And with a meditative frown puckering his brows, Dr. Dean folded
his hands behind his back and retired to his own room, from whence
he did not emerge all day.

Armand Gervase in the meanwhile was making himself the life and
soul of everything at the Mena House Hotel. He struck up an easy
acquaintance with several of the visitors staying there,--said
pretty things to young women and pleasant things to old,--and in
the course of a few hours succeeded in becoming the most popular
personage in the place. He accepted invitations to parties, and
agreed to share in various' excursions, till he engaged himself
for every day in the coming week, and was so gay and gallant and
fascinating in manner and bearing that fair ladies lost their
hearts to him at a glance, and what amusement or pleasure there
was at the Mena House seemed to be doubly enhanced by the mere
fact of his presence. In truth Gervase was in a singular mood of
elation and excitation; a strong inward triumph possessed him and
filled his soul with an imperious pride and sense of conquest
which, for the time being, made him feel as though he were a very
king of men. There was nothing in his nature of the noble
tenderness which makes the lover mentally exalt his beloved as a
queen before whom he is content to submit his whole soul in
worship; what he realized was merely this: that here was one of
the most beautiful and seductive women ever created, in the person
of the Princess Ziska, and that he, Gervase, meant to possess that
loveliest of women, whatever happened in the near or distant
future. Of her, and of the influence of his passion on her
personally, he did not stop to think, except with the curiously
blind egotism which is the heritage of most men, and which led him
to judge that her happiness would in some way or other be enhanced