Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/532

 you've found out whether or not you can be affected by my psychic black light,—you will let me know."

"Do I care? Do I care enough for him?" Valeska asked herself the next morning as she walked to the studio. She had thought of it almost all night; she had risen with the question on her lips. She had seen him every day for two years. The thought that today, and perhaps for a week or a month, she would not see him, gave her a strange feeling. Was it a relief, or a pain? As yet, she could not decide.

As she entered the studio it seemed strange not to find him there, at first. Then, insensibly she began to find it hard to believe that he was not there. Everything suggested his presence,—the curiosities he had collected, the weapons, the Egyptian sculptures, tapestries, gems,—all evidences of his taste and his researches. She could not rid herself of the feeling that at any moment he might come in. He was near her, somewhere, waiting and watching for her.

But this, she said to herself, was only the effect of the familiar environment in which she had been used to see him. But it became at last too strong, too insistent. Surely she could never decide till she sought a new atmosphere. She was sorry that she had not disappeared, instead of Astro. But at least she could leave the studio and be alone for a while, to think it out. As she opened the outer door, she heard the soft ringing of the electric bell in the studio which warned them of visitors. It still rang as she closed the door, and it gave her an uncanny feeling,—the one spark of life in that dead empty place. She hurried away and walked swiftly toward the park.