Page:Magician 1908.djvu/219

 interested herself in all the abstruse, quaint things on which he spent his time; and, divining her love for Arthur, he admired the courage with which she effaced herself. They had got into the habit of eating many of their meals together in a quiet house opposite the Cluny called La Reine Blanche, and here they had talked of so many things that their acquaintance was grown into a charming friendship.

“I’m ashamed to come here so often,” said Susie, as she entered. “Matilde is beginning to look at me with a suspicious eye.”

“It is very good of you to entertain a tiresome old man,” he smiled, as he held her hand. “But I should have been disappointed if you had forgotten your promise to come this afternoon, for I have much to tell you.”

“Tell me at once,” she said, sitting down.

“I have discovered an MS. at the library of the Arsenal this morning that no one knew anything about.”

He said this with an air of triumph, as though the achievement were of national importance. Susie had a tenderness for his innocent mania; and, though she knew the work in question was occult and incomprehensible, congratulated him heartily.

“It is the original version of a book by Paracelsus. I have not read it yet, for the writing is most difficult to decipher, but one point caught my eye in turning over the pages. That is the gruesome fact that Paracelsus fed the homunculi he manufactured on human blood. One wonders how he came by it.”