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"Niti, this is our friend, Prince Oscar Oscarovitch, whom you have been kind enough to let me invite by proxy. Prince, this is Miss Nitocris Marmion."
Of course all the world knew of Oscar Oscarovitch, the modern Skobeleff, the lineal descendant of Ivan the Terrible, the crystal-brained, steel-willed man who was to be the saviour and regenerator of half-ruined, revolution-rent Russia, but this was the first time that Nitocris had met him in her present life. When she had returned his stately bow, she looked up and saw with a strange intuition, which somehow seemed half-reminiscent an almost perfect type of the primitive warrior through the disguise of his faultless twentieth-century attire. He was nearly two inches over six feet, but he was so exquisitely proportioned that he looked less than his height. His skin was fair and smooth, but tanned to an olive-brown. His forehead was of medium height, straight and square, with jet-black brows drawn almost straight across it above a pair of rather soft, dreamy eyes that were blue or black according to the mood of their possessor. His nose was strong and slightly curved, with delicately sensitive nostrils. A dark glossy moustache and beard trimmed
He had seen back through the mists of many centuries and recognised them as they had been, and he had learned that Oscarovitch the Russian had now entered the circle of the Queen's, and therefore his own, influence. A sudden anxiety for the safety of his darling Niti had awakened in his heart.
Nitocris changed her bridal dress for her yachting costume, and lay down on the couch to await the progress of events. Oscarovitch left the company in the dining-hall to their revel in about an hour's time, and went up to his fate in the bridal chamber. He knocked and opened the door softly: locked it, and went toward the bed.
At the request of their hostess the guests arranged themselves sitting and standing in a spacious circle on the tennis-lawn; and when this was, formed, Phadrig, whose isolation so far from the rest of the company had been satisfactorily explained by the Prince, walked slowly into the middle of it, and, after a quick, keen glance round him a glance which rested for just a moment or so on Professor Marmion and his confrères, and then on Nitocris, who was sitting beside Brenda attended by Lord Leighton and Merrill he said in a low but clear and far-reaching voice, and in perfect English: "Ladies and gentlemen, I have come to the house of the learned Professor Marmion at the request of my very good friend and patron, His Highness Prince Oscar Oscarovitch, to give you a little display of what I may call white magic.
I must leave immediately, and so I trust everything to you. All care must be taken of him. He must want for nothing that you can give him except liberty." Oscarovitch returned the doctor's assenting bow and left the room. In half an hour the yacht was flying at full speed over the smooth waters of the Baltic, heading a little to the south of West.
She swept past him Oscar Oscarovitch, the man who aspired to the throne of the Eastern Empire of Europe as though he had been one of his own slaves in the old days, and faced Phadrig. "It is enough, Anemen-Ha that was. Hast thou not learned wisdom yet, after so many lives? Is the inmost chamber of thy soul still closed in rebellion against the precepts of the High Gods?
Is it allowed to ask the name of the great millionaire for whom it is destined?" "Yes. It will in a few hours be the property of Prince Oscar Oscarovitch." As Phadrig spoke he hid the gem in his hand. His voice was so changed that the Jew looked up at him. His eyes were wide open now, and glowing with a fire that made them look almost dull red.
The conversation during dinner naturally turned on ways and means of travelling, and, when the Professor had sketched out their plans, Oscarovitch said with an admirably simulated deference: "My dear sir, I most sincerely hope that you and Miss Marmion will not think that I am presuming on an acquaintance which, if only a new one now, may perhaps one day be older, if I venture to suggest another way of making your tour.
Now I think we shall be able to talk on pleasanter subjects than conspiracies and such phantasms as the Fourth Dimension!" exclaimed Oscarovitch, who, like all Russians, was almost passionately fond of gems. "Fancy asking a Russian if he desires to see such a thing as that!"
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