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Even the best of the old things are nothing to boast of in the hard, unpitying light to which they are exposed, and a difficult and indocile spirit of extravagance is evoked in the least profuse.

The specter of the Nipe evoked a fear, a primitive fear fear of the dark and fear of the unknown, combined with the rational fear of a very real, very tangible danger. And yet, there had been a crowd of onlookers. In spite of their fear, it is hard to keep human beings from being curious.

What skeleton in the red-headed man's closet had those six words called to life and the light of day. Had they frightened him forth to spend the rest of his days fleeing from an unnamed, unknown avenger a veritable wandering Jew? What mystery had they touched upon there in the bald, bare back room of the Quarter's restaurant? What dark door had they opened, what red-headed phantom had they evoked?

Not an instant was given them for preparation. The thing had happened with the abruptness of a transformation scene at a theatre. Condy's knock had evoked a situation. Speech was stricken from their mouths. For a moment they were bereft even of action, and stood there on the threshold, staring open-mouthed and open-eyed at the sudden reappearance of their "matrimonial object."

Such a justification, such a statement of the function of a Second Chamber, not directly elected, may provoke a histrionic smile among extreme advocates of so-called popular rights, but has never evoked an argument which can displace it as based on sound reason and common sense.

Whether the long strain had unnerved him, whether minutely providing against every possible danger he had been over-scrupulous, over-anxious, morbidly exact or whether a foresight almost abnormal had evoked a sinister possibility he did not know; but that threat of Mortimer's to involve Plank with Leila in one common ruin, that boast that he was able to do so could not be ignored as a possible weapon if Quarrier should by any chance learn of it.

The attention she evoked delighted her vastly, and she was almost offended when O'Reilly threatened one particularly forward sleuth with a thrashing, thereby ending her fun. It was a strangely restless gathering. The Cubans sat in groups or in pairs with their heads together, smoking furiously and whispering, pausing now and then to glare balefully at some detective who drew within ear-shot.

Therefore he played with his hands, and not with his knees and his body. But the force of his fingers was magical, and the volume of sound that followed was as great as any player evoked. Thalberg was a player only, and not, in the sense of Chopin, a composer.

His quick comments, his indirect but acute questions, his exciting and alluring reminiscences of the East, his subtle yet seemingly frank compliments, had only stimulated a new capacity in her, evoked comparisons of this delicate-looking, fine-faced gentleman with the men of the West by whom she was surrounded.

There was, farther, a gold chain of his mother's, spun of that same sun-pollen, so thread-like, impalpable, that it slipped through the fingers like light, yet so strong that it carried a heavy pendant which seemed held in air as if by magic. MAGIC! That was the word which the thought of Venice evoked.