“That’s rather a rough speech, Denzil! But never mind!” he returned. “Your pride is wounded, and you are still sore. Suspect me as you please,--make me out a new Pandarus, if you like--I shall not be offended. But you know--for I have often told you--that I never interfere in love matters. They are too explosive, too vitally dangerous; outsiders ought never to meddle with them. And I never do. Come back with me to Cairo. And when we are once more safely established on the solid and unromantic isles of Britain, you will forget all about the Princess Ziska; or if you do remember her, it will only be as a dream in the night, a kind of vague shadow and uncertainty, which will never seriously trouble your mind. You look incredulous. I tell you at your age love is little more than a vision; you must wait a few years yet before it becomes a reality, and then Heaven help you, Denzil!--for you will be a troublesome fellow to deal with! Meanwhile, let us get back to Cairo and see Helen.” Somewhat soothed by the Doctor’s good-nature, and a trifle ashamed of his wrath, Denzil yielded, and the evening saw them both back at the Gezireh Palace Hotel, where of course the news of the sudden disappearance of Armand Gervase with the Princess Ziska created the utmost excitement. Helen Murray shivered and grew pale as death when she heard it; lively old Lady Fulkeward simpered and giggled, and declared it was “the most delightful thing she had ever heard of!”--an elopement in the desert was “so exquisitely romantic!” Sir Chetwynd Lyle wrote a conventional and stilted account of it for his paper, and ponderously opined that the immorality of Frenchmen was absolutely beyond any decent journalist’s powers of description. Lady Chetwynd Lyle, on the contrary, said that the “scandal” was not the fault of Gervase; it was all “that horrid woman,” who had thrown herself at his head. Ross Courtney thought the whole thing was “queer;” and young Lord Fulkeward said there was something about it he didn’t quite understand,--something “deep,” which his aristocratic quality of intelligence could not fathom. And society talked and gossiped till Paris and London caught the rumor, and the name of the famous French artist, who had so strangely vanished from the scene of his triumphs with a beautiful woman whom no one had ever heard of before, was soon in everybody’s mouth. No trace of him or of the Princess Ziska could be discovered; his portmanteau contained no letters or papers,--nothing but a few clothes; his paint-box and easel were sent on to his deserted studio in Paris, and also a blank square of canvas, on which, as Dr. Dean and others knew, had once been the curiously-horrible portrait of the Princess. But that appalling “first sketch” was wiped out and clean gone as though it had never been painted, and Dr. Dean called Denzil’s attention to the fact. But Denzil thought nothing of it, as he imagined that Gervase himself had obliterated it before leaving Cairo.