Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/172

 there such a thing as instinct, prescience? call it what you will. Nay! I know not. In my student days I had often dissected the human brain and studied its component parts, and wondered which of the numerous cells of fibrous tissue contained that inward feeling which at times so plainly warns and foretells.

There was an instinct which told me that Neit-akrit, the beautiful and mysterious princess whom we, the usurpers, had deprived of the double crown of Kamt, was already a part of our very life. Her name haunted this place; it was whispered by the trees and murmured by the waters of the canal; it filled the air with its mystic and oppressive magnetism. Hugh felt it, I know. I think he is more impressionable than I am, and, of course, he is more enthusiastic, more inclined to poetry and visions. Even when wrapped in the most dry researches of science, he would clothe hard facts in picturesque guise.

To-night he talked a great deal of Neit-akrit. From a scientific point of view she interested him immensely, but, as a woman, she possessed no charm for him. No woman had ever done that. Above everything, he was a scientific enthusiast, and even in his own fair country he had never had so much as a schoolboy love. His friendship for me was, I think, his most tender emotion. He admired the picturesque, the poetic, above all, the mystic, and no woman, as yet, had embodied these three qualities in his eyes.

For the moment we discussed Neit-akrit as we would 156