A sigh, more like a gasp, ran through the room—from nowhere apparently, by some trick of slight of hand, by some optical illusion, by some power of hypnosis, they all saw a huge snake coiled on top of what had been an ebony chest, but was now an altar, and before it knelt a priest whose last incarnation had surely been thousands of years before kind Buddha came to bless or curse the world with his doctrine of annihilation.

Then for the first time Karkotaka moved his lips in audible speech—swaying on his knees before the altar, he chanted what no one could doubt was a hymn of praise and supplication to the snake that lay coiled inert above the lamp. For some moments he chanted while they waited with held breath, fascinated, repelled, frightened, for once in their sophisticated lives, into silence.

Then the coiled mass began to move—its head was raised and they could see its cold, glittering eyes; it seemed to be swaying as Karkotaka swayed in time to the chant. The clouds of incense grew thicker and they could scarcely see each other’s faces had they looked, but their eyes were held by the tableau on the stage, the kneeling, swaying, chanting priest and the reptile that swayed in response. Ever higher and higher reared the evil head, swaying always further and further toward the end of the semicircle at which Ruth and Pendragon were sitting. Ruth sensed his presence at her side and knew the tenseness of his waiting, but she dared not turn her eyes toward him for one moment. Higher and higher rose the chant until with a swift movement and a shout Karkotaka stood upon his feet. In the same moment the snake reared to its full height, hissing with open mouth toward them. In that instant Ruth shot. In the confusion she was conscious of thinking that she must have hit the snake right between the eyes, for it fell to the floor with scarcely a movement, and George stood, staring stupidly down at it. Every one was on their feet—every one speaking at once, though she could not understand what they said. She could only stare at the revolver in her hand. It all happened in such a swift moment—then her head was clear—Gloria had fainted—they were trying to give her air. Some one of the bewildered, frightened servants turned on the lights. Professor Pendragon strode past her, and though Ruth saw the smoking revolver in his hand, it carried no message to her brain. Thrusting aside Prince Aglipogue, who was kneeling futilely over Gloria, he picked her up in his arms and carried her out, and in the general excitement no one thought to wonder at his miraculous cure. Angela had followed Pendragon, but Ruth with the others stood gazing at the horrible enchantment.

“Who did it?—who shot the thing?” she heard some one ask.

“I did.” She held up her revolver. “I killed it.”

“Let me see.” It was Terry standing beside her. He took the revolver from her hands.

“Sorry, Ruth, but I’m afraid you didn’t. It was Pendragon. I was watching him and saw him aim and fire. It was a splendid shot even for an expert and at such short range, for the filthy brute was moving and he hit it right between the eyes. You see, child—” he opened the revolver for her to look—“there hasn’t been a single shot fired from your gun.”

“Oh, I’m so glad.”

And then, though she had never done anything so mid-Victorian in her life before, she swayed and for the smallest fraction of a second lost consciousness, then woke to the realization that Terry was supporting her and straightened up with protestations that she was all right.

“But why did you, why did he do it? We were going to see something quite wonderful—I think the Indian snake dances are—”

It was Miss Gilchrist, but no one had to answer her, for Mr. Peyton-Russell came in just then to tell them that Miss Mayfield was quite all right.

“Angela’s going to stay with her for a while, but if any of you don’t feel that your nerves are quite ready for bed, come on down to the billiard room. There’s a little drink—real, old-fashioned hot Scotch, waiting for you.”

He was trying hard to be the imperturbable jovial host and perhaps he succeeded for there was a general exodus. Terry looked questioningly at Ruth.

She shook her head. She wanted above everything to get away from them. They would sit over their drinks and gossip discreetly—discuss George, why Pendragon had killed the snake, his sudden return to health, his usurpation of Aglipogue’s place at Gloria’s side. She had not killed the snake but she had gone through all the nervous strain of preparing to kill it—of thinking she had killed it and she was very tired.

Terry walked with her as far as the staircase.

“Tomorrow,” he said, but she did not know what he meant. Yet she slept that night. She was in that state of weariness mental and physical in which one stretches out like a cat, feeling the cool, clean linen like a caress and thanking God for the greatest blessing in all this tired world—sleep.

She woke late with a sense of happiness and relief even before she was sufficiently conscious to remember the events of the past night. It was a wonderful Christmas day—sunshiny and bright. She lay quietly thinking, looking at the holly wreaths at her windows and watching some snow birds on her sill. She wished lazily that she had some crumbs to feed them. She felt very young, almost like a child. It would be nice to be a child again, to get up and explore the contents of a stocking hung before the chimney place in the living-room of a Middle West home. She thought of her mother, as one inevitably thinks of the dead on days of home gathering, and soft tears filled her eyes.

She answered a discreet knock on the door and a maid entered with a tray. It was the gossipy maid of her first day. How she knew that she was awake Ruth could not guess.

“I thought you’d rather have breakfast in bed this morning, Miss,” and then as an afterthought, “Merry Christmas, Miss.”

“Merry Christmas— It is a Merry Christmas after all, and I would like breakfast in bed, though it makes me feel awfully lazy. How did you think of it?”

“The mistress left orders last night, but I’d thought of it anyway—after what we all went through last night—”

She shook her head and compressed her lips solemnly. Ruth looked at her, willing to be interested in anything or anybody. She could not have been much older than Ruth herself, but hard work and a coiffure composed of much false hair surmounted by a preposterously small maid’s cap, made her seem much more mature. As Ruth did not answer she went on:

“Such goings on—it’s a wonder we’re all alive to tell of it.”

“Then you didn’t like the show?” asked Ruth.

“Such things ain’t Christian, especially on the Lord’s birthday. Tell me, Miss, was it you killed it—some said it was you and some said it was the poor paralysed gentleman, who was cured so miraculous like.”

“It was Professor Pendragon. Have you seen him today?”

“Indeed, we’ve all seen him. He’s walking round all over the place, and he’s give ev-er-ey servant in the house a five dollar gold piece!”

This amazing piece of information gave Ruth a shock. In her selfish absorption in Gloria and herself she hadn’t thought of the servants and the inevitable toll of Christmas gifts.

“Do you know, Jennie, I didn’t buy any gifts before I came up here and I almost forgot, but I want to give you a present—” She was just about to offer money, and then something in the kind, stolid face warned her that this would be wrong. “I’d like to give you something of my own that you like. If you’ll just tell me what you want you can have anything of mine—any dress or hat or—well, just anything you like.”

The girl’s eyes spread wide.

“Anything?”

“Yes, anything, that is, if I have anything you like. If not I’ll have to follow Professor Pendragon’s example and give you money to buy your own gift.”

“You’ve got such lots of pretty clothes—”

Ruth thought her wardrobe very limited, but waited.

“There is one dress—not a party dress—I’ve always wanted one—there ain’t any place to wear it, but if you could—do you really mean it—anything?”

“Of course,” said Ruth, expecting a request for one of her three presentable evening gowns.

“Then I’d like that blue silk thing with the lots of lace—the thing you wear here in your own room.”

She pointed to a negligÉe thrown over a chair by the dressing-table.

“Take it; it will make me very happy to know that you have it.” She tried to visualize Jennie in the negligÉe, but the picture was not funny. She turned her head away so that Jennie should not see the tears in her eyes.

“You’ll most likely be getting a lot of things yourself, Miss; a man’s gone down to the village for the mail. You’ll be getting a lot of things from the city.”

“I’m afraid not; still I may get some letters which will be welcome.”

“I’ll go down and see—he may be back. He went early.”

She was back in an incredibly short space of minutes bearing one letter, from Dorothy Winslow.

“And Miss Mayfield wants to know if you’ll come to her room when you’re dressed,” said Jennie, who, seeing that Ruth was going to read her letter, left her with another hurried, awkward “thank you, Miss,” delivered through the door as she hurried off with her blue silk prize.

Dorothy’s Christmas letter fairly bubbled over with happiness, and with an affection for Ruth which she had never suspected.

“It seems ages since you went away,” she wrote, “and I’m just dying to tell you everything—how Nels was awfully humble and admitted he’s been a perfect silly over that imitation high siren, and then he was jealous—furiously jealous over your roses. It was hard not to tell him the truth, but I didn’t—not until afterward, when he asked me to marry him. Yes, he did! And we’ve done it. Neither of us had any money, but that didn’t really make any difference. He’s always been able to buy his own cigarettes and so have I and there’s no reason why we can’t do it together just as well as apart. We’ve got the funniest little apartment on Thirty-fourth Street—just a room with an alcove and a bath and a kitchenette. Nels is going to get another place to work—one room some place—very business-like and all that sort of thing and I’ll work at home. But please do hurry back and have dinner with us sometime. You’ll see! I can cook. But I must work, too, else Nels will get ever so many leagues ahead of me. And please have you delivered my message to the Dragon? You did give him Nels’ message I know for Nels heard from him and that man with the double name who is so splendidly entertaining you over the holidays is going to buy the picture. You must get back in time for the party we’ll put on to celebrate when the check comes. You know I feel that you made it all happen.”

She chatted on over ten pages of art school gossip that made Ruth rather homesick, and eager to get back to New York, especially as the first object of her visit had been accomplished. But had it been accomplished? The snake was killed and Professor Pendragon was cured. To her the connection seemed obvious. Professor Pendragon had been cured because the object of George’s faith had been destroyed and with it the mind-born malady which, through faith, he had put upon the man who was his rival. But this did not accomplish all of Ruth’s desire. There still remained the Prince. Even though George’s power over Pendragon had been destroyed, might he not still exercise the same influence over Gloria? And would George calmly submit to the insult that had been put upon him? Her whole trust was now in Pendragon. He had shown that he could fight. Having gone so far he must go further and drive away Prince Aglipogue. Then every one would be happy—that is, every one except herself and Terry. She was no longer sure that Terry loved Gloria. Probably he had loved her because no man could be indifferent to Gloria, but perhaps he had resigned himself to the unromantic rÔle of friend. He had suspected her of being interested in Pendragon for herself. That might mean anything—his thought might have been fathered by the hope that some one would remove Pendragon, one of his own rivals; or perhaps she had betrayed her love for him and he wanted to turn her attention toward another object, or perhaps—but men were such curious creatures and who could tell? At least he did not love her which was all that really mattered now. Nels and Dorothy could go working and playing together through the future, but she must content herself to be wedded for life to her art; and such art—newspaper cartoons!

While she thought she was dressing, for she was really very curious to see Gloria and hear what she had to say. The door of Gloria’s room was half open and Ruth knocked and went inside at the same moment. Gloria was fully dressed and seemed to be in the midst of packing. There were dark circles under her eyes as if she had not slept.

“Ruth, I want you to do something for me,” was her abrupt greeting.

Ruth waited for an explanation.

“Will you?”

“Of course, Gloria,—anything.”

“I believe you would at that—you’re an awfully nice child; sometimes I suspect that you’re older than I am; but this is something rather nasty, so don’t be too sure that you’ll want to do it. I want you to tell Aggie that I can’t marry him—that I must have been insane when I said I would, that the whole thing is utterly impossible—that it would please me if he would go back to New York at once. I don’t want to see him any more.”

Ruth struggled to conceal her joy at this announcement.

“Don’t you think, Gloria, that it would be more effective if you told him yourself?”

“No; and besides I don’t want to see the brute—he—he— Oh, I can’t bear to look at him—to remember everything—”

“Suppose he doesn’t believe me?”

“He will.”

“You could write a note.”

“Then he wouldn’t believe; a note would be too gentle. He’d want to see me and talk, but if you tell him he’ll know that it’s final or I wouldn’t have chosen to tell him through a third person. Will you do it?”

“Yes.”

“I was going to leave myself,” explained Gloria with a wave of her hand toward the evidences of packing. “But I can’t. George has disappeared—absolutely disappeared—”

“When—where?”

“I said disappeared; that doesn’t mean he left a forwarding address. He slipped off into the nowhere, sometime between midnight and morning and of course I can’t move until we hear from him.”

“You can, too!” Ruth was intense in her excitement. “You can—you’ve given up the Prince; the next thing is to give up George. He’s been the cause of all your troubles. I know you don’t believe it, but he has—he’s hypnotized you—and if he’s disappeared you ought to be glad of it.”

Gloria looked at her curiously from between half-closed lids.

“Why do you think I won’t believe you? I don’t believe or disbelieve, I know that I have been hypnotized, or mad, or ill—something. I woke up this morning quite new— Perhaps it’s religion—” She laughed with something of her old careless mirth. “Anyway I’m quite sane now, and I do want to get back to New York so that I can begin rehearsals in Terry’s new play. I feel like working hard, like beginning all over again— I feel—so—so free, that’s the word, as if I had been in prison—a prison with mirror walls, every one of which reflected a distorted vision of myself. That’s all I could see—myself, always myself and always wrong.”

“May I come in?”

It was Angela at the still half-open door.

“Why, you’re not leaving?”

“No; I only thought I was. Changed my mind again.”

“And you’re quite well. The poor, dear Prince has been quite frantic. He’s so anxious to see you for himself before he will be assured that you’re really all right, after the shock last night. He’s waiting for you now. The other men have gone off on a hike through the snow. John has such a passion for exercise—afraid of getting stout, though he won’t admit it. I told the Prince that I would try and send you down to him.”

“I can’t go now. Ruth will go down and talk to him.”

“Ruth? But he wants you.”

A sign from Gloria counselled Ruth to go now before the discussion, and she slipped out unnoticed by Angela whose blue eyes were fixed on Gloria, awaiting explanations.

Prince Aglipogue was not difficult to find. She could hear his heavy pacing before she had reached the bottom of the stairs. He stopped abruptly when he saw her approaching, waving his cigarette frantically with one hand while he twisted his moustache with the other.

“Gloria, Miss Mayfield, she is well; you have news from her? She is coming down?”

“Miss Mayfield is well, but she is not coming down just now. She wants to be alone, but she sent me—”

It was impossible to tell him. Much as she hated the man she did not quite have the courage to deliver Gloria’s message without preliminaries.

“Yes? Yes?—speak, tell me; she is ill, is it not?”

There was a nervous apprehension in his voice and manner that made Ruth suspect that the news would not be altogether unexpected.

“No; she is not ill. As I said she is quite well, but she asked me to say—to tell you—it’s awfully hard to say it, but she asked me to tell you that she cannot marry you and that it would be very tactful if you would go back to New York at once without trying to see her.”

It was blunderingly done, but she could think of no other way to tell it. Unwelcome truths are only made more ugly by any effort to soften their harshness.

His cigarette dropped unnoticed upon the rug and his jaw dropped in a stupid way that made him look like a great pig. One part of Ruth’s brain was really sorry for him, for he had doubtless been fond of Gloria in his own way; the other half of her brain wanted to laugh, but she only stood with bent head, as if, having struck him she was waiting for his retaliation. It came with a rush as soon as he had assimilated the full meaning of her words:

“I do not believe—it is a plot—she would not send a message such as that to me—it is the work of that Riordan— He is jealous—. I will sue her for breach of promise—one can do that, is it not?”

“Women sometimes sue men for breach of promise,” said Ruth, who was quite calm now, “but men seldom sue women; besides, you can’t sue Gloria, because she has no money.”

“No money?” He laughed and lit another cigarette to give point to his carelessness and unbelief.

“You say she has no money? With a house on Gramercy Park, she is poor?”

Behind his words and his nonchalant air Ruth caught the uneasiness in his small eyes and knew that she had struck the right note.

“It is true that she has a house on Gramercy Square, but it takes her entire income to pay the taxes. She got the house from her second husband; the third was more careful. He only gave her a small income, which, of course, she loses when she remarries.”

For a moment he stared at her incredulous, but there was nothing but honesty in her face.

“It is the truth, you are speaking? Come, let us sit and talk—here a cigarette? No? You do not smoke? I had forgotten. We have not been such friends as I might have desired. Now explain—Miss Mayfield wishes to break her engagement with me?”

“She has broken it,” said Ruth tersely.

“It is, you can understand, a shock of the greatest—I loved—but no matter—tell me again of the affairs financial of Miss Mayfield. As a friend only—I am resigned—as a friend only I am interested.”

She looked at him, his heavy body, his fat face, his oily brown eyes, and was tempted to tell him the truth of what she thought. He laid one fat hand on hers with a familiar gesture and involuntarily she drew back as if something unclean had touched her. He saw but pretended not to see. He had an object to achieve and could not afford to be sensitive. She understood and thought it all out before she spoke. If she followed her impulse he would cause trouble, or annoyance to Gloria at the least. If she told him the truth he would believe her and would go away without further urging. Evidently he had thought that Gloria had money, and Gloria, to whom money meant nothing, had never thought to tell him anything of her affairs. It was a repulsive task but Ruth decided to give him the information he wanted.

“You must understand,” she said, “that Gloria is merely a professional woman, an actress, not an heiress. She has no money except what she earns. One of her husbands gave her the house on Gramercy Park. A year later she married again and when she was divorced from her last husband he settled on her a small income—hardly sufficient to keep up the house when she is not working. If she marries again she loses even that.”

She rose to leave him, having finished with her mission, but he caught her hand.

“You are speaking the truth, Miss Ruth?”

She drew away her hand without answering.

“But you? Perhaps you have been helping her?”

“I have even less than Gloria.”

His amazing lack of finesse—his appalling vulgarity stunned her into making a reply.

“There is a train in the morning—”

“There is one this afternoon that you can catch if you will hurry. I advise you to take it.”

“Thank you, I will—you have saved me a great deal of annoyance. I am grateful—if—”

But Ruth did not wait for the end of his remarks. She could not bear to look at him for another second. He was even worse than she had supposed. Evidently he had not cared for Gloria at all, and she had always conceded to him that much—that Gloria had touched some one small bit of fineness in his sordid nature.

She dared not return to Gloria just then, for she knew that Gloria in her usual frank manner had doubtless told Angela of her changed plans; even now Angela might be protesting with her and urging her not to dispose of a real title so carelessly. Even without the title Angela would not approve of the broken engagement, for it had been announced in her house; therefore, she had, in a way, been sponsor for it, and would want to see it go through to a successful conclusion.

She made her way to the enclosed veranda where she had kept her rendezvous with Pendragon on the afternoon of her arrival. It was quite deserted now, but far out on the crest of one of the near hills she saw a moving, black splotch against the snow that as she watched gradually resolved itself into three figures—John Peyton-Russell, Terry and Professor Pendragon. It gave her a strange thrill to see them thus—Pendragon striding along with the rest. Surely this was a miracle—a Christmas miracle, and she remembered a sentence in an old book of witchcraft that she had once read:

“Verily there be magic both black and white, but of these two, the white magic prevaileth ever over the black.”