, 
 anxious to shine in the reflected glory of this 
 mysterious member of some reigning house. 
 The little diplomats, having consulted together 
 for a brief moment, joined the throng. In brief, 
 Dr. Nicholas was certainly the success which 
 Voross had planned him to be. 
 
 Gradually the company dispersed for ices, a 
 little rest and a little chat before the next dance 
 should begin ; the slow parade through the vast 
 apartments was begun again, and Vorb'ss car- 
 ried off his guest of honor to the library for a 
 cigarette. But before he followed his host, 
 Dr. Nicholas found time to say to Jolan: 
 "Won't you introduce me to Mademoiselle Toth 
 when you have an opportunity? I am anxious 
 to meet the future wife of our young friend." 
 
 In the library everybody rose when Dr. Nich- 
 olas entered, and remained standing until he 
 had seated himself, with a little wave of the 
 hand giving permission to follow his example. 
 Smoking was not resumed until after he had 
 181
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 lighted his cigarette; then everybody was 
 silent, waiting for him to open the conversa- 
 tion. It was all en regie, according to etiquette. 
 
 A new difficulty presented itself when those 
 present began to address him. Monseigneur, 
 Highness, Serene Highness, Royal Highness, 
 Sir, all possible honorifics were heaped upon 
 him in an avalanche of confusion. Dr. Nicho- 
 las grew testy. 
 
 "Pardon me," he said at last, somewhat 
 briefly, "my name to-night is Dr. Nicholas. 
 We'll dispense with the rest." 
 
 Silence fell upon the group. The unknown, 
 having thus publicly fortified himself behind 
 his incognito, began to move around here and 
 there, addressing this person and that, in the 
 most approved royal fashion. His remarks 
 were quietly disagreeable. 
 
 "You should not have left your garrison, 
 lieutenant, without leave of absence," he said 
 to a young soldier who had come some distance, 
 without applying for permission. "Better be 
 more careful next time," he remarked to a mer- 
 chant who had been nearly caught conveying 
 
 182
 
 THE DEVIL. 
 
 arms to the Mad Mullah; "that jockey of yours 
 will get you into trouble," he whispered sternly 
 to a young man whose fondness of racing was 
 exhausting his means. 
 
 He knew everybody, it appeared; what is 
 more, he appeared to know everything about 
 everybody's affairs. 
 
 "You should not show yourself so openly 
 with Pfiffi Schwarz in the Ringstrasse," he 
 went on to the scion of one of the great Jewish 
 financial houses. "We saw you, and Somebody 
 made a remark about it, Mr. Mordecai." 
 
 Flattered, yet frightened by this announce- 
 ment of high interest in his doings, the youth 
 stammered : 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Your Roy. . . Sir. . . 
 Doctor, my name is Mortimer de Kay." 
 
 "Your father's name was Mordecai, and a 
 good old name it is. Mordecai was a gentle- 
 man at Court ages before the Mortemarts 
 and the Mortimers and the De Kays ever 
 dreamt of creeping up out of nothingness. 
 Why not be proud of a patronymic 2400 
 years old ?" 
 
 183
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 He turned away abruptly, graciousness itself, 
 Jo the discomfited Voross, trembling for the 
 /ate of his great night. 
 
 "Pardon me, my dear Monsieur Voross," he 
 said, "but we all have disagreeable duties to 
 perform. Now I am going to stroll around 
 among the ladies. No; stay here with your 
 guests, do not accompany me." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas took away with him from the 
 library the constraint he had created. The talk 
 there was resumed gaily, those present merely 
 resolving not to put themselves in the way of 
 the exalted presence again if they could possi- 
 bly avoid it. 
 
 On one of the great sofas in the hall, a fes- 
 tive young Servian diplomat was being bored 
 to death by an intellectual lady of uncertain 
 age. She wore glasses and a self-satisfied face, 
 a pretentious classical dress, and loose, rumpled 
 gloves. She had written several "advanced" 
 books. She felt that her intellect would make 
 a deep impression upon this mysterious great 
 personage; in fact, she had been lying in wait 
 for him there, near the library door. 
 
 184
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Introduce him to me," she said imperiously 
 to the Servian. 
 
 "But... but," stammered he, "I cannot do 
 that. He must command me to present you to 
 him." 
 
 "He is incognito." 
 
 Torn between desire to get away from this 
 bore and his knowledge of the ways of courts, 
 the diplomat hesitated. Dr. Nicholas, seeing 
 that he was in for it, stopped before them. 
 
 "Will you please introduce me to Mademois- 
 elle Mutschera, Monsieur Brousnitza?" he 
 asked pleasantly. 
 
 "He has a royal memory for names," thought 
 the diplomat, and "He has heard of me," 
 exulted the woman. 
 
 "Won't you sit down, Dr. Nicholas?" she said 
 graciously, as the Servian, having bowed with 
 grateful respect to his deliverer, hastened off 
 in search of amusement. 
 
 "Thank you, with pleasure." 
 
 The authoress felt that she must lead the 
 conversation at once, if she were to make an 
 impression, so she continued: 
 185
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "We were just discussing Ibsen when you 
 came up." 
 
 "Monsieur Brousnitza must have devoted 
 much thought to him." 
 
 "No," in all innocence, "he said that he 
 thought his plays dull. No intellect at all, you 
 know. An insipid young man. He told me that 
 he would rather see the Merry Widow.'' 
 
 "Thou shalt not steal. Translated from the 
 German," mused Dr. Nicholas aloud. 
 
 "I beg your pardon?" 
 
 "I am sure I beg yours. Something I saw in 
 New York the other day came to my mind." 
 
 "New York? Oh yes, Ibsen is very popular 
 there. Of course, over there the women are so 
 much more advanced than here, they feel the 
 significance of his plays as only a few delicate 
 minds can do here." 
 
 Mademoiselle Mutschera looked self-con- 
 scious. Dr. Nicholas gave her a very disagree- 
 able look out of the corner of his eye. She did 
 not see it so she continued, 
 
 "Ibsen understands women." 
 
 "Does he? Perhaps. If he does, he is the 
 186
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 only man that ever did. But that is not the 
 question. Do women understand him?" 
 
 "Oh, indeed, they do ... the fine minds 
 among them, of course. The common mass 
 never understands anything." 
 
 "May I tell you my frank opinion? Ibsen did 
 not understand women. If he had understood 
 them, he would not have had to end so many 
 of his plays violently, with death. It is very 
 inartistic to get one's characters into a muddle, 
 and then kill them off to get out of it. It is 
 dodging the real issue to which the play has 
 led up." 
 
 "Oh, but ... " 
 
 "Please hear me out. Women do not under- 
 stand Ibsen, they don't understand themselves. 
 Few men understand themselves, either, for 
 that matter, but they, at least, have no psy- 
 chological delusions on the subject. Unfor- 
 tunately, whenever an author puts an abso- 
 lutely unintelligible woman into a book or a 
 play, the women, being unintelligible to them- 
 selves, cry out in chorus, 'How well he knows 
 us!' It is a sort of negative knowledge, per- 
 187
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 haps, a knowledge of the existence of an im- 
 penetrable fog." 
 
 "But you will admit that Ibsen has taught 
 women to be themselves?" 
 
 "He has taught them to be imitation Ibsen 
 heroines, poor imitations, mostly, at that. So 
 they are vaguely discontented with everything, 
 aggressively disagreeable to their bewildered 
 husbands, and they expect other women's hus- 
 bands to climb steeples and fall off backward 
 for their sakes. When women try to make 
 direct applications of symbolism, when they 
 mistake inverted idealism for realism, strange 
 things happen." 
 
 The authoress suddenly felt towards Dr. 
 Nicholas as the Servian diplomat had felt 
 towards her a few moments ago. What a dis- 
 agreeable man ! And she had hoped to impress 
 him with the power of her intellect ! Ah ! Her 
 dearest friend, her rival, Mademoiselle Temes- 
 var, the historian, was coming down the cor- 
 ridor, alone and pensive. Mademoiselle Temes- 
 var was pretty and well-groomed. The author- 
 ess hailed her. 
 
 188
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Mishka," she said, getting up, "let me pre- 
 sent Dr. Nicholas to you." 
 
 She bowed with offended dignity, and stalked 
 off, leaving the two standing face to face. 
 
 "Let us sit down," said Mishka. What a 
 charming name, the Doctor thought, and what 
 a pretty face, and what a pity that he was going 
 to snub her. 
 
 "Dr. Nicholas," began the fair historian, "I 
 hear that you have travelled much, and that you 
 are a great linguist. I heard you talk faultless 
 Hungarian a while ago, then French, then Ger- 
 man, then English to the Countess. ... I sup- 
 pose it was English?" 
 
 "It was American. The Americans know no 
 language but their own, not even English." 
 
 "I thought so. Well, Dr. Nicholas, are you 
 a student, or merely a linguist?" 
 
 "I have read much in all the languages I 
 know. That is what you mean, I suppose?" 
 
 "Yes. Are you interested in history?" 
 
 "Very much. I have followed the histories 
 of Nero and Caligula, of Genghis Khan and 
 Tamerlane, of Ivan the Terrible, Charles II., 
 
 189
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Louis XV., Katharine ... I cannot name them 
 all ... with deepest interest." 
 
 "Well, that is not quite what I mean. Have 
 you studied the history of the literatures of the 
 world?" 
 
 "To some extent, yes." 
 
 "Now we have reached the point. You see, 
 Dr. Nicholas, I am engaged in writing a history 
 of the Devil in Literature." 
 
 "You have come to headquarters, so to speak, 
 Mademoiselle Mishka pardon me if I use your 
 first name, it is so attractive. Yes, I can say 
 that I am authority on Devil literature." 
 
 "Oh, how delightful. Will you let me cate- 
 chize you ?" 
 
 Dr. Nicholas made a hasty movement of the 
 hand. 
 
 "Please do not use that word," he exclaimed. 
 "It has an unpleasant connotation for me. But 
 I will let you cross-examine me. Or, perhaps, 
 you will let me tell you what I know." 
 
 "By all means. I shall be very much obliged 
 to you." 
 
 "Well, then, Mademoiselle Mishka, you will 
 190
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 have to begin all over again. The Devil in art, 
 the Devil in literature, it is misunderstanding 
 and misrepresentation from beginning to end. 
 I don't mind the legends of the saints and their 
 supposed victories, that was not literature, 
 but propaganda: the end justifies the means, 
 and one could fight them. But when it comes 
 to secular literature, to works of the human 
 imagination, well, we see a sorry mess. 
 Dante, Marlowe, Milton, Bunyan, Goethe, 
 Byron believe me, they didn't know what they 
 were talking about. I don't speak of the medi- 
 eval stage, on which the Devil always got the 
 worst of it, in coarsest ribaldry; nobody reads 
 those things nowadays. But those others, how 
 they have misrepresented . . . him. 
 
 "Then there is that story of the apple. One 
 would think that that is the only thing the 
 Devil ever did for woman. Why, he is handing 
 her apples every day in jewelry shops and dry 
 goods emporiums, in garages and expensive 
 restaurants, and yachts, and the man takes 
 his bite, which is pleasant, but has an aftertaste 
 of a bill that is greater than his resources. 
 191
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Has the Devil not tricked man into working 
 for woman by the sweat of his brow? And 
 has he not taught him to work ever more will- 
 ingly and hard? Has he not given the poor, 
 simple creature his compensations alcohol, 
 tobacco, cards, the joy of brawling and fight- 
 ing, over women by preference, but over every- 
 thing else, if a pretext is needed? Has he not 
 invented the games of high finance, of over- 
 reaching the other man, of diplomacy and con- 
 quest? 
 
 "Why, the Devil is the benefactor of man- 
 kind. Has not every forward step of the race 
 been ascribed to him? Is not vaccination 
 acknowledged to be his work to this day in 
 England ? Has he not made woman what she is, 
 after the dark age of her enslavement?" 
 
 "You say strange things, Dr. Nicholas." 
 
 "Oh, I get indignant whenever I think of it. 
 In Goethe the Devil changes himself into a 
 poodle. Why, I ask you, why? In Gounod's 
 Faust he gives himself away by causing wine to 
 pour out of a signboard. Is that common 
 sense? In Bo'ito's opera he gyrates like an Irish 
 
 192
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 policeman throwing the hammer at an athletic 
 festival, and in Berlioz's he goes around looking 
 as if he had just buried a dictatorial mother- 
 in-law and knew that his wife was watching 
 the expression of his face. It is sad. 
 
 "Then that fellow Ben Jonson, with his 'The 
 Devil Is an Ass* . . . oh, I lose all patience. 
 It is rank ingratitude." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas smiled to himself. 
 
 "Let yours be the task of rehabilitating the 
 Devil, Mademoiselle. Historians are doing this 
 for so many of his subjects. Nero has been 
 proved to have been quite a respectable per- 
 sonage, and now Lucrezia Borgia is out on 
 bail." 
 
 "Out on bail!" 
 
 "Yes. She had been perfectly happy where 
 she was for nearly four hundred years, when 
 along came a German who proved that she had 
 been quite a domestic, respectable body. A 
 firm of smart, pushing criminal lawyers applied 
 for a new trial on the ground of this new evi- 
 dence, and there you are. Lucrezia was very 
 angry about it, I can tell you." 
 
 193
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "How strangely you talk," repeated the fair 
 Mishka, who was beginning to be frightened. 
 
 "I give you new ideas for your book? Man- 
 kind is always afraid of new ideas, they are the 
 Devil's at first. When they have become 
 familiar, others claim the credit. You have hit 
 upon one of my hobbies, and I am galloping it 
 along the road." 
 
 "There is a contemporary author who has 
 put the Devil into a book. What do you think 
 of him?" 
 
 "You mean George Bernard Shaw, of course. 
 Well, you know, Mr. Shaw does not love me 
 Dr. Nicholas, you understand?" 
 
 "Then you know him personally?" 
 
 "Oh yes. I have met him several times." 
 
 "But why does he not like you?" 
 
 "I caught him studying Schopenhauer and 
 Nietzsche on the sly." 
 
 "Oh! But what about his Devil?" 
 
 "Well, he talks like an advanced thinker at a 
 Sunrise Club dinner." 
 
 "Again I do not understand, but what you 
 have said to me is very interesting. You have 
 
 194
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 given me new thoughts and I am not afraid 
 of them." 
 
 "The only Devil in literature who approaches 
 the truth," proffered Doctor Nicholas, deter- 
 mined to put an end to the conversation, "is 
 St. Anthony's." 
 
 "But," he continued slowly, "St. Anthony did 
 not tell the story right. There were no wit- 
 nesses, you will remember, and . . . well, in his 
 account he turned defeat into a victory ..." 
 
 "Sir!" said the historian, rising precipitately, 
 and haughtily stalking away. 
 
 "Good work, good work," said Dr. Nicholas 
 to himself, rubbing his hands. "I hope I shall 
 be left alone now to look after my own little 
 affairs ... Oh no, here is the Countess. 
 
 "May I have the honor of conducting you 
 to the supper room?" he asked gallantly, the 
 lady's escort dropping her arm with a bow, and 
 respectfully withdrawing from the exalted 
 presence. 
 
 "No, thank you," laughed the American. "I 
 have just come from there. You know, I skated 
 all morning, and this afternoon I went tobog- 
 195
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 ganing, and now I am dancing. ... It gives 
 one an appetite." 
 
 "Ah, yes; youth, good health, high spirits, 
 comfort. . . . Why should you not be happy, 
 and have a good appetite. Will you talk to 
 me a little? Let us sit out this dance." 
 
 "I am engaged for it. But, of course, since 
 you command. . . . There is my partner, look- 
 ing at me in much perplexity." 
 
 She gaily waved a dismissal with her fan, 
 and sat down. 
 
 "Have you ever been in America, Dr. Nich- 
 olas?" she began. 
 
 "Oh, yes; I have paid the country several 
 visits." 
 
 "And do you like it?" 
 
 "Weil, no. I go there as little as possible. 
 My interests there are large enough, but they 
 are of a simple nature, they run themselves, so 
 to speak." 
 
 "But why do you not like America?" 
 
 "Well, it lacks gaiety. The people are not 
 to my liking. They are too simple, psycholog- 
 ically speaking." 
 
 196
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Pardon me, but I do not understand." 
 
 "Let me try to make myself clear. If I said 
 just now that the Americans are simple psy- 
 chologically, I must explain a little. They are 
 daring criminals, but timid sinners." 
 
 "And for that reason you do not like the 
 people?" 
 
 "Well, you see, it makes life there flat. The 
 crimes are all financial, commercial, and politi- 
 cal most uninteresting. They go on auto- 
 matically, unconsciously almost. But there are 
 no pretty frothy sins that give life color and 
 surface joy, and depth below it, in this part of 
 the world." 
 
 "I fail to see your reasoning." 
 
 "Over there they do too much, and feel too 
 little. The man's morality is woman's morality 
 sexual morality. On that point they are in- 
 corruptible, but ethically they are confused. 
 What the rest of the world considers man's 
 province civic morality, I might call it, they 
 consider of minor importance." 
 
 "But the Devil is at work there?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, you may be sure that he neglects 
 197
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 no part of this world. Only, he need not pay 
 much attention to his affairs in your country. 
 As I have said, they go on automatically, and 
 they grow as they go on. Oh, yes, the Devil's 
 American ledger must be well filled." 
 
 "But only with the names of financiers, and 
 politicians, and the like?" 
 
 "Only with those. I often wonder how he 
 will place them when they get there. They can 
 hardly interest Csesar, or Napoleon, or Frede- 
 rick, or Voltaire, or Robespierre." 
 
 The Countess looked wearied. This kind of 
 talk it was very clever, no doubt did not 
 interest her. Moreover, she suspected that it 
 was rather irreverent, if not positively blas- 
 phemous. Also, she was a loyal daughter of 
 the Republic, notwithstanding her title. 
 
 "But you like our social life?" she asked, 
 changing the current of the conversation a 
 little. 
 
 "It is very brilliant, but it lacks something. 
 It is all women, and very few men, and the very 
 few men are not your best, your ablest, your 
 master minds. They are too busy." 
 
 198
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Is there anything in America that has Your 
 Highness's august approval?" 
 
 "I admire your women, your clubs are models 
 for the world to copy, you have brought the 
 material comforts of life to a state of perfec- 
 tion unapproachable elsewhere, but you try to 
 live by the intellect alone; you neglect your 
 emotional selves, and thereby lose the best part 
 of life." 
 
 "Thank you for my country. Here comes the 
 architect of this palace. I suggested all the 
 modern improvements, you know electric light 
 and ranges, porcelain-lined bath tubs, nickel- 
 plated showers and needle baths, hot water 
 heat, elevators, all the material comforts you 
 admire so much." To herself she added, "And 
 you are not the first rude Royal Highness I 
 have met." 
 
 "Is not that Mademoiselle Toth with the arch- 
 itect?" asked Dr. Nicholas. 
 
 "Yes, that is the unconventional heiress. She 
 and I are great cronies. We understand each 
 other. She should live in New York." 
 
 "Will you present us?" 
 199
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "With pleasure. I obey a command. But," 
 she added, flashing upon him her brilliant smile, 
 which disarmed resentment, "you must prom- 
 ise not to be rude to her. It would distress 
 her. We Americans know deep down in our 
 hearts, even while we play the game and are 
 anxious to get into it, that all this business of 
 titles and insurmountable social barriers is tot- 
 tering to its end. We don't care, so long as it 
 lasts our time. But to her you are very real, 
 to be taken with portentous seriousness. With 
 all her emancipation, she is only a European 
 girl of the middle classes, after all." 
 
 "I promise that I will be as charming to her 
 as I know how. Like all the world, I am the 
 servant of an American woman." 
 
 "Now you are nice, quite suddenly." 
 
 Vilma approached slowly, listless, preoccupied. 
 Sandor had not yet arrived, and her interest in 
 the brilliancy of the evening had died out. 
 
 "Vilma," said the Countess, "Dr. Nicholas 
 desires very much to know you. Monsieur 
 Erdod, come and show me the picture gallery. 
 I haven't seen it since it was finished." 
 
 200
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 She dropped a curtsey, with a touch of mock- 
 ery in its depth, took the delighted architect's 
 arm, and moved rapidly away, her laughter 
 floating up. She brought gaiety with her wher- 
 ever she went. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Toth," said Dr. Nicholas, "I 
 know that you have kept this quadrille open 
 for me, do let me believe it. Will you do me the 
 pleasure of sitting it out with me?" 
 
 "You do not wish to dance?" 
 
 "I prefer a duet with you to a quadrille." 
 
 He offered her his arm, and piloted her skil- 
 fully along the walls of the ball-room, on the 
 outskirts of the bowing and moving sets, to the 
 entrance of the conservatory. On the broad 
 landing at the top of its short flight of marble 
 steps they stopped a moment. Then Dr. Nich- 
 olas said: 
 
 "Let us sit down over there. We can watch 
 this entrance there, and chat comfortably." 
 
 Vilma settled herself in one of the little 
 chairs, placed her fan upon the table beside her, 
 and looked across it at her companion. 
 
 201
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE DEVIL'S PAWNS 
 
 "TELL me," began Vilma, with admiration, 
 "why you have been so disagreeable to people 
 to-night? They are all talking about it. You 
 see, I am unconventional. I tell you right out. 
 And yet you can be very pleasant, as you are 
 now." 
 
 "And you are curious?" 
 
 "Why, yes. You must have done this delib- 
 erately." 
 
 "I have. You see, I have set myself the task 
 of being alone this evening, because I have 
 something to accomplish. Now, if I made my- 
 self agreeable, I'd be surrounded. If I said 
 nothing, all the old fogies the men who don't 
 dance and can't talk would invite me to si1 
 with them in silence and smoke more than is 
 good for them, or for me. So what remained 
 but to make myself as disagreeable as possible? 
 202
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 I have isolated myself a splendid isolation 
 since I share it with you." 
 
 "Then I shall not interfere with your pur- 
 pose?" 
 
 "Quite the contrary. You are to play a part 
 in its accomplishment." 
 
 "You are an old friend of Sandor?" 
 
 "A very old friend. I am fond of him, and 
 I expect great things from him. In fact, I am 
 trying to set him in the right path, faced in the 
 right direction. I even flatter myself that I 
 have made a good beginning." 
 
 "Has it something to do with with his mar- 
 riage?" 
 
 "Somewhat." 
 
 "Then I know your purpose. You are in the 
 secret, too." 
 
 "Perhaps I am, and yet my secret may not be 
 yours." 
 
 "Let us get this straight. They call me 
 the impudent Vilma, you know. I say what 
 I think, whenever and wherever I think 
 of it." 
 
 "And nobody believes you?" 
 203
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "No, they believe that it is all pose." 
 
 "Of course, a woman who says what she 
 thinks, even when she is not angry. It must 
 be bewildering." 
 
 "I mean to be bewildering." 
 
 "But it is not fair. One expects a woman 
 to tell little lies occasionally. That is the charm 
 of her uncertainty; it keeps one guessing. To 
 tell the truth always is just as futile as to lie 
 always. In neither case will you achieve your 
 purpose. Either acquire a reputation for truth- 
 fulness, and then fib whenever it suits your con- 
 venience, or establish a reputation for men- 
 dacity, and then upset them by telling the 
 truth." 
 
 "You are leading away from the subject of 
 our conversation." 
 
 "Is not that a woman's way of. arriving at 
 what she wishes to say?" 
 
 "You think you know my secret, but you do 
 not. I know yours." \ 
 
 "What is this secret of mine?" 
 
 "When I say yours, I don't mean you alone. 
 I mean you and Jolan and Sandor. You see, I 
 204
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 am the girl to whom he is to propose to-night. 
 Jolan has managed it, and you are trying to 
 help it along now." 
 
 "But . . . 
 
 "This is my secret, and it puts an end to 
 yours. I know everything everything, you 
 understand ? I know what is going on." 
 
 "I understand." 
 
 "So," continued Vilma with rising excite- 
 ment, "I want you to know that I am nobody's 
 dupe. If I accept him, it is with my eyes wide 
 open. I know what has been going on for 
 several years." 
 
 "But why do you say all this to me?" 
 
 "Am I not telling you? Are you not one of 
 the conspirators, do you not believe that I am 
 blind ? Oh, I'll marry him, indeed I will, and I 
 shall know what I have to do after that." 
 
 "I don't believe it." 
 
 "Whether you believe it or not, I will marry 
 him knowing all." 
 
 "My dear young lady," said Dr. Nicholas 
 soothingly, "you have honored me with your 
 confidence. Now let me say a word: Nothing 
 205
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 will come of all this planning and plotting. 
 You'll never marry Sandor." 
 
 "Why do you speak so confidently?" 
 
 "Because, I confess it, I know the true 
 inwardness of this matchmaking game, but I 
 doubt if you do, though you say so, because, if 
 you did, you would not wish to marry him." 
 
 Vilma began to show increasing signs of 
 nervous tension. She plucked at the tips of 
 her gloves, tapped her little feet on the sanded 
 floor, and winked her eyes. Dr. Nicholas 
 reached into the breast pocket of his coat, pro- 
 duced the daintiest of jewelled gold vanity 
 cases, and opened it on his knee. 
 
 "If I knew, I would not wish to marry him?" 
 repeated the girl. "Why, that's just my secret." 
 
 "What is the use of beating around the 
 bush?" she continued, speaking rapidly. "I 
 know very well that he is in love with another 
 woman I will not name her, and that she 
 has made this match for him, to ensure her own 
 safety, perhaps to shield herself behind our 
 friendship." 
 
 The tears were trickling down her cheeks, 
 206
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 try as she might to control them. Dr. Nicholas 
 reached into the vanity case, and produced a 
 tiny handkerchief. Handing it to her, he said : 
 
 "Permit me to give you this first aid to the 
 injured. I always carry this case with me 
 when I go into the society of ladies. There is 
 everything needful." 
 
 "How thoughtful of you. I suppose that it is 
 quite a usual thing for you to make women 
 weep." 
 
 "It is my aim always to comfort and console 
 them." 
 
 Vilma dabbed nervously at her eyes, and 
 tried to get control of her shaking voice. 
 
 "When we are on my honeymoon," she con- 
 tinued, staccato, "I shall know that he's think- 
 ing of her while he is making love to me. . . . 
 I don't care. ... I know what I am doing. . . , 
 Only, I don't want you others to flatter yourself 
 that you have hoodwinked me, that you've 
 tricked me. ... I have my own plan, and 
 I shall succeed. She hasn't counted on 
 that." 
 
 "I did not suppose that the discussion of this 
 207
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 subject would excite you so much," said Dr. 
 Nicholas, handing her a tiny powder puff and 
 a small mirror, which she took mechanically. 
 
 "No one shall laugh at me/' continued Vilma, 
 making vicious dabs at her nose with the puff, 
 and peering into the glass. "Tell her that I 
 know, and that I will make him love me. Now 
 you know my secret: I love him with all my 
 heart, with all my soul!" 
 
 Vilma returned the powder puff, smoothed 
 the powder on her nose by the aid of the hand- 
 kerchief and the little mirror, handed both to 
 Dr. Nicholas, whc replaced them in the case, 
 and the case in his pocket, and said with per- 
 fect self-possession, 
 
 "So. Now you know my secret. What do 
 you think of it?" 
 
 "This is the emancipated, the ultra-modern 
 Vilma?" asked Dr. Nicholas with astonishment. 
 
 "No, this is the real Vilma," she returned 
 promptly. "I chose you to talk to, instead of 
 her. This morning I was a young girl, to-night 
 I am an old woman. ... I have thought so 
 much. Dr. Nicholas, won't you be my friend? 
 
 208
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 I have been defeated ; I hope to win my victory 
 after, not before marriage." 
 
 "May I advise you ?" 
 
 "Please do." 
 
 "Do not postpone your campaign until after- 
 ward. You must take up the fight openly, now, 
 aggressively. And you must look beautiful." 
 
 "I'll do my best." 
 
 "You must fight that other woman, not with 
 her weapons, but with your own. You have 
 tried to imitate the greater freedom of the mar- 
 ried woman . . . you have been emancipated, 
 free, unconventional. It won't do. There is a 
 barrier which you dare not pass, and it is on 
 the further side of it that the married woman's 
 power begins. She knows that power, she has 
 used it before upon her husband, the charm of 
 her personality. ... I am treading on delicate 
 ground." 
 
 "Proceed." 
 
 "You are sensible, I see. For a young girl to 
 
 adopt the married woman's tactics spells defeat 
 
 defeat in success, defeat in failure. I am a 
 
 hardened man of the world, but I must say 
 
 209
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 that the emancipated girl never has that 
 potency of influence over me that the simplicity 
 of innocence exerts. It attracts me ... it 
 holds me, it rouses in me an irresistible desire 
 to win it. Ah, Mademoiselle . . . ' 
 
 "No nonsense, please. No compliments; I 
 am familiar with all this conservatory, sit-out- 
 dances palaver." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas sorrowfully shook his head. 
 
 "The unconventional Vilma again," he said. 
 "Pray let me proceed. I was just getting to 
 the point of my oration. The young girl, I said, 
 can never successfully compete with the mar- 
 ried woman, with that woman's own weapons. 
 What remains, then? A power far greater 
 which she has lost, which she can no more 
 simulate than the girl can hers the power of 
 maidenly innocence/' 
 
 "You think so ?" said Vilma, doubtingly. She 
 had lived with her eyes wide open. 
 
 "I know it, I am convinced of it. Believe me, 
 all men are alike in this. Your rival is freed 
 from certain considerations that are binding 
 upon you. Your plan is to wait until your mar- 
 
 210
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 riage has placed you upon an equality with her 
 before attempting to win his love?" 
 "Yes, that was my plan." 
 "Well, fight out the battle beforehand. Drop 
 the old Vilma, put on the new. Do not be for- 
 ward and self-possessed, do not parade your 
 knowledge of the world. Cast down your eyes, 
 be timid. Approach with troubled misgiving 
 this lord of creation, tremble as you look up into 
 his eyes. Let him feel that you consider him 
 your superior in wisdom, in experience, in 
 strength, pretend to hide but imperfectly your 
 admiration of his comeliness and his talent. 
 Sit at his feet and worship, then get up and 
 run a little distance away from the fence, lure 
 him away from it, for that other woman stands 
 on the other side singing her less idyllic siren 
 song. Retreat, and he will follow until he is 
 in your net." 
 
 "I do not like it," said Vilma, disdainfully. 
 "You wish to win him, do you not?" 
 "Yes, oh yes; I love him so much!" 
 "Then follow my advice. All's fair in love 
 and war." 
 
 211
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "And it will work? It seems to me so trans- 
 parent." 
 
 "Man's love is easiest won through his van- 
 ity. When his vanity is appealed to, he becomes 
 credulous as a child. Why," added Dr. Nicho- 
 las, growing enthusiastic, "with this recipe of 
 mine, a hideous old hag could have coaxed Don 
 Juan into a corner from which he could not 
 have escaped, not even with the aid of Leporello 
 and his sword." 
 
 At this moment, Sandor appeared in the 
 doorway of the conservatory, and looked down 
 upon them. 
 
 "Shall I do it?" whispered Vilma. 
 
 "It is your only chance," said Dr. Nicholas, 
 getting up as Sandor slowly descended the steps 
 and approached their table. "Ah, Sandor," he 
 continued, "I will surrender my place to you, 
 and join the merry throng again." 
 
 "Vilma, I have been looking for you every- 
 where," said the painter, taking the seat Dr. 
 Nicholas had just vacated. 
 
 "I have been searching everywhere," he con- 
 tinued, looking curiously at Vilma, who sat on 
 
 212
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 the edge of her chair, her hands in her lap, her 
 eyes demurely cast down. 
 
 "Yes," she murmured in a small, shy voice. 
 
 "Why did you come here?" 
 
 "I wanted to be alone. There were so many 
 people in there it confused me." 
 
 "But you have been to many balls, and you 
 were always in the midst of the romping and 
 the fun." 
 
 "But . . . but, you were always with me to 
 look after me." She ventured one startled, 
 fawn-like look at him, then cast down her eyes 
 again. "It is different, somehow, when one is 
 with a man whom one trusts, and who knows 
 what is the right thing to do." 
 
 She peered at him out of the corner of her 
 downcast eyes. Had she gone too far, she won- 
 dered, was she laying it on a little too heavily? 
 But no, Sandor was staring at her with admir- 
 ing eyes, a gratified smile upon his lips. So she 
 continued, in the same modest voice : 
 
 "Who is this Dr. Nicholas? He said that he 
 was an old friend of yours. He was very kind 
 to me." 
 
 213
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "He is a chance acquaintance who has forced 
 himself upon me. A queer chap I consider 
 him a neurasthenic philosopher. He rendered 
 me an important service long ago, so I straight- 
 way forgot him. He will probably render me 
 another one, and then I shall positively loathe 
 him." 
 
 Vilma gave a silvery little laugh. "How 
 clever you are," she gurgled, "and so cynical, 
 and you mean nothing by it." 
 
 "You are changed somehow, Vilma," said the 
 enchanted painter, tenderly. "So different 
 from your other self, the hard, self-possessed 
 self you show to the world." 
 
 "How I loathe it, Sandor," confided the in- 
 genuous lady, entering heartily into this new 
 game. "You know, ever since I was a little 
 child I have been timid. It is a torture to me 
 to be out among strangers, to meet them, to talk 
 to them. And so I adopted my impudent pose 
 in self-defence. I schooled myself to be orig- 
 inal, independent, emancipated, but oh, often 
 when I was boldest my heart was in my mouth. 
 It is such a relief to lay aside the mask with 
 214
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 you. I do not need to be on the defensive 
 against you any longer. . . . You are so mag- 
 nanimous, so strong." 
 
 "And you have hidden your real self from 
 me all this time," cried the enchanted painter. 
 "How little I have known you, and how much 
 better I like you thus. How sweet you look, 
 how innocent." 
 
 He softly placed his hand over her fingers, 
 resting quietly in her lap. Vilma snatched 
 them away with maidenly confusion, but not 
 before Jolan had seen the tender little episode 
 as she entered the conservatory on Dr. Nich- 
 olas's arm. Involuntarily her hand gave a little 
 tug, and she stopped short. The Doctor coughed 
 discreetly. 
 
 "Behold," he said, smoothly, "the realization 
 of your dearest wish." 
 
 "My dearest wish. Do not let us disturb 
 them." 
 
 "They appear to be too much interested in 
 
 the color of each other's eyes to notice us," Dr. 
 
 Nicholas rejoined. "Now for a four-cornered 
 
 game of murderous jealousy," he said to him- 
 
 215
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 self "Jolan against Vilma, Sandor against me, 
 and the victory is mine." 
 
 "Let us sit down a little while," he continued, 
 half-aloud, pointing to two chairs on the other 
 side of the conservatory, under a far-spreading 
 palm. "It won't be indiscreet. We both know 
 their secret, and rejoice over the result of your 
 little plan." 
 
 They softly descended the steps, and sat 
 down. Jolan would have gone away, but some- 
 thing within her forced her to witness this 
 scene, to watch the sudden intimacy of these 
 two. She felt profoundly wretched. Dr. Nich- 
 olas bent forward and began to whisper, giving 
 to their attitude an air of mysterious intimacy. 
 
 "Jolan is over there," said Vilma in a low 
 tone. 
 
 "I have already paid my respects to her. Do 
 not let us take any notice. She will go away 
 again in a little while." 
 
 "She appears to be deeply interested in her 
 escort," continued Vilma. "They have their 
 heads close together, and are whispering." 
 
 "Do you know him?" 
 
 216
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Yes, it is that friend of yours, Dr. Nicholas." 
 
 Sandor started, but restrained himself, and 
 continued to pay his court, mechanically, absent- 
 mindedly. Vilma observed the change in his 
 demeanor, and her heart grew bitter. Still, she 
 played her new part with increased energy. It 
 would never do to give up so soon. 
 
 "How becoming that blush is to you, Vilma." 
 
 "You thought that I had forgotten how to 
 blush/' she whispered sadly. "Oh, what a 
 wrong impression you must have of me." 
 
 "I never misjudged you," protested the 
 painter, but faintly. He took up her fan, and 
 began to toy with it, his elbows on his knees. 
 The attitude brought his head nearer to the 
 girl. He knew this, and assumed it on pur- 
 pose. Jolan must see it. He was straining 
 his ears to hear what these other two were 
 saying. 
 
 "It seems that they have found each other at 
 last" whispered Jolan. 
 
 "Perhaps so. Does it affect you disagree- 
 ably?" rejoined Dr. Nicholas, looking into her 
 troubled eyes. 
 
 217
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Not in the least. On the contrary, I am 
 glad to see the success of my efforts." 
 
 "Shall we move farther away? He may wish 
 to speak now. . . . We may hinder him." 
 
 "Let us stay a little longer. It is quiet here, 
 and cool, and I am very tired." 
 
 "They are speaking about us," whispered 
 Vilma, in her corner. 
 
 "Let them talk. What are they to us ... to- 
 night?" 
 
 "Why do you constantly try to look at them, 
 then?" 
 
 "Do I? I was not aware of it." 
 
 Jolan grew fidgetty. Jealousy bade her stay, 
 her pride commanded her to go. But Sandor 
 would propose if she went. 
 
 "So you came after all," she said playfully to 
 Dr. Nicholas. "I had hoped that you would be 
 prevented. I am always saying rude things to 
 you, but you provoke them." 
 
 "I came for a purpose. This afternoon 
 I undertook to accomplish something. My 
 pride was involved, and now my feelings 
 are." 
 
 218
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "What is this purpose? I have felt all along 
 that your coming was not an idle accident." 
 
 "I hardly dare to tell you." 
 
 Jolan became interested. This mysterious 
 man was a puzzle to her. 
 
 "You will not be angry? Well, then, I told 
 someone that I would turn your head to-night." 
 
 She laughed, scornfully yet uneasily. 
 
 "To whom did you make this amazing state- 
 ment?" 
 
 "To Sandor." 
 
 "To Sandor? And what did he say? Did he 
 allow you to say it all?" 
 
 "He acted in a way that astonished me. But 
 I cannot explain just now. You might be 
 offended, angrier with him even than you must 
 be with me." 
 
 "I am not offended with you, only amazed, 
 and heartily disgusted. You have gone too 
 far. Men speak lightly of women, I know, but 
 to confess it to them afterward. ... I am sure 
 that Sandor said or did nothing to offend me. 
 He knew what was the proper thing to say 
 and do." 
 
 219
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Here Sandor bent forward, and again touched 
 Vilma's hand. 
 
 "Why are you constantly looking at them?" 
 asked Dr. Nicholas. 
 
 "Am I ? I was not aware of it. He certainly 
 is taken with her." 
 
 "Your eyes are sombre like brooding vol- 
 canoes," said Dr. Nicholas, with low intensity, 
 "there is in them a power of consuming fury, a 
 promise of all-compelling love. Should the 
 right man kiss your eyelids, you might awake 
 to the glory of passion ; should a woman thwart 
 you, they might flash destruction. But alas, 
 you will never be awakened by that kiss. And 
 the promise will die out in your eyes. You 
 will be a respected, honored, middle-aged 
 wife who has never known love the ecstasy 
 of giving and taking all that is best in 
 life." 
 
 "You presume upon your position as my 
 guest, perhaps upon your rank. You must not 
 talk to me like that." 
 
 "I am the spirit that denies the empty con- 
 ventionalities which fetter the souls that would 
 
 220
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 soar aloft. I destroy them, I encourage the 
 timid to be daring, the shackled to wrench 
 themselves free, the slaves of fate to make them- 
 selves its masters." 
 
 "Your oratory is strange, it sounds ominous. 
 Again I ask you, Who are you ?" 
 
 "I must preserve my incognito. . . . There, 
 Sandor has touched her hand again. Her hour 
 is coming, yours is passing and his." 
 
 "How sweet you are to-night," Sandor was 
 whispering; "so gentle and demure. You, al- 
 ways so independent, make me feel as if you 
 clung to me." 
 
 "I do, Sandor. I have always relied upon 
 your strength, your cleverness in secret. Oh, 
 what have I said? So bold, so forward a 
 thing!" 
 
 "It does not sound forward from your lips, 
 Vilma. Oh, if I had only suspected this real 
 self of yours sooner if only . . ." 
 
 The painter was succeeding better again in 
 
 his courtship. His attention, distracted for 
 
 a while by the unseen doings of the two behind 
 
 his back, by jealous anxiety and apprehension, 
 
 221
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 had returned to Vilma, under the soothing 
 touch of her adroit demureness. 
 
 "You never sought me out, Sandor. It was 
 I who always made you my partner. I was 
 afraid that a young girl would bore you. I 
 tried to be bold, impudent, amusing, and now 
 you tell me that you disliked it. A young girl 
 knows so little of the world. She must grope 
 her way." 
 
 Sandor was touched. He sat up, squared his 
 shoulders, and opened his mouth to ask the 
 question that would decide his fate. . . . Dr. 
 Nicholas's laugh reached him, low but trium- 
 phant. "Then you consent?" he heard him say. 
 "This is more than good of you, it is generous." 
 
 The words rang in Sander's ears. Their 
 meaning he could not know, but he jumped at a 
 conclusion. Rage overmastered him, and the 
 impulse to snatch Jolan from him, to take her 
 away, beyond his reach. He stumbled in the 
 speech he had begun, whose intent Vilma had 
 fully grasped, the moment its opening word 
 was spoken, stammered, and, in the torture of 
 his suspicion, repeated Dr. Nicholas's words. . . 
 
 222
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "She consents !" 
 
 Vilma rose, pale to the lips, trembling like a 
 leaf. 
 
 "Take me into the ball-room," she commanded 
 proudly. "I have promised the next dance." 
 
 "But . . . but," stumbled the painter, his 
 brain still in a whirl, only dimly realizing what 
 he had done, "but . . . but . . . Won't you 
 stay a little longer? I wish to speak to you 
 most earnestly." 
 
 "You desire to listen most earnestly." Vil- 
 ma's self-possession gave way. "I will not dis- 
 tract your eaves - dropping attention any 
 longer." 
 
 She swept past him towards the foot of the 
 stairs, Sandor following her in a daze. Jolan, 
 too, had risen, and met the couple before they 
 had mounted the first step. The three stood 
 together, agitated. Dr. Nicholas remained a 
 little in the background, his left elbow sup- 
 ported by his right hand, his left hand caress- 
 ing his long chin, his face alert. His eyes shone 
 with repressed excitement. 
 
 Jolan glared at Vilma, who stared back cold- 
 223
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 ly, disdainfully. An outbreak was imminent, 
 the irreparable outburst of two jealous women, 
 throwing to the winds all prudence, all the safe- 
 guards of breeding and tradition, all the dis- 
 guises and compromises and pretenses that 
 make possible the dwelling together in safety 
 of men and women. Two children of nature 
 they had become, beneath their modern finery; 
 millenniums of slow progress upward had been 
 torn from them by the fury of a primeval 
 instinct stronger nearly always in such crises 
 than is the other guiding influence of life, the 
 instinct of self-preservation. 
 
 "I saw them thus in their caves, thousands 
 of years ago; I shall see them thus thousands 
 of years hence," mused Dr. Nicholas. "They 
 never will get away from savagery so long as 
 man is man and woman is woman." 
 
 He was impartial now. His end was gained. 
 So he stood by, an idle spectator. 
 
 Jolan's eyes were the first to fall. Centuries 
 
 of training along certain lines of thought, of 
 
 acceptance of certain conventions, did tell, after 
 
 all. She had no right to this man in the eyes of 
 
 224
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 the world. Yet it was not surrender, merely 
 a deferring of the struggle for the sake of 
 appearances. 
 
 "Are you not dancing?" she asked sweetly. 
 
 "To tell the truth, I hate dancing," replied 
 Vilma with superb self-possession. "But to- 
 night I mean to dance until dawn, to enjoy 
 myself every moment that is left, if for no 
 other reason than that there are people who 
 hate to see me happy." 
 
 Then, turning to Sandor with an imperious 
 turn of the body, she said : 
 
 "Take me to the ball-room, Sandor." Con- 
 sulting her card, she added, "this dance is 
 yours. I do not wish to miss that mazurka." 
 
 Slowly, with dignity, she mounted the marble 
 stairs, one by one, unfaltering, though her 
 knees trembled and her nerves threatened to 
 give way. Not once did she look back, her lit- 
 tle head held high on the slender column of her 
 neck, her bare shoulders carried proudly, every 
 inch of her graceful figure betokening her 
 knowledge that for this brief moment the vic- 
 tory was hers. 
 
 225
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 At the head of the stairs she took Sander's 
 arm, and entered the ball-room. They saw her 
 stoop to pick up her train, and whirl away in 
 his arms, with a word and a smile upon her 
 lips. 
 
 226
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE DEVIL'S MANTLE 
 
 THE moment Vilma had been swallowed up 
 by the gracefully whirling mass of white under 
 the tranquil shimmer of the sea of light, Jolan 
 turned to Dr. Nicholas. 
 
 "Did you hear?" she asked excitedly. "She 
 must feel pretty sure of her position when she 
 speaks to me in that way." 
 
 And she added, the new thought breaking 
 the last bonds of her reserve: 
 
 "Sandor has fallen in love with her." 
 
 "Can that be possible?" said Dr. Nicholas. 
 "I cannot believe it after what happened this 
 afternoon. No, it is impossible." 
 
 "What happened?" 
 
 The question was imploring, and command- 
 ing at the same time. 
 
 "A little while ago I was afraid to tell you. 
 227
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 I hesitate now more than ever. You spoke very 
 severely to me. I admit that I deserved it. 
 No, it is better not to tell you." 
 
 "But I have a right to know. This . . . this, 
 I am in a confusion, an uncertainty that is kill- 
 ing me." 
 
 "Well, then. You will understand that I have 
 the best motives, that I only wish to be of 
 service, to straighten out this tangle into which 
 I have been drawn by accident?" 
 
 "Yes, yes," impatiently. 
 
 "When I told him this afternon that . . ." 
 
 "That you intended to make love to me?" 
 
 "That I intended to make love to you, he ... 
 tried to kill me." 
 
 "He tried to kill you!" 
 
 Jolan said this joyously. Her face became 
 transfigured, her eyes shone. 
 
 "Sandor tried to kill you!" 
 
 She repeated the words with passionate fond- 
 ness and an exultation of pride. Dr. Nicholas 
 grinned. He saw that he had suddenly risen in 
 this woman's estimation because he had forced 
 the man she loved to this barbaric confession of 
 228
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 his passion. He enjoyed the humor of the situ- 
 ation, and tried to prolong it. 
 
 "He took my own revolver away from me," 
 he continued, and "tried to shoot me with it." 
 
 Softly, ecstatically, staring far away at some 
 vision of bliss, Jolan repeated: 
 
 "He tried to kill him, for my sake!" 
 
 "With my own revolver, with six barrels, all 
 loaded," prompted Dr. Nicholas. 
 
 "With his own revolver, with six barrels, all 
 loaded," she repeated with mechanical docility. 
 Then, in an outburst of ecstatic admiration, she 
 cried : 
 
 "How noble of him!" 
 
 Dr. Nicholas could not help it. He turned 
 aside, and winked solemnly, slowly, at an olean- 
 der bush. 
 
 Jolan 's mind suddenly reverted from this 
 dramatic revelation of what happened that 
 afternoon to what she had seen that evening 
 but a moment ago. 
 
 "This afternoon he wanted to kill him," she 
 wailed, "for my sake. And just now he did not 
 care when I sat here whispering to him. Do 
 229
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 what I would, he paid no attention. Oh, he has 
 fallen in love with her, suddenly, insanely!" 
 
 "There you are," said Dr. Nicholas, in a 
 grieved tone of voice. "Suppose he had killed 
 me, what a mess we all should be in at this 
 moment! Is it ever worth while to kill a man 
 for the sake of a woman?" 
 
 Jolan suddenly recovered her senses, and in- 
 stinctively put on again the social mask that she 
 had dropped. 
 
 "He tried to kill you because he respects me. 
 You, no doubt, said things . . . Well, I am 
 grateful to him, my knight!" 
 
 She made a dismissing gesture of the hand, 
 and added, but without conviction: 
 
 "I hope that he will be happy with her. He 
 certainly loves her very much." 
 
 "Does he?" 
 
 "Does he not?" She grasped at the doubt 
 with pitiful eagerness. 
 
 "It is interesting to see how exercised you 
 are because your favorite plan appears to be 
 successful. You affirm and deny in the same 
 breath.' 
 
 830
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "You unsettle my mind with your insinuat- 
 ing doubts. Don't you believe that I have suc- 
 ceeded?" 
 
 "I do not know, Madame Voross, because I 
 am not aware of what success you really desire. 
 Do you know yourself? Do you really wish him 
 to love her?" 
 
 "What is this you mean?" 
 
 "I am a disinterested spectator, trying to 
 help things along. By way of reward I receive 
 nothing but abuse and suspicion of my motives. 
 Ah, yes, the way of the peacemaker!" 
 
 "What did you mean just then? You do not 
 believe that Sandor has fallen in love with 
 Vilma?" 
 
 Dr. Nicholas took a resolution. Looking 
 straight at Jolan, he said in that clear, incisive 
 way of his : 
 
 "Let us clear the atmosphere let us put all 
 the cards on the table, a proceeding which a 
 woman always suspects. This afternoon he 
 tried to kill me in a transport of fury because 
 I had said that I intended to make love to 
 you." 
 
 231
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You say it is respect. The shots that are 
 fired out of respect are fired from the cannon 
 of a visiting fleet and a welcoming fort, not 
 from a six-shooter wrested from the hand of 
 a man unprepared for the onslaught. I say it 
 is love!" 
 
 "But then, did we not see him just now?" 
 
 "We did see him just now, but you did not 
 see him this afternoon. I did. I have reason 
 to remember. It was love, I tell you! passion- 
 ate love! Yet you say that he has suddenly 
 changed, because he was philandering a little 
 with an attractive girl in a conservatory, be- 
 tween two dances. Why, in such surroundings 
 that is the duty of even the most devout of 
 lovers towards the woman with whom he hap- 
 pens to be for the moment. 
 
 "Of course," he continued persuasively, "your 
 whole interest in the matter lies in the success 
 of the match that you have planned." 
 
 "That is all," lied Jolan steadfastly. 
 
 "And you are afraid for the girl's future. 
 You would not have her marry him if he did 
 
 232
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 not love her as a husband should love his wife. 
 Oh, I understand." 
 
 "Yes, you understand now, perfectly." 
 
 "And suddenly a doubt has entered your 
 mind. You have heard what I have told you 
 with a purpose, I confess, because I seek only 
 the happiness of all concerned. I am sure that 
 you are mistaken about Sandor and Vilma." 
 
 "But what can we do?" 
 
 "We can put him to the test. We can easily 
 find out which is the more significant his 
 desire to kill me this afternoon, or the little 
 mock-sentimental passage of a few moments 
 ago." 
 
 "How? We cannot ask him." 
 
 "You certainly cannot ask him." 
 
 "You do not propose that I shall hide and 
 listen while you make him confess to you ?" 
 
 "No, eaves-dropping would be unfair. 
 Neither you nor he would stoop to it just now, I 
 observed." 
 
 Jolan blushed. 
 
 "I have a plan," continued Dr. Nicholas. 
 "We will cut the knot we cannot loosen. It is 
 233
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 not a new plan, but that is in its favor, for its 
 efficacy has been proved. It would make the 
 Sphinx betray its secret. Only, promise me 
 that you will do as I tell without asking me for 
 explanations. Do you consent?" 
 
 "I consent to anything," said Jolan eagerly. 
 "Only let us put an end to this suspense." 
 
 "You have a long white silk cloak, have you 
 not, that covers you from head to foot?" 
 
 "Yes. It has gold embroidery, and is 
 trimmed with swan's down round the neck and 
 all the way down the iiont. It was made by 
 Paquin." 
 
 "All that is most important. We cannot 
 fail." 
 
 "It has a Dutch neck," continued Jolan. 
 
 "Better and better," said Dr. Nicholas, add- 
 ing to himself, " 'Where would I be if most 
 women did not lose their sense of humor when 
 they fell in love?' 
 
 "Now," he continued aloud, "go and put that 
 cloak 02. Wrap it around you so that nothing 
 of you is visible except your neck, and the tips 
 of your shoes. Then return here." 
 
 234
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "But I don't M* . . ." 
 
 "Of course not. You will see afterward. 
 Remember that you have promised not to ask 
 questions, and to do as I tell you." 
 
 "I will do it. The test sounds funny, but you 
 talk so confidently, I really have faith in it. 
 Sometimes, when your eyes sparkle, one might 
 believe that all the wisdom of the world lay 
 behind them." 
 
 "You have a very poor opinion of me." 
 
 "Well, I will put on the cloak. It sounds like 
 a masquerade." 
 
 "Oh, yes, one thing more. Should anyone 
 ask why you are wearing it, simply answer that 
 you feel cold, and wrap it closer around you. 
 Now, run before Sandor returns. . . . Oh, yes, 
 he will be back the moment he can free him- 
 self." 
 
 Jolan mounted the stairs with decision, 
 turned to the right, opened a small door in the 
 marble wall, and disappeared. A moment later 
 Sandor emerged from the ball-room. 
 
 He was pale, agitated, aggressive. His dark 
 eyes swept the foreground, peered into the 
 235
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 depth of the foliage, then turned full on Dr. 
 Nicholas. 
 
 "Who was here just now?" he asked, threat- 
 eningly. 
 
 "As you see, I am all alone." 
 
 "Someone rushed out as I approached a 
 woman I saw the whirl of her dress. It seems 
 that she did not want me to see her. She did 
 not pass me. Where has she gone?" 
 
 "There was nobody here, Sandor." 
 
 "You lie like a gentleman." 
 
 "Is that a compliment or an insult? The 
 ethics of the gentleman are so sadly mixed now- 
 adays that one never knows." 
 
 "There was somebody here," reiterated San- 
 dor. 
 
 "Even if there were, it would not concern 
 you. So why should she flee and hide? You 
 insinuate that it is not good for a woman's 
 reputation to be seen in my company. Oh, 
 Sandor, Sandor, you grieve me deeply." 
 
 "Enough of this ! Your cynicism revolts me, 
 if it appears to give you amusement." 
 
 "Behold the festive bachelor contemplating 
 336
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 matrimony. Well, she is a charming girl. So 
 demure, so simple, under her assumption of 
 modernity." 
 
 "You are an ingenious devil." 
 
 "I have to be. Sandor, you are in a devil of 
 a humor." 
 
 "I am in neither a good nor a bad humor." 
 
 "I understand," said Dr. Nicholas. "I made 
 a bad break this afternoon. No wonder you 
 are angry with me. I confess that it was dis- 
 honorable, but consider the circumstances, the 
 excitement. ... Do you believe in psychic in- 
 fluences? There was some strange power at 
 work in your rooms. I felt it. Did not you? 
 Would you have threatened to shoot me if you 
 had been yourself? I gave you just provoca- 
 tion, and yet, consider: that same strange in- 
 fluence had me in its power, too." 
 
 "Let us talk no more about it," said Sandor 
 irritably. 
 
 "But I must set myself right in your eyes, 
 I cannot allow you to keep this wrong impres- 
 sion in your memory. I committed an unpar- 
 donable sin. I spoke lightly of a woman whom 
 237
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 I honor, of whom I shall always think only with 
 the profoundest respect. I made a silly, con- 
 temptible boast. . . ." 
 
 "You are a clever fellow, Dr. Nicholas. 
 Again I must say that you lie like a gentleman." 
 
 "Sandor, I protest. I give you my word of 
 honor that . . ." 
 
 "What is it all to me? What is she to me? 
 I am going to be married to the dearest girl 
 that ever lived. For months I have been try- 
 ing to make up my mind. To-night I have 
 reached a decision." 
 
 "My congratulations and my best wishes. 
 May she prove the One Woman who will carry 
 you to the heights of inspiration." 
 
 "I came here to tell Jolan. I was sure that I 
 should find her here. Why do you not confess ?" 
 
 "There is nothing to confess." 
 
 "Don't you understand that all that is past?" 
 Sandor spoke with forced lightness. "It is 
 behind me, forgotten. You may trust me, your 
 secret is safe with me. Why not tell me since 
 I have surprised you both, and she thought it 
 best to hide? Is not that a confession?" 
 
 238
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "It is you, now, Sandor, who talks in ques- 
 tionable good taste." 
 
 "We have got beyond that," burst out the 
 painter, "Jolan was here with you." 
 
 "Well, then, she was, but what of that?" 
 
 "Why did she cut and run? No, Doctor, you 
 are not a good liar." 
 
 "I know it, Sandor, my scrupulous regard for 
 truth has always stood in the way of my suc- 
 cesses in this world. I am too conscientious." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas sadly shook his head. 
 
 "Since you have wormed the truth out of 
 me," he went on, "I will tell you all. I am 
 bound to tell you. I am in a dilemma, and only 
 the truth can place Madame Voross in the true 
 light. I promised to keep the secret; I break 
 my promise because otherwise you would sus- 
 pect worse things." 
 
 "Then there is a secret an innocent secret. 
 I am dying to hear it, Doctor. I assure you it 
 will be safe with me. Ha, ha!" 
 
 "Well, then, I have told you already that I 
 respect her too much to dare to make love to 
 her. Remember that. And she, why, she would 
 239
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 never give me a thought. If you could have 
 seen us a little while ago, when you and 
 Mademoiselle Toth were sitting over there, you 
 might have observed how bored she was, and 
 how hard it was for both of us to keep up an 
 appearance of interest in our labored conversa- 
 tion. We whispered because we did not wish 
 to disturb you. You believe me, don't you? I 
 must insist that this is true." 
 
 Sandor glared at him with dark suspicion. 
 
 "Well, then, after you two happy beings had 
 left us to join the merry throng, we fell to dis- 
 cussing the theatre, and, of course, we talked 
 of 'Monna Vanna,' which, she told me, is 
 having a huge success in Budapest just 
 now. 
 
 "Somehow or other we came to consider the 
 feelings of Vanna, not when she had entered 
 the besieger's tent, with her high resolve to 
 save the lives of thousands by her sacrifice, 
 but before that, when she was on her way 
 through the beleaguered city's streets. I said 
 that this must have been the greater torture to 
 her. 
 
 240
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Madame Voross disagreed. She held that 
 the populace of the town were probably not 
 informed of the conqueror's terms, and that 
 Vanna's knowledge of their ignorance must 
 have given her a feeling of absolute safety and 
 unconcern. She said she knew this, because she 
 was a woman, and I was not, that a single 
 garment sufficed to give a woman a feeling of 
 total security, that she could walk about in it 
 unembarrassed, so long as she was absolutely 
 sure that those among whom she moved were 
 unaware of her secret. And she added, with a 
 laugh, that she must also be sure, of course, 
 that the garment was securely fastened." 
 
 Sandor looked perplexed. 
 
 "But that bizarre conversation is no reason 
 why she should run away the moment she saw 
 me coming," he pointed out with great astute- 
 ness. 
 
 "Now I am coming to the secret that you 
 have forced out of me," said Dr. Nicholas, 
 softly. "Sandor, you don't know that woman. 
 What a sense of humor, what reckless daring, 
 what high spirits, what unconventionality she 
 241
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 hides below that dignified manner! Why, ahe 
 is an inspiration of gaiety! 
 
 "Do you know what she did? She sprang up, 
 impulsively, and said, 'I will prove to you that 
 I am right. Wait for me here, and I will rejoin 
 you in a few moments, in a long, white cloak. 
 Only my neck will be visible, and the tips of 
 my slippers. The cloak will be securely fas- 
 tened, and you shall take me into the ball-room, 
 through the corridor, and the other apartments, 
 into the library, where the men are smoking, 
 and back again, here. Then I shall leave you 
 once more for a few moments, and return in 
 my ball dress. You shall see that nobody will 
 suspect, and that therefore I shall not be in the 
 least embarrassed.' 
 
 "I protested, I implored, but she would not 
 listen. She laughed at me for my timidity, 
 treated it all as a capital joke, gave me her 
 hand to kiss she has beautiful hands, Sandor 
 and ran away. I confess, the whole affair 
 mounted to my head a little in the end. I am 
 waiting for her now, and, I am trembling for 
 the possible consequences." 
 
 242
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "It is infamous! It is not possible! It is 
 not her doing! You suggested it to her, you 
 fiend! You lie! You lie!" 
 
 "What is this ? What is it to you ? A moment 
 ago you told me that she was indifferent to 
 you!" 
 
 "Well, then, I confess it, I love her! I love 
 her! I love her so much that I am willing to 
 marry another woman to protect her against 
 myself! But I will protect her also against 
 you!" 
 
 They were confronting each other, Sandor 
 beyond himself with jealousy and rage, Dr. 
 Nicholas grim, quiet, resolute. 
 
 "I will protect her against you! I will pro- 
 tect her innocence, her self-respect, her good 
 name!" shouted the painter. 
 
 "Again I ask, is that not the husband's busi- 
 ness? Why concern yourself with other peo- 
 ple's affairs, my Galahad in a dress-coat, my 
 squire of ladies' absent husbands?" 
 
 "What is your purpose? What can be your 
 pleasure in this degrading business?" Sandor 
 looked murderous. 
 
 243
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "I will prevent her," he said, more collectedly, 
 "and I will drive you from this house, which you 
 pollute." 
 
 "The husband's business again," sneered Dr. 
 Nicholas. "Listen, Sandor, know the truth. 
 We are rivals still. I, too, love her, and I will 
 win her, because you, poor, vacillating thing, 
 are of two minds. You dare not take her, but 
 you would frustrate him who dares. Your love 
 is but small jealousy a dog-in-the-manger feel- 
 ing, adorned with high-sounding sentiments." 
 
 Sandor sprang at him, his fingers curved like 
 claws. Dr. Nicholas quickly stepped back, and 
 said, 
 
 "I suppose you would reach for that revolver 
 once more, you murderous madman, but this 
 time it is I who have it." 
 
 The little door on the landing opened. The 
 two sprang apart, Sandor hastily composing his 
 features. 
 
 Jolan advanced to the head of the steps, 
 
 slowly, with dignity. She was wrapped from 
 
 head to foot in a long, white cloak, which her 
 
 beautiful hand clutched tightly around her. 
 
 244
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 The painter observed that she evaded Dr. Nich- 
 olas's look, and that she blushed as she ad- 
 dressed him. 
 
 "Sandor," she said tranquilly, "I have not 
 had a chance to speak to you all evening." 
 
 He continued to stare at her, incredulous, 
 bewildered, with ever growing fury. 
 
 "The ball is a great success," continued the 
 low, level voice above him, "and is not the house 
 beautiful?" 
 
 Sandor remained silent 
 
 "My young friend is a little out of sorts this 
 evening," said Dr. Nicholas, "not at all in the 
 proper festive mood." 
 
 "Happiness makes me silent," muttered San- 
 dor between his clenched teeth. "I am blessed 
 to-night with the love of a good girl, modest 
 and pure." 
 
 "Oh, Sandor, then it is true? I congratulate 
 you." 
 
 Jolan carefully grasped the cloak with her 
 left hand, and held out the right. 
 
 "I have already congratulated him," broke 
 in the Doctor. 
 
 245
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "It's disgusting how delighted everybody is 
 with me this evening," the painter burst out. 
 "I must be getting awfully common-place. I 
 can foresee the time when I shall be the popular 
 painter of rich women's portraits." 
 
 "What is the matter, Sandor? You announce 
 your engagement, we congratulate you, and you 
 answer with a sarcastic speech." 
 
 "He has said worse things to me, "complained 
 the Doctor. 
 
 "Why do you wear that cloak?" Sandor broke 
 out, unable to control himself any longer. 
 
 "Why should I not wear it? It is very hand- 
 some, and I may be cold." 
 
 "Take it off ! No, no, go back to your apart- 
 ments!" 
 
 His voice rose to a shriek. 
 
 Jolan looked at him in astonishment, then 
 turned to Dr. Nicholas, as if for enlightenment, 
 but he merely made a discreet motion with his 
 head. 
 
 "Go back! I say," shouted Sandor, now be- 
 yond all self-control. "I command you! Go 
 back!" 
 
 246
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "No one commands me but my husband," 
 said Jolan, with dignity, "and his commands 
 are always phrased as requests." 
 
 She turned from him, and confronted Dr. 
 Nicholas. 
 
 "Come, Doctor," she said, "give me your arm, 
 and take me in. My guests must miss me." 
 
 Sandor sprang up the stairs, and barred the 
 entrance to the ball-room. 
 
 "No one must leave this place," he whispered 
 hoarsely. "No one shall leave this place until 
 you have gone up to your room, and returned 
 in your ball dress." 
 
 The woman looked at him intently, ponder- 
 ingly for a moment. A suspicion, too confused 
 to take tangible shape, dawned in her mind. 
 What was there behind this strange stratagem 
 of that mysterious man? She made up her 
 mind. 
 
 "Sandor," she said with calm dignity, "will 
 you help me to remove my cloak?" 
 
 Sandor could not believe his ears. In the 
 state of excitement that he had reached, his 
 reasoning power was paralyzed. 
 247
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Never!" he whispered, still instinctively 
 keeping his voice down, there, so near the ball- 
 room. "Never! Oh, Jolan!" 
 
 The woman's mind was still groping for the 
 solution of the mystery. Again she turned to 
 the Doctor for some token, but he stood motion- 
 less, intently watching. 
 
 "Sandor," she said a second time, with infin- 
 ite patience, "will you help me to remove my 
 cloak?" 
 
 "I dare not. ... I cannot." 
 
 She turned to Dr. Nicholas. 
 
 "Dr. Nicholas, will you help me to remove 
 my cloak?" 
 
 But he, too, preserved a puzzled silence. 
 
 "Go back to your room, Jolan," implored 
 Sandor now, humbly. Then, with a new access 
 of fury, he burst into an insulting laugh. 
 
 "Monna Jolan!" he said. 
 
 At last she understood. The red crept slowly 
 up from her cheeks to her forehead, it suffused 
 her ears, it mantled the fine white neck. A 
 light of comprehension came into her eyes, to 
 give way to an angry flame. 
 
 248
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Monna Jolan," she repeated. She had seen 
 Maeterlinck's play. Everything was clear to 
 her. 
 
 "What did you say to him about this cloak?" 
 she asked sternly of Dr. Nicholas. 
 
 "I told him that you had gone to put it on." 
 
 "You told him more." 
 
 "A little. Remember, you promised to ask 
 no questions." 
 
 "There is no need of questions. I under- 
 stand. Shame upon you. And shame upon you, 
 Sandor, for suspecting me. It is ignoble, un- 
 speakably low and vile. It is your doing, Dr. 
 Nicholas. Now be satisfied, and go." 
 
 "You do not play fair. I proposed an experi- 
 ment to you, and you consented. It has suc- 
 ceeded. You have seen him in the full revela- 
 tion of his love, his jealousy. Now that you 
 know, now that all your uncertainty has been 
 set at rest, you would drive me from the house. 
 You ought to thank me instead." 
 
 "And Sandor believed him," Jolan said to 
 herself, half-aloud. "Sandor believed this of 
 me!"
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Then aloud, with infinite contempt, she added, 
 "And these are men!" 
 
 Laszlo Voross entered the conservatory 
 hastily. 
 
 "Ah! here you are, Jolan," he said briskly. 
 "I have been looking for you. Some of the 
 guests are leaving, and they wish to thank you 
 and to say good-night." 
 
 "Laszlo," his wife answered with unwonted 
 tenderness, "help me to remove my cloak." 
 
 She dropped the garment into his waiting 
 arms, and stood there in her ball-dress, the 
 jewels glittering on her corsage. One look she 
 cast upon the two men, then, taking Voross's 
 arm, she swept proudly from their presence. 
 
 250
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE DEVIL'S LETTER 
 
 LEFT alone with Dr. Nicholas, Sandor glared 
 at him, and asked threateningly, 
 
 "What does it mean, this trick? Ha! You 
 have played your game well. She despises me, 
 and you you have the field to yourself. But I 
 will foil you yet." 
 
 He advanced, murderous intention in his 
 gleaming eyes. 
 
 Without moving a step, Dr. Nicholas put his 
 hand in his hip pocket, pulled out the revolver, 
 and offered it to the painter, who took it 
 eagerly, yet amazed at so foolhardy an act. 
 
 "Be careful," said the other, mockingly, "it 
 is loaded. Right between the shoulder blades, 
 you know." 
 
 He squarely turned his back, and lounged 
 towards one of the chairs, taking out his cigar- 
 ette case as he did so. He stopped to light the 
 251
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 cigarette, still with his back towards Sandor, 
 then turned around again and sat down com- 
 posedly. 
 
 Sandor, who had raised the pistol, lowered it, 
 approached him slowly, and laid the revolver 
 before him. 
 
 "I do not shoot men in the back," he said, 
 "nor do I kill unarmed men. You are still my 
 guest, remember. I will see you to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 Vilma entered at this moment, in cloak and 
 hood, followed by her muffled chaperon. 
 
 "I am going, Sandor," she said; "will you 
 see us to our carriage? Good-night, Dr. Nich- 
 olas." 
 
 The Doctor rose, and made his most ceremo- 
 nious bow. 
 
 "Good night, Mademoiselle Toth. I have had 
 a most interesting chat with you." 
 
 Sandor mounted the steps, and followed the 
 two women. 
 
 Left alone, Dr. Nicholas picked up the re- 
 volver, put it back into his pocket, and remarked 
 to the tip of his cigarette, 
 
 252
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "If I had not given him that revolver to kill 
 me with, none knows what might have hap- 
 pened. He might have hit me with his fist, 
 someone might have seen us, a duel would have 
 followed my duels can have but one ending, 
 and I would have had my trouble for my pains. 
 It would have spoiled all my plans, such artistic 
 plans, too. Not in a long time have I been so 
 interested." 
 
 He smoked on, calmly, contentedly, waiting. 
 Jolan would return, of this he was sure, to find 
 whom him or the other man? It was the 
 same thing in the end. 
 
 She did not return to the conservatory at the 
 end of a little time. Her glance passed over 
 him, and sought Sandor, in the darkest corners 
 of the leafy, fronded masses. 
 
 "Where is he?" she asked anxiously. 
 
 "He is gone. He is mad mad with love, 
 mad with hatred, mad with trust in you, mad 
 with suspicion of you, mad with jealousy of 
 me. Now that you know, what are you going 
 to do? Are you going to let him pay the cost? 
 You have robbed him of his peace of mind, of 
 253
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 the slim chance of contentment he had in a life 
 without you he will never marry another now. 
 What are you going to do?" 
 
 "I know the course I have to take." 
 
 "You are never going to see him again, you 
 are going to dismiss him, to send him away 
 from you, despair in his heart. He will never 
 paint again, but what is that compared with 
 your stolid comfort?" 
 
 "You are unsettling me again. When I 
 entered my mind was made up. Why do you 
 talk like that?" 
 
 "Reflect well. The step you are about to take 
 will be irreparable." 
 
 "I want it to be irreparable. We both shall 
 suffer, Vilma will suffer, but it is the only way." 
 
 "You love him still?" 
 
 "Yes, I love him more than ever." 
 
 "Because he tried to kill me?" 
 
 "I love him for that, I love him because he 
 forbade me to carry out the disgraceful action 
 of which you had led him to suspect me." 
 
 "But he believed me." 
 
 Jolan stood silent. This man, with his devil- 
 264
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 ish ingenuity, played upon her emotions as 
 upon an instrument. She had been a toy in his 
 hands since that moment when he had made 
 his first bow to her, earlier in the day. He had 
 swept away the barriers of her reserve, the 
 results of six years' sternest schooling, he had 
 given her passion wings to aspire to the heights, 
 he had fanned the consuming flames of jealousy 
 and hatred in her breast. He had tricked 
 her, insinuated gross insults, suggested nay, 
 preached unspeakable things. She had bidden 
 him not to enter her house, she had told him to 
 leave it, and yet here she was listening to him, 
 under her husband's roof, swayed by his words, 
 and most strangely of all, still looking to him 
 for advice and guidance. 
 
 "But he believed me," said Dr. Nicholas once 
 more. 
 
 The feeling of outrage swept over her again. 
 The agony of that brief hour again stood out 
 in all its vividness. Sandor had made love to 
 another woman before her eyes, that other 
 woman had mocked her, defied her, had borne 
 him off in triumph, and then he had returned 
 255
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 to put upon her the indelible stigma of an 
 unworthy suspicion. Her feelings tossed her 
 hither and thither, from forgiveness to bitter- 
 est resentment, from love to hate, from renun- 
 ciation to the wildest assertion of her rights to 
 him. Would this never end? 
 
 She reeled. Then a great weariness came 
 over her. She had been walking rapidly up 
 and down; now she sank down on the chair 
 near Dr. Nicholas. 
 
 "You can never forgive him for this," he 
 whispered, "and you realize it. But you love 
 him still, and he loves you. Would it not be 
 kindest to end his suspense and yours? One 
 moment of decision, and all is over, beyond 
 recall. Make up your mind." 
 
 She looked at him, her vision blurred by 
 scalding tears. 
 
 "You are right," she said. "There is but 
 one way out." 
 
 She began to fumble nervously at the edge 
 of the table before her. It opened up, reveal- 
 ing a small writing-desk, fully equipped. 
 
 "This was to have been my morning seat," 
 256
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 she explained with a sad little smile. "Here I 
 would have attended to the affairs of my house- 
 hold. I shall never sit here now." 
 
 She took out an envelope, addressed it, then 
 held it out to him. 
 
 "You are going to write to Sandor? Yes, 
 that is the only way." 
 
 "Please do not talk to me, I must get this 
 over before my husband comes to look for me. 
 I told him that I had a headache . . . that 
 I wished to be alone for a while here, 
 where it is cool, but ... he never leaves me 
 alone for long. He, too, loves me, in his own 
 way. 
 
 "You will take this letter to Sandor for me, 
 will you not?" she continued softly, "and be 
 kind and patient with him. Do not quarrel 
 with him any more, for my sake. He needs 
 friendship now, the poor boy, and rest. I hope 
 that he will sleep; I feel as if I never shall 
 close my eyes again. Oh, if we had only parted 
 in friendship, after that beautiful moment of 
 this afternoon. Now his last thought of me 
 will be one of bitterness." 
 257
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "He will think often of you, Jolan, as you 
 will think of him, with regret, with longing." 
 
 She softly wiped her eyes, and stared before 
 her at the paper. 
 
 "You are weakening again," said Dr. Nich- 
 olas. "Steel your heart, and write." 
 
 "I cannot, oh, I cannot." 
 
 "Forget your love, and remember only the 
 insult he has offered you. Let your letter burn 
 with righteous indignation, let there be no pos- 
 sibility of misinterpretation." 
 
 "I cannot make you out, Dr. Nicholas. You 
 have done me more harm than can ever be 
 atoned for, yet now in the end, your advice is 
 sincere, and wise." 
 
 "I regret indeed . . ." 
 
 "I am not angry with you any more. What 
 matters all else that has happened ? This crisis 
 was bound to come sooner or later. You have 
 merely hastened its coming. 
 
 "By the time he gets this letter," she con- 
 tinued bravely, "I shall be my old self again. 
 But, oh, it is hard to write. How shall I 
 begin?" 
 
 258
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Will you permit me to render you one more 
 service ?" 
 
 "Which is?" 
 
 "As you have just said, I precipitated this 
 crisis, even though I did not cause it. You 
 have been taken unawares, unprepared. You 
 do not know what to say. I began this, let me 
 finish it. It's only right that I should dictate 
 this letter I who am cool and disinterested. 
 It shall be a scathing letter, conclusive and 
 dignified. I will be cruel where you would be 
 merciful and falter the great mistake against 
 which you must guard." 
 
 "You wish to do this?" 
 
 "Yes, I know exactly what to say. It must 
 be curt, pointed, final." 
 
 Jolan looked up at him. He looked sympa- 
 thetic. She took a decision. 
 
 "Very well," she said. "Dictate." 
 
 "I give you fair warning. It will be a crush- 
 ing letter." 
 
 She answered simply: 
 
 "I am ready." 
 
 "Then begin." 
 
 259
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 He stepped behind her, and leaned lightly 
 over the back of her chair, looking over her 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Monsieur : This letter will make it clear to 
 you that you shall never see me again. If it 
 fails in this, it is written in vain. My resolu- 
 tion is taken. Do not attempt to write to me, 
 do not try to see me, seek no interview with 
 me, make no inquiries. I shall see to it that 
 we never meet. I charge you upon your honor 
 not to make my task harder than it need be. I 
 must be as one dead to you " 
 
 "As one dead to you," whispered Jolan, the 
 tears gushing again into her eyes. 
 
 "Dead to you," repeated the voice at her ear. 
 
 "This evening I put you to the test, the 
 highest test of the respectful, honorable love 
 which I believed you had for me. I knew the 
 meaning of that test, Sandor, when I made it, I 
 felt so certain of you." 
 
 The pen stopped rushing over the paper. 
 
 260
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Jolan furtively wiped her eyes. Then she reso- 
 lutely took up a fresh sheet, and looked up side- 
 ways. 
 
 "I am ready," she repeated. 
 
 "And you," dictated Dr. Nicholas, "you out- 
 raged my trust, before another, you repaid me 
 with an insult that fills my heart with resent- 
 ment and grief. Only a few hours before you 
 had left me, after that one brief moment of in- 
 nocent surrender, with my command laid upon 
 you to forget me, to let things be as they had 
 been before, to preserve the glorious innocence 
 of a secret attachment which harmed none, and 
 which was as a fragrance of flowers in my inner 
 life. Oh, the peace that filled me, the pride I 
 felt in temptation overcome, in the wisdom that 
 had the strength to select the right road and 
 tread it. I was so sure of your chivalry, your 
 manhood, your championship of me, of the pur- 
 ity of the shrine which, I knew, you had created 
 for me in the innermost sanctum of your heart." 
 
 Jolan took up another sheet. She was writ- 
 ing mechanically now, her brain intent upon the 
 261
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 sound of the words whispered into her ear, and 
 not upon their meaning tracing it all back in- 
 to the past, remembering, reconstructing, and 
 idealizing the memory. 
 
 She came to herself, and her pen flew over 
 the paper, overtaking the words that for a mo- 
 ment had fallen upon an unhearing ear. 
 
 "You deceived me, Sandor, you have always 
 lied to me. It was not you whom I trusted 
 that protected us both against ourselves ; it was 
 I, in my weakness, my misplaced trust in you, 
 who was our tower of strength against tempta- 
 tion. You were but biding your time. Your 
 suspicion proved the value you set upon my 
 honor. This love of yours, ah, how blind wo- 
 men are when they love I see it now in all its 
 gross unworthiness. I have lost forever my 
 peace of mind and soul. I feel as if I shall never 
 sleep again. I suffer for myself and for you. 
 I could not give him love, but I gave him loy- 
 alty; I was a faithful wife, and now! I have 
 wronged him only in thought, but that is enough 
 to abase me in my own eyes forever. You know 
 how well I had planned it all for the best, for 
 262
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 the best of all of us, and then what happened ? 
 How did it happen, and why? 
 
 "I was carried away, suddenly, irresistibly 
 overmastered by emotions long controlled. I 
 saw you passing out of my life, and I was loath 
 to let you go without a sign, without a single 
 moment's union of our souls. We were entitled 
 to that, Sandor, in the face of the sacrifice we 
 were about to make." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas stopped. Jolan bent forward, 
 and buried her face in her hands. It had been 
 so sweet, so innocent, and now ! A tender long- 
 ing welled up in her heart. A wave of the love 
 that understands fully and forgives over- 
 whelmed her. 
 
 The man at her shoulder bent forward lower 
 still, and whispered softly, with infinite pity, 
 that engendered self-pity in her, the rest of the 
 letter : 
 
 "I did not know that I needed you so much. 
 
 I wondered if you needed me. I saw you with 
 
 Vilma, and my jealousy flamed up. I must 
 
 know the deepest profundities of your love for 
 
 263
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 me. And so I tested you, confident of the out- 
 come. I was not myself; love and the fear of 
 losing you ruled me. You outraged me, yet in 
 my heart I jubilated, 'He loves me! He loves 
 me!' And that is why I am sending you away 
 forever because we love each other beyond 
 words, with a power that would overwhelm us. 
 I love you, yes, I love you, Sandor! That is 
 why you must never see me again. That is the 
 price you must pay for this confession. I have 
 said too much, and yet so little! And now, my 
 king, my own, farewell! This is our first true 
 meeting, it is also our parting. I shall never 
 see you again." 
 
 The voice stopped. Jolan stared at the sheet 
 before her. 
 
 "Now sign," commanded Dr. Nicholas, and as 
 in a trance she obeyed. "Jolan," she wrote, and 
 nothing more. 
 
 The doctor snatched the letter from under 
 her trembling hand, folded the sheets, stuffed 
 them into the envelope, closed it, and put it into 
 his pocket. 
 
 "A dignified letter," he said, "gentle and yet 
 264
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 severe. He cannot mistake your meaning, he 
 will obey you, he will never try to see you again. 
 Poor boy! I shall be there to-morrow to give 
 him courage. I will advise him to move to 
 Vienna at once. Perhaps Vilma will make him 
 forget in time." 
 
 "You fiend!" burst out Jolan, tortured beyond 
 the power of endurance. "Does it give you 
 pleasure to stab me to the heart with your 
 words?" 
 
 "The physician often has to hurt in order 
 to cure. Only a child hates him for it." 
 
 "What have I written?" wailed Jolan. "You 
 told me, and I held the pen. Give me back that 
 letter ; you shall not give it to him." 
 
 "I will give it to him to-morrow, when I see 
 him. To-night I have to attend to important 
 business. But he shall have it before I leave 
 at four." 
 
 "Give it back to me! I do not wish him to 
 read it. I would rather give it to my husband 
 than to him." 
 
 "My conscience forbids me to undo the good 
 work you have begun. It would be weakness 
 265
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 in me, weakness in you, to let you destroy it. 
 Hush! Here is your husband." 
 
 As he turned away from her chair, and non- 
 chalantly went to meet Voross at the foot of 
 the stairs, Dr. Nicholas said softly to himself: 
 
 "Unless I am very much mistaken, she will 
 deliver the Postscript to him to-morrow in 
 person." ' 
 
 Aloud, he continued: 
 
 "What a colossal success, Monsieur Voross, 
 your wife's ball has been ! It will be the talk of 
 the capital for a week. A feast worthy of the 
 hosts, and of their superb mansion. 
 
 "Madame Voross is a little overcome," he 
 continued. "She came here, she told me, for a 
 moment's repose, and kept me for a little chat. 
 That is why I have stayed so unpardonably 
 late. But now I am off. Before I go, however, 
 let me apologize for dampening the spirits of 
 some of your guests in the library. Believe me, 
 I did it unwillingly, at the request of someons 
 whom I need not name. You understand? 
 They may have been momentarily disconcerted, 
 but they will know by now that a kindly inten- 
 266
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 tion, more potent than my own, was behind the 
 words I spoke to them. If they but heed them, 
 they will find their profit. As for the ladies 
 oh, yes, I suppose I have been rude to them, 
 too, you will find that I have put new ideas 
 into the heads of two of them ideas, I flatter 
 myself, that will send their pens flying over 
 the paper. The Countess well, she is a little 
 American radical, who dares not believe in the 
 permanence of class distinctions, but cherishes 
 her title none the less, and probably has coro- 
 nets on her lingerie wherever there is room for 
 them. Such inconsistencies are not rare, you 
 know. Lassalle, you will remember, while 
 preaching the socialistic state, pretended that 
 he was of noble birth, and clapped a de before 
 his name. Well, the Countess did not respect 
 my prejudices, which I have inherited and dare 
 not drop, and so I got even. But I made my 
 peace with her. A charming woman. 
 
 "And now I must make my adieus. Madame 
 Voross, I cannot thank you enough for a charm- 
 ing evening. It has been profitable as well as 
 pleasant. I feel that not a single moment of 
 267
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 my time has been wasted. I kiss your hand, 
 gracious lady, and wish you a good night." 
 
 He bowed low. 
 
 "One moment, Doctor," said Jolan. "Was 
 there not a paper here somewhere, which I 
 asked you to give . . ." 
 
 "To your husband. Oh, yes, let me see. . . . 
 An advertisement of an automobile was it not, 
 or a communication of some kind ? I remember 
 that it was not addressed to him. . . . One 
 moment, Monsieur Voross, I will find it." 
 
 He began to look on the disordered desk, 
 under it, under the chairs, then to search his 
 pockets. 
 
 "Never mind," said Jolan, pale with terror of 
 this unaccountable person, whose actions ap- 
 peared to be governed by no rules of conduct 
 known to her, who might carry out this infer- 
 nal, hidden threat without compunction, 
 "Never mind, it does not matter." 
 
 "Then once more, good night, and a good 
 night's rest. I shall carry away from Budapest 
 the pleasantest memories." 
 
 He mounted the stairs, and disappeared 
 268
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 through the door of the ball-room, Voross 
 accompanying him to the front door, enchanted 
 with the easy intimacy of this distinguished 
 stray guest. 
 
 Returning to the conservatory immediately 
 the door had been closed behind this last 
 departing guest by a butler assisted by two 
 footmen, Voross said exultingly to Jolan, sit- 
 ting there the picture of dejection: 
 
 "Isn't he charming? Such tact! Ah, blood 
 will tell say what one will. You heard his 
 explanation? He made it so that I may re- 
 assure the others to-morrow. Who knows, 
 Jolan, perhaps you will be some day soon the 
 Baroness Voross de Kis-Szallas. I knew what 
 I did when I bought that estate. Your husband 
 always looks ahead." 
 
 Jolan made an effort to present her custom- 
 ary appearance of placid, but genuine interest 
 in all his affairs, but failed for the first time 
 since her marriage. 
 
 "Ah, yes, the future," she replied. "Why 
 look beyond to-day?" 
 
 Her husband looked at her quickly. 
 269
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Poor girl," he said. An expression of infin- 
 ite tenderness came into his masterful eyes, and 
 relaxed the grim, inexorable mouth. 
 
 "Poor girl," he repeated, approaching her. 
 "You are all done up, and no wonder. It is the 
 woman who pays for a social success like this. 
 Well, you shall have your reward shall we 
 say that brougham lined with white leather 
 that you liked so much the other day? Or a 
 new tiara, or a ring? Take me with you to 
 select it, dear, if I can possibly find the time. 
 You know that you fare better when you take 
 me along than when you go alone. Ah, yes, the 
 prudent housewife of a man who is so rich that 
 you could not squander his money if you tried. 
 It is I who am the spendthrift where you are 
 concerned, my treasure." 
 
 He approached her fondly, sat down beside 
 her, and softly stroked her arm. 
 
 She snatched it away from him, a sudden 
 active dislike replacing her customary passive 
 submission to his endearments. 
 
 "Please leave me alone, Laszlo," she pleaded. 
 "Do not talk to me, do not stay here with me. 
 270
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 I am all unstrung, my nerves are on edge, I feel 
 as if I would scream aloud." 
 
 Voross looked seriously disturbed. 
 
 "Shall I tell them to telephone to the stables 
 to send a carriage for the doctor?" he asked. 
 
 "The Doctor? No! No! Yes!" 
 
 In her excited state, she could only think of 
 Dr. Nicholas. She recovered herself in a mo- 
 ment. Him she could not recall; not even her 
 husband with all his money could bring back 
 that letter to her. 
 
 "The doctor could do me no good," she said 
 wearily. "Just leave me alone. Leave me, 
 Laszlo, please do." 
 
 "But it is after four." 
 
 "I know, I know. I shall retire in a little 
 while. Just go. You need rest yourself. You 
 will be up again to-morrow early. Your affairs 
 never seem to stop for half a day." 
 
 "Well, then, I will leave you. But take care 
 that you do not catch cold. Ah, here is your 
 cloak. I will wrap it around you." 
 
 She stood up, and submitted to having the 
 hated garment wrapped tenderly around her by 
 271
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 his large, clumsy hands. Then she stiffened 
 herself under his good-night kiss. 
 
 Was this physical repugnance to be added to 
 her tortures, she wondered. Was ail peace on 
 this earth at an end for her? 
 
 The moment she was alone, she snatched the 
 cloak from her shoulders, as if it burned them, 
 and flung it from her. Then she sat down 
 again, to renewed thought, troubled, confused, 
 in a labyrinth of self-torture from which there 
 was no escape. 
 
 At last she roused herself, wearily mounted 
 the steps, and slowly dragged the finery of her 
 train through the palatial empty spaces of her 
 new home, a prison now to which she felt con- 
 demned for life. She let her maid undress her, 
 donned a mink-lined dressing-gown, and dis- 
 missed her for the night. There would be no 
 sleep for her, and so she approached the win- 
 dow to await before it the slow coming of the 
 late winter dawn. 
 
 She looked out. Her heart stopped beating. 
 
 For, on the wall of the house opposite her 
 own palace, she saw the shadow of Dr. Nich- 
 
 272
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 olas, enlarged a hundredfold, his eagle nose and 
 salient chin jutting out sharply in the silhou- 
 ette, his high hat with its flat brim set deep 
 upon his forehead, smoking his eternal cigar- 
 ette. 
 
 What was he doing there so late? Was he 
 watching the house? Was he expecting San- 
 dor? 
 
 273
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE DEVIL'S WISDOM AND WOMAN'S 
 
 IT was half past two of the afternoon follow- 
 ing the Voross ball. Dr. Nicholas, immaculate 
 as ever, clear of eye, alert of body and mind, 
 was seated in Sandor's den, desultorily reading 
 a Jokai novel. He was waiting. 
 
 He had come back to his host's home at six, 
 had smoked cigarettes and drunk brandy till 
 seven. Then, replenishing the fire with his own 
 aristocratic, capable hands, he had taken a 
 leisurely bath, had been shaved and groomed by 
 Andre, and had sent him out for the papers, 
 which he read over a cup of delicious Vienna 
 coffee, made for him by the valet, whose 
 admiration he had won. 
 
 "Here is a true viveur" the experienced serv- 
 ant in many bachelor homes had said to him- 
 self, "a real man of the world. He dances all 
 night, drinks his share of the champagne, no 
 
 274
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 doubt, finishes the night with a decanter of 
 brandy, goes without sleep, and in the morning, 
 instead of being grumpy, he is as pleasant and 
 polite as one can wish. Ah yes, blood will tell. 
 And the free way he has with his gold pieces! 
 That proves he is a prince. Only people who 
 have never had to work for their money fling 
 it around like that, without hesitation or 
 thought of its value." 
 
 Now the bell rang. Andre hastened through 
 the room, closed the door behind him, and was 
 heard to answer a whispered question. 
 
 The Doctor looked expectant. Andre re- 
 turned, holding the knob of the closed door 
 firmly behind him. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "There's a lady here who insists that she 
 must see Monsieur Tatray." 
 
 "What kind of a lady?" 
 
 "A real lady, sir." 
 
 "A real lady or a real real lady?" 
 
 Andre smiled deferentially. 
 
 "A real real lady, sir," he said. "I told her 
 that Monsieur Tatray had come home very late 
 275
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 from the ball, and is still sleeping. She an- 
 swered that she would wait." 
 
 "Do you know this lady?" 
 
 "She has never been here before, sir." 
 
 "Show her in." 
 
 Andre disappeared, and a moment later, 
 bowing deeply, with genuine respect, ushered 
 in Vilma Toth. He was an experienced 
 servant who had observed much in his long 
 career, and was master of infinite nuances of 
 deference. 
 
 "Ah," said Dr. Nicholas, rising, with his best 
 bow. "Good morning, Gnaediges Fraidien, I 
 kiss your hand." 
 
 She gave him her hand in a distracted sort 
 of way, looking about the room the while, tak- 
 ing in its every detail. Then she sat down, Dr. 
 Nicholas following her example. 
 
 "Good morning, Doctor. I did not expect to 
 see you here. Are you Sandor's secretary?" 
 
 "I am his friend, philosopher, and guide. I 
 came here on purpose to teach him the beauty 
 of the line of least resistance. It is mere acci- 
 dent that you find me still here. I depart to- 
 
 276
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 night, for I have reason to believe that my work 
 is accomplished." 
 
 "Tell me, Dr. Nicholas, who are you? Last 
 night at the ball everybody said that you were a 
 Royal Highness incognito." 
 
 "Ah, mademoiselle, I am a Somebody in dis- 
 guise. People never recognize me until after I 
 have gone, too late to thank me properly. I 
 play many parts, I am always busy there is 
 always work for idle hands to do. Never mind 
 the usual meaning of the proverb. As I use it, 
 it is very true. I am a diplomat and a man of 
 business, attending to my own affairs, which 
 are flourishing, thank you, owing to my own 
 exertions and the willing collaboration of many 
 men and women. I have enemies who has 
 not? Yet many who think themselves my 
 doughtiest opponents are in reality my allies. 
 I once dwelt for six weeks in the home of one 
 of the bitterest of them in an archiepiscopal 
 palace. When I departed, he thanked me for 
 having shown him his real duty, which hap- 
 pened to point in the direction of the realization 
 of his desires. 
 
 377
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "I am also a multimillionaire, whose con- 
 suming ambition it is to do good and die poor. 
 That's why I shall live many, many more years. 
 Charity is with me a passion, and it taxes my 
 ingenuity. It keeps me awake at night, so that 
 I often fall asleep in the daytime from sheer 
 exhaustion. That happened to me yesterday 
 afternoon, here in this very room, while I was 
 waiting for Sandor, and . . . but no matter. 
 I must not be indiscreet. To continue, I have 
 put up the price of coal, for the mere pleasure 
 of founding asylums for the freezing poor. I 
 have cut the wages of my employees that I 
 might have the philanthropist's pure joy of 
 opening soup kitchens. 
 
 "I am an author, too. 'Experimental Matri- 
 mony,' 'The Higher Moral Law,' 'Salvation 
 through Success,' 'The Protective Tariff as a 
 Means of Grace,' 'War and Desolation as the 
 Highest Good' I see you recognize the titles. 
 But I am nothing if not anonymous, and I am 
 able to preserve my anonymity because those 
 who know my real self are always the first to 
 hide their knowledge from the world. Yes, 
 
 278
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 those whom I benefit are loyal to me, indeed. 
 I have great faith in humanity. 
 
 "I see much of the world. I philosophize 
 much upon its tangled affairs. Therefore peo- 
 ple say that I really possess wisdom. I am the 
 original pragmatist. I am always ready to aid 
 and advise those who seek my assistance. You 
 did so last night. Have I failed you?" 
 
 "You gave me good advice, I admit, but it 
 failed." 
 
 "Perhaps you came too late to me ; your case 
 may have been beyond cure. I have known such 
 instances; they are very sad. A great man 
 once said to me in his old age, 'I look back with 
 horror upon a well-spent life.' ' 
 
 "Now you are talking nonsense again. Are 
 you engaged just now in writing a book of 
 paradoxes or maxims? Your conversation 
 sounds like it." 
 
 "The impudent, the unconventional Vilma 
 again !" 
 
 "Yes, the impudent, the unconventional Vilma 
 again. That's what I want to talk about to you. 
 I shan't add to your stock of paradoxes, either. 
 279
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 My talk will be straight from the shoulder." 
 "It seems that you are discontented with me. 
 I can only regret that you believe you have 
 cause to question the wisdom of my advice. 
 Pardon me a moment. Are you going to scold 
 me?" 
 
 "Most severely." 
 
 "Then stand up and tower over me, an image 
 of righteous indignation. Believe me, it gives a 
 woman a great advantage over a man to be 
 standing while he is sitting down. By-and-by, 
 when it is my turn to speak, I shall get up 
 excitedly. You remain standing. I may grow 
 angry, I may talk in a loud voice, threateningly. 
 You will contradict me. That will be a mis- 
 take. When I am in full career, shouting my 
 side of the question, my intolerable wrongs, you 
 must suddenly plump down in a chair, press 
 your lips tight, look at your hands in your lap, 
 and begin to fumble with your handkerchief. 
 You may say, 'Well !' in the indescribable voice 
 reserved by woman to express her contempt of 
 the irrational male, but no more. Then watch 
 a woman need not look to see then watch 
 
 280
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 me. I shall look at you, I shall become dis- 
 concerted, I shall begin to stammer. My elo- 
 quence will flicker out like a guttering candle. 
 I hope there will be no cause for you to follow 
 this advice in the present instance. I merely 
 give it to you because you will find it of ines- 
 timable service in the management of men, 
 especially of husbands." 
 
 "Thank you very much," said Vilma with 
 suspicious gravity, "but the fact is, I knew all 
 that when I was ten years old. I used such 
 measures with our excitable French teacher at 
 school." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas looked just the least bit foolish. 
 
 "To return to our subject," he said hastily, 
 "what is your grievance against me?'* 
 
 "Last night you advised me to change my 
 tactics with Sandor, to be reserved where I had 
 been frank, demure where I had been daring, 
 modest where I had been unconventional. 
 Well, I had my victory till we reentered the 
 ball-room. The moment our dance was over, he 
 dropped me in a seat and hurried back to the 
 conservatory. I saw him, conceal his move- 
 281
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 merits though he might. I was busy flirting 
 with the Count, just to exasperate his wife. 
 She thinks that she can flirt with everybody, 
 but that nobody must flirt with him. A woman 
 has many things to attend to at a ball ; it is not 
 all dancing and thoughtless amusement." 
 
 "I am glad to see that you do not take the 
 marriage plans made for you with undue seri- 
 ousness." 
 
 "You think that you are a wise man! You 
 flatter yourself that you know women ! Oh, my 
 heart was breaking last night when I appeared 
 most recklessly gay." 
 
 "Then you ... ?" 
 
 "I have resolved to return to my old tactics. 
 Yours have failed. I am the old Vilma again, 
 you understand. Impudent, unconventional, 
 emancipated. I will fight that woman with her 
 own tactics. That's why I am here." 
 
 "I see." 
 
 "I have never been here before, you know," 
 continued Vilma. 
 
 "So Andre told me. He treated you with the 
 respect due to what he called a 'real real lady/ ' 
 282
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "He treated me with prudent reserve. He 
 did not know what to make of me. He resolved 
 to stay on the fence, so as to be safe. It was 
 very amusing." 
 
 "It was very daring of you to come here at 
 all. Poor Andre! A lady who is a real lady, 
 who announces that she is not married, and 
 who yet arrives without maid or chaperon 
 what was he to make of that?" 
 
 "I came here without a chaperon because she 
 will come without a maid. I shall place myself 
 upon even terms with her." 
 
 "But she will come often. You know, Sandor 
 is going to paint her portrait." 
 
 "I want Sandor to paint mine, and so I shall 
 come every day." 
 
 "You mean that you want to come here every 
 day, and so you are going to have Sandor paint 
 your portrait?" 
 
 "You are impudent. I once boxed the ears 
 of a man who kissed me." 
 
 "I once kissed a lady who boxed my ears." 
 
 "You are just like a dancing master," said 
 Vilma, lifting her little nose disdainfully. 
 283
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 " 'Forward backward.' I hope it amuses you. 
 I am serious. I'll be here every day, alone with 
 him. I'll make him look at me, I'll make him 
 see me, I'll talk to him, I'll make love to him, 
 and I shall win." 
 
 "You will lose. Last night I had high hopes 
 of being able to help you. I had the utmost 
 confidence in the advice I gave you, but now. 
 . . . Well, I confess that I am defeated. I shall 
 depart in an hour or so a much disappointed 
 man." 
 
 "You really believe that ?" Vilma looked dis- 
 couraged. 
 
 Dr. Nicholas reached into his pocket, and 
 produced the vanity case. 
 
 "You need not fear," said the girl scornfully. 
 "I am not going to cry " 
 
 "I am not afraid of women who cry. It is 
 the perfectly happy women I am afraid of. 
 They do not want me around." 
 
 "Well, I shall win." 
 
 "My dear young lady, believe me, you will 
 lose. I have acknowledged my defeat. I can 
 do nothing more. Events must take their 
 
 284
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 course. My advice to you now, which you will 
 not take, of course, is to go away and never 
 come back. Sandor loves that other woman 
 wait a moment he loves her within the bounds 
 of the most scrupulous esteem." 
 
 "I know those bounds of scrupulous esteem. 
 It is the esteem with which I shall inspire him 
 that will bring me victory." 
 
 "Your coming here will make him suspect 
 that you come to catch a husband." 
 
 "It is true. I love the truth." 
 
 "A weakness of the young, that is. What 
 would become of social life without lies? Men 
 and women are so much alike that existence 
 would become a bore if they all fell to telling 
 each other the same truth, day after day." 
 
 "Now you are manufacturing more epigrams. 
 This is very serious to me, Doctor Nicholas. I 
 have made up my mind." 
 
 Vilma got up impatiently, and began to move 
 about the room, Inspecting its ornaments and 
 knicknacks, recognizing their value, straighten- 
 ing a vase here, a little bronze there, paying 
 attention to the details before judging the effect 
 285
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 of the whole, as is a woman's way. She nodded 
 her head approvingly, and said : 
 
 "A very nice room, just what an artist's 
 apartment should be. Beautiful things, and 
 good taste in the arrangement." 
 
 She wandered farther away, Dr. Nicholas 
 standing beside the fire, in his favorite attitude, 
 caressing his chin, and watching her closely. 
 The portrait of Fanny on its easel attracted 
 her attention, and she stood contemplating 
 it for a little while, her head a little on one 
 side. 
 
 "Good brush work," she commented briefly. 
 "I have seen that face before." 
 
 "It is a capital picture," answered Dr. Nich- 
 olas, craftily. 
 
 "Now, where have I seen that face before?" 
 
 "I believe it has been reproduced in the illus- 
 trated papers." 
 
 The girl turned upon him. and stamped her 
 foot. 
 
 "Who is she?" she asked imperiously. 
 
 "Oh, I did not catch the drift of your ques- 
 tion." 
 
 286
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "My questions do not drift, they go right to 
 the point." 
 
 "Well, then, that is the famous Fanny." 
 
 "Fanny the model! I might have known." 
 
 She studied the painting intently, then said 
 slowly : 
 
 "So there are three of us. I had forgotten 
 that." 
 
 "Poor Fanny," said Dr. Nicholas. "Oh, yes, 
 she, too, loves him. She has been waiting in 
 that room over there since early this morning 
 to see him. All she can do is to count his hand- 
 kerchiefs and mend his socks. She is not intel- 
 lectual, you know, not educated. That is her 
 way of showing her love, of serving him. The 
 only way she knows. She gives all she has to 
 give gladly, without reserve, and without 
 hope. It is touching." 
 
 "Fanny is a bad woman." 
 
 "Indeed, she is not. She is merely a 
 thoughtless one, but she is good. You 
 say you will win; I advise you to renounce. 
 And Fanny is a good example of resignation. 
 You should see her. It can do you no harm, 
 287
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 you are so far above her; it may do you 
 good." 
 
 "I will see her." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas softly stepped across the room, 
 opened the door into the inner apartment, and 
 said: 
 
 "Good morning, Fanny. There is someone 
 here who wishes to talk to you." 
 
 Fanny entered, pale, haggard, with swollen 
 eyes, humbly, deprecatingly. One eager look 
 around showed her that it was not Sandor who 
 wished to see her. Dr. Nicholas, humming 
 softly Dalla sua pace to himself, slipped behind 
 her through the door he had just opened, and 
 closed it behind him, leaving the two women 
 alone. 
 
 The model advanced, and dropped a little 
 curtsey. Vilma looked at her. She was very 
 handsome, very dark, very plump, restless in 
 her movements, but graceful withal. And 
 yes, Dr. Nicholas was right, she was a good 
 girl. Her face showed that. 
 
 "You wish to see me, Madame?" asked Fanny 
 curiously. 
 
 288
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Yes. You are Fanny, are you not?" 
 
 "I am Fanny the model. Are you waiting to 
 see Monsieur Sandor, too?" 
 
 Vilma ignored the question. 
 
 "Why do you call me Madame?" 
 
 "I see you are here alone, unchaperoned. 
 You are not a model, everybody can see that, so 
 I thought you were a married lady." 
 
 She added, with the unembarrassed inquisi- 
 tiveness of her class: 
 
 "Are you going to have your portrait 
 painted?" 
 
 "Perhaps. My name is Vilma Toth." 
 
 "Oh! I have heard of you. You are very 
 rich, are you not? And you are going to marry 
 Sandor." 
 
 The tears rolled down Fanny's cheeks. She 
 let them fall without attempt to hide them. She 
 had no false notions of dignity. 
 
 "He has sent me away," she sobbed, "now 
 that he is going to marry you." 
 
 Vilma's proud spirit revolted. No, she would 
 not marry him, she would not stoop to this laby- 
 rinth of rivalry three women competing for a 
 289
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 man! She blushed as the situation suddenly 
 revealed itself to her. Why had she come? 
 Had Dr. Nicholas's advice to her of the night 
 before been right, after all? Had he foreseen 
 her renunciation the moment she had come, full 
 of her plan, confident of its success? 
 
 She saw the vanity case which the Doctor had 
 placed upon the table a moment ago ; she took it 
 with a whimsical smile, and seated herself. 
 
 "Sit down, Fanny," she said. 
 
 She opened the dainty case, admiring it the 
 while, took out the handkerchief, another one, 
 neatly pressed and folded wonderful man, 
 that Dr. Nicholas! she reflected, and gravely 
 handed it to Fanny, who dabbed her eyes with 
 it convulsively. 
 
 "I want to talk to you, Mademoiselle Fanny," 
 she announced. 
 
 "What do you wish to know?" Fanny's 
 blunt directness was disconcerting. How did 
 people get along with each other in her circle, 
 Vilma wondered. The model continued, with- 
 out stopping to take breath: 
 
 "I'll tell you everything about myself. I'm 
 290
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 not ashamed, I've no reason to be. I earn my 
 bread by hard, honest work. I am an artist, 
 too, you know. First I sang in the chorus, then 
 I did a turn in a Tingeltangel a music-hall, 
 you know. Oh, nothing great. I was not a 
 star. There I got acquainted with a dry-goods 
 clerk, who told me he was a member of the 
 firm. He was a snappy dresser, and I thought 
 he was the real thing. I had no experience 
 then, you see. Now I know better. I was 
 always falling in love in those days. It's my 
 artistic temperament. I know that it is, for a 
 gentleman friend told me so. He owned a 
 boiler factory. Then Sandor saw me, and said 
 I must pose for him. That's the picture over 
 there. They called it 'A Daughter of the Pusta.' 
 It's for sale in all the picture shops, in beauti- 
 ful frames, with red, white, and green ribbons 
 at the top. Sandor says it's a shame that they 
 treat it like a chromo, but I don't see it. I'm 
 very proud of it." 
 
 Vilma sat silent under this torrent of revela- 
 tion of a side of life that had been carefully 
 kept from her. 
 
 291
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "That was three years ago," continued 
 Fanny. "The picture made Sandor famous. 
 Andre thinks it's his ugly face that did it, 
 but I know better. He's jealous of me, that's 
 what's the matter with him. Well, Sandor was 
 very good to me, he let me take care of his 
 things. Men are so helpless without a woman 
 to look after them." 
 
 "Is that part of a model's duties?" asked 
 Vilma, from the depth of her amazement. 
 
 "If she's an artist's real model, she looks 
 after his collars and cuffs and handkerchiefs 
 and things. Andre was always trying to tell 
 me to butt out, but he was afraid to say too 
 much. He knew better. Sandor was always 
 praising me, and always painting me, whenever 
 he had no sitters that paid. I was so h h 
 happy, and then . . . four weeks ago ... he 
 began . . . painting landscapes. ... I knew 
 what that meant. Oh! Oh!" 
 
 Vilma hastily handed her the powder puff, 
 the little mirror, and then tumbled the case into 
 her lap. 
 
 "Isn't that a beautiful thing?" she asked. 
 292
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Fanny forgot her grief, and fell to admiring 
 the jewel-studded bauble with sparkling eyes. 
 "It's nice to be rich," she sighed. 
 Vflma rejoiced to see that her stratagem 
 had averted a storm, wondering the while 
 at the primitive simplicity of this strange 
 woman's emotional processes. Aloud she 
 said: 
 
 "Yes, it is very beautiful, but it isn't mine, 
 you know. It belongs to Dr. Nicholas." 
 
 "The gentleman who was here? I know him. 
 Isn't he grand? He was very kind to me, and 
 made me feel better." 
 "Did he?" 
 
 "Yes, he gave me tea with a little rum. and 
 some sandwiches. Have you never noticed 
 what a difference it makes when you're sad, 
 and you eat a hearty meal? I once went to a 
 funeral, and it was very sad. The cemetery 
 was a long way off, and we grew sadder and 
 sadder a sinking feeling, you know. Well, 
 when we got back to the house, late in the after- 
 noon, everybody was miserable. Then we had 
 a good meal govlash and pancakes, and wine, 
 293
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 and coffee. When it was over we all felt quite 
 cheerful again. We'd quite forgotten the 
 dear departed. It's very strange," mused 
 Fanny in conclusion, holding up the vanity 
 case in her well-made, muscular hand, and mak- 
 ing the jewels sparkle. 
 
 Vilma mused a little. Might this be her rem- 
 edy, too? Her instinctive aloofness thawed a 
 little, she was now strangely interested in this 
 unknown type. 
 
 "Was that all Dr. Nicholas did for you ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 Fanny looked angry, then subsided. 
 
 "Of course it wasn't," she explained pains- 
 takingly, in the face of such rudeness. "What 
 do you take me for? He spoke beautifully to 
 me. He told me that I would forget Sandor in 
 six weeks, and that I would be very happy with 
 a young poet. He is going to put me into a 
 book of poems, just as Sandor put me into his 
 picture. He knows everything, the Doctor 
 does. Is he a doctor? Is he married? I went 
 out to dinner with him last night the poet, I 
 mean. I like him very much already. We had 
 294
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 a real good time together. And Sandor cam 
 to see me later, and it was very sad." 
 
 Vilma choked. What, last night! And then 
 he had come to the ball, to her. . . . The indig- 
 nity of it ! She felt as if she never could face 
 Sandor again. 
 
 "And so," Fanny continued, "I have given 
 him up. I came here to-day to tell him that it 
 was all over, that he must not worry over me." 
 "You can give him up like that?" 
 "What can I do? When a man quits loving a 
 woman she might as well give up. We must be 
 fair. I've been fickle, and thrown men over 
 who loved me. Now it's my turn. That's life. 
 Don't you know it?" 
 
 Vilma thought of her two reckless flirtations, 
 of her many little games of make-believe that 
 had net always been so harmless in their effect 
 as she could have wished, and kept silent. 
 Fanny closed the vanity box with a snap. 
 "You great ladies," she summed up judicious- 
 ly, "think that love must last as long as we 
 women would like to have it. Love is like a 
 railway, and you only know two points along 
 295
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 the line. Once you get on board, you want to 
 travel by express, without stop until the end is 
 reached. But with us women of artistic tem- 
 perament it's different. We are the small sta- 
 tions by the way: the train stops a moment, 
 then it's off again. Occasionally it's an eating 
 station, and the train stops a little longer. But 
 not so very long. We never get to be the big 
 stations where the train stops for good. I 
 should say it would be tiresome, after a while. 
 It's nice to change from time to time." 
 
 "Then why are you here?" 
 
 "Because I'm a fool. I made up my mind 
 last night, I changed it this morning, I've 
 made it up again. I'll not see him. I'll not wait 
 for him. 
 
 "It has been such a consolation to talk it all 
 over with you, Mademoiselle," she continued, 
 rising, buttoning her jacket, and straightening 
 her coquettish little toque in the Venetian mir- 
 ror. "You've given me such good advice, just 
 like the Doctor, in there." 
 
 "I have not said a word." 
 
 "No? Well, anyhow, you've helped me to 
 296
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 think it all out. I talked it over with the poet, 
 too. He said it was my duty, since you are 
 going to marry ..." 
 
 "You dared to talk about me?" 
 
 "Everybody knows you are going to marry 
 Sandor. They say it's a great match for him." 
 
 "Everybody is mistaken." 
 
 Vilma was on the verge of hysterics. Humili- 
 ation was piled on humiliation. What! She 
 had waded so deep into the mire to win this 
 man unconscious of it all. 
 
 "You had better go now," she said haughtily. 
 
 Fanny, busy with her glove, did not notice 
 the tone of her voice. She was not observant. 
 
 "You have done so much for me," she said 
 serenely unconscious, "and we are such very 
 good friends now, that I will do something for 
 you in return. 
 
 "Don't marry him," she continued impres- 
 sively. "He don't love you. With all your 
 money you'd never be happy with him. It's 
 wiser to marry the man who loves you than 
 to marry the man you love. I know. My 
 mother told me that, long ago. I'm not jealous 
 297
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 of you, I'm jealous of that other woman, 
 Madame . . ." 
 
 "Don't mention her name," cried Vilma, ap- 
 palled. 
 
 "So then you know about her. I'm jealous 
 of her, and so are you. You think you can take 
 him away from her, but you can't. Give him 
 up, just like me. He's not worth it. No man 
 is. Go away, travel; you're rich. I must stay 
 here, and fight it out. You can run away, and 
 that's far easier." 
 
 Vilma had grown deadly pale. 
 
 "Are you going?" she asked. "No, I am not 
 angry with you. You have rendered me a serv- 
 ice but go, go at once." 
 
 Fanny dropped her curtsey, and left the 
 room. 
 
 Vilma Toth slowly drew on her gloves. She 
 looked around her, hesitated a moment when 
 her eye fell on the door through which the Doc- 
 tor had disappeared, as if she would call him to 
 say good-by to him, perhaps to tell him that 
 he had been right after all, changed her mind, 
 moved slowly to the entrance, and softly closed 
 
 298
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 the door upon all the hopes of happiness which 
 she had lost. 
 
 No sooner was she gone, than Dr. Nicholas 
 rose from the depths of the Gothic chair. 
 
 "Desperate cases require desperate reme- 
 dies," he chuckled to himself. "She was dan- 
 gerous, she might really have defeated me in 
 the end. Now that the field is cleared, it is time 
 for the last act. What a blunderer you are, Dr. 
 Nicholas; and you know nothing of women." 
 
 299
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE DEVIL'S VICTORY 
 
 THE bell rang. Andre came hurrying 
 through the room, disappeared in the hall, and 
 returned after a moment. 
 
 "I have heard that bell tingling constantly 
 this morning, Andre/' said Dr. Nicholas. "I 
 hope it has not disturbed Monsieur Tatray. 
 Who is the insistent caller?" 
 
 "It is Madame Voross's maid, sir. She came 
 first at ten o'clock, and I told her that Monsieur 
 Tatray had come home late from the ball, and 
 had left orders not to be called before half-past 
 two. Since then she has returned four times." 
 
 "Is Monsieur Tatray awake?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, he is dressing. It is nearly three 
 o'clock now." 
 
 "Have you packed my bag?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Very well, Andre. Will you make me some 
 300
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 tea, and bring it to Monsieur Tatray's bed- 
 room? I will come to see him in a moment. 
 I am going into the studio to smoke a cigarette, 
 and take a last look at this beautiful city." 
 
 Dr. Nicholas lighted a cigarette, took a few 
 slow, grateful puffs, then went into the studio, 
 leaving a thin thread of bluish gray in his wake. 
 
 As he closed the glass door behind him, the 
 bell rang again. He hastened away to the other 
 end of the studio, sat down in one of the large 
 Venetian chairs there, and looked with enjoy- 
 ment upon the snow-covered city, the ice-clad 
 Donau, and the monumental bridge linking 
 Buda to Pesth. 
 
 Andre, meanwhile, had once more hurried, 
 grumbling, to the outer door, and opened it. 
 This time it was not the maid, but her mistress. 
 
 Jolan entered unhesitatingly, and walked 
 straight into the den, the servant following her. 
 
 "Your master is at home?" she asked curtly. 
 
 "Yes, Madame." 
 
 "Has he seen anyone this morning?" 
 
 "No, Madame." 
 
 301
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Has a letter been delivered for him?" 
 
 "No, Madame." 
 
 Jolan gave a sigh of relief. Then she con- 
 tinued : 
 
 "My maid brought word that he would be up 
 by three o'clock. It is three now. Tell him that 
 I wish to see him." 
 
 "He is dressing now, Madame." 
 
 "Has he been asleep ever since he came home 
 from the ball?" 
 
 "Yes, Madame." 
 
 "Did he come home alone?" 
 
 "Yes, Madame." 
 
 "Not with Doctor Nicholas?" 
 
 "No, Madame. Dr. Nicholas came home 
 much later. He did not go to bed at all." 
 
 "Is Doctor Nicholas here?" Jolan felt a 
 sinking of the heart. 
 
 "Yes, Madame. He is in the studio now." 
 
 "Has he given you no letter to deliver to 
 Monsieur Tatray?" 
 
 "No, Madame. He said just now that he was 
 going to visit Monsieur in his bedroom." 
 302
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Tell him that I wish to see him at once at 
 once, do you hear? Before he sees Monsieur 
 Tatray. Don't tell him who it is that wishes 
 to see him." 
 
 "Very well, Madame." 
 
 Andre hurried into the studio. Dr. Nicholas 
 emerged from it a moment later. He gave a 
 start of surprise and said : 
 
 "What! You are the mysterious lady who 
 must speak to me at once, right now ?" 
 
 Jolan did not notice that he took her hand 
 and kissed it ceremoniously. Anxiety tore at 
 her heart. 
 
 "Always your servant," murmured the Doc- 
 tor. 
 
 "Tell me at once look me in the eyes tell 
 me truth. That letter? Did you deliver it?" 
 
 "I gave it to Sandor a moment ago, as soon 
 as I could see him." 
 Jolan groaned. 
 
 "Did he read it?" She gasped out the words, 
 her throat contracted, her brain reeling, her 
 
 knees trembling with misery. 
 303
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "He read it." 
 
 "And and what did he say?" 
 
 "He said nothing. He read it, then he read 
 it again. He looked at me, but did not see me, 
 he gazed at something far, far away. He saw 
 it come nearer, nearer, he stretched out his 
 arms, laughing with triumphant joy. Then he 
 dropped them, empty, at his sides. After a 
 while he spoke. 'Do you know what is in this 
 letter?' he asked me. I said No, of course. I 
 told him that I had merely been requested to 
 hand it to him. 'Something about the portrait, 
 no doubt?' I added. Oh, you are safe with me. 
 I have been very discreet." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "He cast himself down upon the bed, buried 
 his face in the pillows, and sobbed. I withdrew 
 softly. I knew that he would not wish me to 
 witness his emotion." 
 
 "He sobbed," murmured Jolan pitifully to 
 herself. 
 
 "Yes, he sobbed, but it was not all despair. 
 There was the ecstasy of joy in it, as well as 
 304
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 the hopeless grief of irretrievable loss. It was 
 a good letter, merciful, generous, yet firm, un- 
 mistakable in its finality." 
 
 "I came here to ask you not to deliver that 
 letter to him. I have come too late too late. 
 
 "Is this life of ours so ordered?" she con- 
 tinued wistfully to herself. "Happiness un- 
 happiness, do these things depend upon our 
 coming five minutes before or five minutes after 
 three o'clock?" 
 
 "It is even so. One minute between ecstasy 
 and despair, between gain and loss, between life 
 and death, between eternity and annihilation." 
 
 "Too late!" Jolan repeated. "I did not sleep 
 all night. I felt that I must wake, that I must 
 watch, lest you would give him the letter while 
 I slept. I believed that you would feel the influ- 
 ence of my will, my wish, my hope ! Oh ! You 
 knew that I did not intend him to have it, to 
 read it! I asked you to return it to me last 
 night, and you you pretended to misunder- 
 stand me, you threatened to give it to my hus- 
 band! What is it you wish of me? It is always 
 305
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 you, you, since you have come into my life 
 always you who lure and forbid, who tempt and 
 withhold, who order and direct; and I I do 
 your bidding, with no will of my own, no 
 choice !" 
 
 "Madame Voross, I have acted as I consid- 
 ered best. I stumbled into this without desire 
 of my own ; I saw the situation, I acted for you, 
 for him." 
 
 "Yesterday you tempted us, you showed us 
 the road to our earthly paradise. To-day you 
 bar us from it." 
 
 "Yesterday I thought that I had found two 
 strong souls, daring to stand up before the 
 world and defy it two passions great enough, 
 high enough, deep enough to risk all. I, too, 
 saw your earthly paradise, I led you to its gates, 
 I opened your eyes that you might see and 
 know. I saw his highest inspiration in your 
 eyes, its supreme fulfilment blazing in his. I 
 thought I had found two master minds, and 
 endeavored to lead them. 
 
 "Then came the reaction. Honor, respect. 
 306
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 . . . Faugh ! All the rigamarole of small souls 
 that dare not rely upon themselves, that live 
 only on the consent, the approbation of the 
 weak-minded mob two timid, weakly loves 
 that put self above happiness, and hid their 
 fear and their small egoism behind empty- 
 sounding phrases. I tempted and withheld, you 
 say? You both did that yourselves. 
 
 "And so I resolved to undo what I had begun. 
 That is the secret of the letter which I dictated 
 to you. It contains the whole story of your 
 small passion, its puny strength, and the meas- 
 ure of its weakness, its cowardice. You con- 
 fessed in it, and in the same breath denied; 
 you proffered and withheld, you tempted and 
 repulsed. And as I put all of you into that 
 letter, so did I put into it all of him. He would 
 take his own, yet dares not. Thus shall you 
 pass your lives, desiring yet fearing, unhappy, 
 but respected. Oh, yes, respected ! That will 
 be your consolation yours and his. That man 
 in there, sobbing softly, is the symbol of both 
 your incomplete existences apart." 
 307
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Sandor entered. Dr. Nicholas moved away. 
 
 "Stay, stay!" implored Jolan. "What shall 
 I do?" 
 
 "You have chosen, abide by your decision. 
 You are too puny, both of you, to soar to the 
 heights. You are the honest wife, he is the 
 platonic admirer. That is your measure." 
 
 He moved away into the studio. Sandor did 
 not look at him; his eyes were riveted on 
 Jolan. 
 
 "You have come," he stammered, "after what 
 happened last night. Oh, Jolan, I should 
 kneel at your feet, and ask your pardon you, 
 whom I honor above all other women." 
 
 "Do not reproach yourself, Sandor," she an- 
 swered with infinite tenderness. "It was I who 
 made you do it. I was weary of sorrow, of 
 uncertainty. I must know. I was mad with 
 jealousy. I must know that you loved me as I 
 had dreamt you did all these years, not with the 
 pale respect of our pretense, but with the over- 
 powering passion of a strong man. I exulted 
 when your jealousy flamed up, I gloried in that 
 
 308
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 terrible suspicion, because it told me all, all 
 that I wished to know." 
 
 "Jolan! Jolan!" Sandor grasped her hand 
 and covered it with kisses, his eyes shining 
 with a happiness far beyond words. 
 
 "So much has happened to us during the last 
 twenty-four hours, Sandor. There are years, 
 centuries, in which nothing happens, and there 
 are days, like yesterday, into which a whole life- 
 time is compressed. Ah, dearest, my king, at 
 last we know." 
 
 Sandor attempted to draw her to him, but 
 she loosened her hand from his grasp, and con- 
 tinued falteringly: 
 
 "It was bound to come, Sandor; even though 
 we lose each other forever, we have loved, we 
 have confessed, we have gazed into each other's 
 eyes. I caused the flame to leap into life in 
 yours, I saw it, it warmed my heart, so cold, so 
 desolate, so lonely all these years without you! 
 And now, my own, we must pay ... we must 
 part. . . ." 
 
 She faltered, hiding her face with both her 
 309
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 hands. From behind them she continued brok- 
 enly: 
 
 "It must be ... we must . . . honor . . . 
 duty. . . ." 
 
 Suddenly she cried out: 
 
 "No! No! I cannot give you up! Sandor, 
 Sandor, I love you !" 
 
 Half fainting, she sank into his arms, lifting 
 her distorted face to his. She clasped his head 
 in both her hands, drew it down to her. . . . 
 Their lips met at last. Thus they remained a 
 long, sweet moment, motionless, silent. 
 
 Jolan suddenly remembered. 
 
 "Dr. Nicholas," she whispered. "There, in 
 the studio." 
 
 They drew apart, smiling at each other, their 
 hands parting reluctantly. 
 
 "Dear, what did you think when you received 
 my letter? Had you an idea of what it con- 
 tained? I tried to intercept it. That is why I 
 came." 
 
 "Your letter? What letter?" asked Sandor, 
 puzzled. 
 
 310
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "The letter I wrote last night." 
 
 "I know nothing of it, Jolan. I did not re- 
 ceive it. What does it matter?" 
 
 "You need not pretend that you have not 
 received it," she cooed, fondly touching his arm. 
 "My generous lover! I am no longer ashamed 
 of it, I no longer regret it, since it has brought 
 us together. Oh, how I suffered after I had 
 written it, how I wished that I could recall it! 
 But now . . . Let us read it together." 
 
 "I swear to you, Jolan, that I know nothing of 
 this letter. I never read it, I never saw it. . . ." 
 
 "You say it was not delivered to you? I gave 
 it to Doctor Nicholas last night, and he told me 
 just now . . ." 
 
 "That man! Always that man!" exclaimed 
 Sandor furiously. "Who is he? What is he? 
 He appears in everything, with his well-bred 
 impertinence and his smiling air. Oh, but he 
 shall leave my house at once!" 
 
 Jolan had stepped to the studio door and 
 opened it. Dr. Nicholas discreetly entered the 
 room. She held out her hand to him. 
 311
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "My letter," she said briefly. 
 
 She glanced at him sharply, searchingly. 
 His face wore a look of serene innocence. 
 
 "I must humbly beg your pardon," he said 
 smoothly. "I forgot all about it ... I did 
 not remember where I had put it, and told you 
 a fib when you asked me about it. I did not 
 wish you to believe that I had been negligent in 
 carrying out your command. Just now I found 
 it in my dress-coat. Here it is." 
 
 Jolan was still studying his face, trying to 
 read his thought, his intention. Sandor, struck 
 by the intensity of her attitude, restrained his 
 rising temper, and watched. 
 
 Dr. Nicholas advanced into the room, and 
 continued : 
 
 "Happily there are letters which there is no 
 necessity of delivering. This, I believe, is one 
 of them. You wrote it, you did not wish San- 
 dor to see it. I knew both these things . . . 
 yet I succeeded in making it serve its purpose." 
 
 Jolan gazed at him intently, wonderingly, 
 with suspicion, yet with unwilling admiration. 
 
 312
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "Now I see," she said slowly, ponderingly. 
 
 "I wonder if you do ... even now," said Dr. 
 Nicholas enigmatically. He smiled a little to 
 himself. 
 
 "But, since the letter has been found," he 
 concluded, "I will fulfill my commission." 
 
 He took the well-filled envelope out of his 
 breast pocket, and handed it to Sandor. 
 
 "No!" cried Jolan, "Do not open it, do not 
 read it! Tear it up! Throw it into the 
 fire!" 
 
 Sandor approached the hearth, and obeyed 
 her implicitly. Then, turning to Dr. Nicholas, 
 he said shortly, rudely, 
 
 "Are you going?" 
 
 "My train leaves at four." He consulted his 
 watch. "Fifteen minutes more, and then I will 
 take my leave. Madame, I must again express 
 my regret for the discomfort I have caused you 
 by my neglect. The letter might have fallen 
 into other hands . . ." 
 
 "I cannot allow you to question the contents 
 of that letter," broke in Sandor, now seriously 
 313
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 angry, "or this lady's motives in writing it. I 
 am bound to her by ties of the purest respect. 
 There was nothing in that letter to justify you 
 in speaking as you did. Anyone could see it. 
 It was just an ordinary, everyday letter. No 
 one knows that better than yourself." 
 
 "You are quite right," said Dr. Nicholas 
 quietly. "I am sorry to have seemed to ques- 
 tion its contents. It was not my intention, but 
 I apologize." 
 
 "You will be late for your train," said San- 
 dor. 
 
 "Once more, my excuses. Do not accompany 
 me, I beg of you. Andre can see me to the door. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 He bowed again, then turned and went out 
 into the hall. The moment the door had closed 
 Jolan softly nestled in Sandor's arms, her head 
 against his breast. 
 
 "I am sorry after all," she said, "that he 
 failed to deliver that letter. I would give a 
 great deal if I could conjure it up from the 
 ashes." 
 
 314
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 "But what was in this mysterious letter?" 
 
 "The history of all our love, Sandor, of all 
 our sorrows, of all our longings. All my life, 
 and yours. ... All but this ending, which is 
 the true beginning. . . ." 
 
 "And now," she continued dreamily, pressing 
 closer against him, and staring into the fire, 
 "now it is burned, my first and only love let- 
 ter. I would have loved to read it over with 
 you you and I together. He said there was no 
 need of it now, but yes, there is. I should have 
 liked to watch you reading my confession, and 
 to see the impression it made on you reflected 
 in your dear face, shining in your dark eyes as 
 you lifted them from the page to me. I should 
 have liked to read it again, to remember every- 
 thing, the pain, the struggle to keep from 
 spreading my wings and soaring with you to- 
 wards the sunlight, the pitiful endeavor to keep 
 my hold upon small things, and then to 
 forget it all in the glorious ecstasy of our 
 happiness." 
 
 She glanced up at him with all her heart in 
 315
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 her starry eyes, confidingly, his forever. Again 
 he stooped, again their lips met. 
 
 There was a rattle at the knob of the door 
 into the hall. It opened, and admitted Dr. 
 Nicholas, bag in hand, his fur coat hanging 
 loose from his shoulders, a travelling hat on his 
 head. He dropped the bag, took off his hat, 
 came forward, and said : 
 
 "Excuse me again really, I do not know 
 what is the matter with me to-day. Just now 
 I gave you a letter. ... It was not yours. I 
 must have given you a coal bill, instead. They 
 follow me all over the world. Here is the letter, 
 beyond any possibility of further error." 
 
 Jolan snatched it from his hand, opened it 
 and read it with Sandor. His arm stole around 
 her waist, her head sank on his shoulder. They 
 had forgotten the man standing there, the man 
 who had brought them together. The world 
 had ceased to exist for them. They were alone 
 in a dreamland of their own . . . they stood 
 before the gate of their earthly paradise. It 
 beckoned them. 
 
 316
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Slowly, softly, they began to move across the 
 room, his arm guiding her, her head confidingly 
 pillowed upon his shoulder. A great light was 
 in their eyes. 
 
 The door of the studio closed softly upon 
 them. 
 
 Dr. Nicholas had watched them closely, hid- 
 den in the shadow. Now he took up his bag, 
 put on his hat, smiled his discreet, enigmatic 
 smile, waved his hand towards the door through 
 which they had disappeared, and said, with 
 infinite satisfaction: 
 
 "Good work!" 
 
 THE END 
 
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