the Florentine costume he had adopted, that there was a certain
fascination about Gervase which was inborn, a trick of manner
which made him seem picturesque at all times; and that even when
the great French artist had stayed with him in Scotland and got
himself up for the occasion in more or less baggy tweeds, people
were fond of remarking that the only man who ever succeeded in
making tweeds look artistic was Armand Gervase. And in the white
Bedouin garb he now wore he was seen at his best; a certain
restless passion betrayed in eyes and lips made him look the
savage part he had "dressed" for, and as he bent his head over the
Princess Ziska's hand and kissed it with an odd mingling of
flippancy and reverence, Denzil suddenly began to think how
curiously alike they were, these two! Strong man and fair woman,
both had many physical points in common,--the same dark, level
brows,--the same half wild, half tender eyes,--the same sinuous
grace of form,--the same peculiar lightness of movement,--and yet
both were different, while resembling each other. It was not what
is called a "family likeness" which existed between them; it was
the cast of countenance or "type" that exists between races or
tribes, and had young Murray not known his friend Gervase to be a
French Provencal and equally understood the Princess Ziska to be
of Russian origin, he would have declared them both, natives of
Egypt, of the purest caste and highest breeding. He was so struck
by this idea that he might have spoken his thought aloud had he
not heard Gervase boldly arranging dance after dance with the
Princess, and apparently preparing to write no name but hers down
the entire length of his ball programme,--a piece of audacity
which had the effect of rousing Denzil to assert his own rights.

"You promised me the first waltz, Princess," he said, his face