Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/289

 "Valeska, I've been reading about the Devil-worshipers of Paris,—the black mass, infant sacrifices, and all that. That's an anachronistic cult. I'd like to know if there really is any genuine survival of the worship of Evil?"

Valeska shuddered. "Oh, that would be horrible!"

"But interesting." He clasped his hands behind him and gazed up at the silver-starred ceiling. "I don't mean degeneracy or insanity, but a man that does evil for the love of it, as they did in the old days. Think, for instance, of the lost art of torture—the science of human suffering—"

"Oh, don't! I hate to have you talk like that!" Valeska put a hand on his arm.

"Very well, I won't." He snapped his fingers as if to rid himself of the thought, and walked into the reception-room adjoining the great studio.

Valeska went back to her work. For some minutes she arranged her cards in their tin box; then, hearing voices outside, she looked up and listened. Then she walked softly across the heavy rugs and, touching a button in the mahogany wainscoting, passed through a secret door.

Scarcely had she disappeared when Astro returned, ushering in a young woman stylishly dressed in brown. When she put aside her veil her face shone out like a portrait, vivid, instinct with grace and a delicate, rare, high-bred beauty, full of character and force. Astro showed her a seat under the electric lamp. "I thought you would help me if any one could," she was saying, in continuation of her conversation in the reception-room. "If it were anything less vague,