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 aura,” he said contentedly. “Shall I pass my hands over you again?”

The Princess looked from one to another of them in consternation. Then she smiled and suddenly her eyes filled with tears. She stroked Krafft’s ruddy hair and ran out of the room.

“Women can’t stand anything,” said Krafft proudly; “you see, I’m absolutely calm. I felt a fluid oozing out of my finger-tips. It could certainly have been photographed. A sort of ultra-radiation.”

The specialists returned, sent Krafft out of the room in spite of his protests and again took Prokop’s temperature, felt his pulse and all the rest of it. His temperature was higher, his pulse ninety-six, and he had developed some sort of an appetite. After this the mandarins retired to the other wing of the castle where their services were needed, for the Princess was in a fever, and had completely collapsed after sixty hours of watching by Prokop’s bedside. In addition she was extremely anemic and ill in several other ways.

The next day Prokop was already sitting up in bed and receiving visits. Almost all the company had already left; only the fat cousin remained alone in boredom. Carson arrived rather agitated, but the meeting turned out all right. Prokop made no allusion to what had passed, and finally Carson announced that the terrible explosives that Prokop had invented during the last few days had shown themselves to be as dangerous as sawdust. In short Prokop must have already been feverish when he prepared them. The patient accepted this information