Some people do not believe in transmigration, but I am a true disciple of Pythagoras in that bizarre doctrine, and I firmly believe that in a former existence the soul of Giulietta Morone had animated the body of some tawny tigress who had stolen through the jungle beneath the burning skies of Hindostan, slaying and devouring her victims in conformity with the instincts of her savage nature. Now she was a woman--a fair, majestic woman--but the instinct of the beast was there, the desire for slaughter and the lust for blood. What made me indulge still more in this fancy was the colours of the dress she wore black and yellow--all twisted in and out with a curious resemblance to the sleek fur of the beast to which I had likened her. The soft glimmer of the pearl strings twined in her magnificent red hair seemed out of place as ornaments for this woman; but the rubies suited her nature well, the red, angry rubies that shot flashes of purple fire from her neck at every heave of her white bosom. Leaning back in her deep chair with a cruel smile on her full crimson lips, the glimmer of pearls, the fire-glint of the fierce-tinted gems, and the bizarre mixture of amber and black in her dress, she slowly waved her sandalwood fan to and fro, diffusing a strange, sleepy perfume through the room, and looking what I verily believed her to be, the type of incarnate evil in repose. While I was thinking in this fanciful fashion, the Contessa was talking to her friends in a slow, rich voice, and Beltrami--well, Beltrami was watching me closely. Do you know that strange sensation of being watched? that uneasy consciousness that some unseen eye is observing the least movement? Yes, of course you do! Every one has felt it, in a more or less degree, according to their nervous susceptibility. At the present time, with all my senses on the alert for unexpected events, it was therefore little to be wondered at that I felt the magnetism of Beltrami's gaze, and, on looking up, saw his keen black eyes fixed upon me with an enigmatical expression. For the moment I was startled, but immediately that feeling passed away for I well knew the strange nature of the Marchese, which was a peculiar mixture of good and evil, of kindness and cruelty, of hate and love, which must have proceeded from some aberration of his subtle intellect.