“She is scarcely more than a child. When you see her with her hat off, she looks ridiculously young.” “Pretty?” “Yes. I should say very pretty, and an exceptionally sweet voice. But she reminds me of some one--I cannot think whom; but every now and then her eyes bring back the strongest recollection of--I don’t know what.” “Some half-forgotten love affair perhaps.” “No; the only woman I ever cared at all about had dark eyes.” St Armand did not even smile; you cannot afford to be flippant when you are acting Father Confessor to the highest priest. “Then I can make no other suggestion. What is the colour of her eyes?” “Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. If they were not green, I would swear they were blue. As it is, I believe oftentimes they are the next best thing to black.” “You say her eyes are green?” “I’m bound to say so.” “Whom do we know with green eyes?” “No one with pretensions to any beauty--no one at all.” “Except the Serpent.” How easily and subtly the words fell out, linking the two names together--woman and the God of Lucifram! “Ah, yes! the Serpent,” said Alphonso, almost with a start. “But her eyes convey no impression of power--only beauty.” “When will you see her again?” St Armand asked the question thoughtfully, as if taking it quite for granted he must see her soon. “I do not know. Perhaps never. Our lives lie so very far apart.” The other’s lips curled almost, yet not quite imperceptibly, and he knocked the ash from the end of his cigar. “Why should the lives of the poor always lie so far from the lives of the rich? Can’t you make her into a respectable woman?” “I believe she is respectable. Her aunt with whom she lives looked bourgeois and respectable enough for the most fastidious.” “Oh, I thought she lived with her father and a large family.” Alphonso laughed. “I’m afraid it was all a pack of lies--from some childish whim to gain admittance to the Palace.” “When will you see her again?” “I’m afraid I shall never see her.” Then for the first time in their short friendship--for their personal introduction had taken place within the month--St Armand turned the blaze of his strong eyes on to the less powerful ones, and from them gleamed all those strange passions and desires that men feel in their weaker moments and scarcely understand. And as he looked into the human eyes before him, probing their weakness with no mercy nor forbearance, the High Priest’s shell-like armour invisibly gave way. Neither shame nor dismay came over him; he did not know the shell was broken--he felt only some tight band had loosened, giving him--was it relief? And how the dark eyes fascinated him! He read in them so many things long since forgotten--so many feelings years since passed away. And then they blame a woman--her beauty or her fascination--and God, the Afterthought, stands silent.