conviction that it does so invariably. Now, there are some of us who
choose to deal only with these exceptions to the common run. The dull man
who plays at Monte Carlo puts his money on the colours, and generally
black or red turns up; but now and then zero appears, and he loses. But
we, who have backed zero all the time, win many times our stake. Here and
there you will find men whose imagination raises them above the humdrum
of mankind. They are willing to lose their all if only they have chance
of a great prize. Is it nothing not only to know the future, as did the
prophets of old, but by making it to force the very gates of the
unknown?'

Suddenly the bantering gravity with which he spoke fell away from him. A
singular light came into his eyes, and his voice was hoarse. Now at last
they saw that he was serious.

'What should you know of that lust for great secrets which consumes me to
the bottom of my soul!'

'Anyhow, I'm perfectly delighted to meet a magician,' cried Susie gaily.

'Ah, call me not that,' he said, with a flourish of his fat hands,
regaining immediately his portentous flippancy. 'I would be known rather
as the Brother of the Shadow.'

'I should have thought you could be only a very distant relation of
anything so unsubstantial,' said Arthur, with a laugh.

Oliver's face turned red with furious anger. His strange blue eyes grew
cold with hatred, and he thrust out his scarlet lips till he had the
ruthless expression of a Nero. The gibe at his obesity had caught him on