Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 05.djvu/70

590, and it seemed to him that there was something vaguely shameless in the whole procedure. Merchants, lawyers, bankers, men whose sole criterion of value was the price-tag, gazed stolidly at things upon which none could set a price. Behind the plate-glass panels of the cases were bits of art-work wrought in gold and bronze and silver, lapis-lazuli, celadon, papyri setting forth in picture-writing secrets never dreamt by modern man, dessicated bodies of kings and priests and princesses whose intrigues had shaped nations' destinies in the days when history was an infant in its swaddling clothes—and these money-changers from Mammonish Temples looked at them with eyes devoid of interest as those a wandering cow might turn upon the Taj Mahal bathed in a spilth of moonlight. But if the bored indifference of the men was irritating, the "ohs" and "ahs" of their women drove him to a state of madness verging onto homicidal frenzy.

"For God's sake," he entreated Doctor Conover, "let's get out of here. I want a drink and shower. I feel as if I'd seen a gang of ghouls go picnicking down in the cemetery!"

"Pretty ghastly, isn't it?" assented his companion. "But money's where the layman is, my boy, and we have to throw these parties every once in a while for Holy Contributions' sake. Shall we go get that drink?" He turned upon his heel, but Abernathy's quick grip halted him.

"Conover," he breathed, "who is she? Lord, but she's beautiful!"

She was walking slowly toward them past the rows of glassed-in mummy-cases. Not tall, but very slim she was, sheathed in a low-cut evening gown of midnight velvet which set her tapering arms and creamy shoulders off in sharp relief. Her eyes were amber and her honey-colored hair was drawn back from a widow's peak and a high, candid brow. A pale gold seemed to underline the whiteness of her skin. In contrast to her hair and eyes, her brows were vivid black, her nose was small and slightly hawk-beaked, her full and sensuous mouth was like a moist red blossom on the unrouged pallor of her narrow face. One slender-fingered hand was toying with a rope of pearls, and as she stepped there was a glint of golden links beneath the gossamer silk encasing her left ankle. Clouded but unhidden, the jewel-red lacquer on her toenails shone through filmy stocking tips exposed by toeless satin sandals. Oddly, she seemed aloof and lonely as she walked through the crowded gallery with eyes cast pensively upon the tessellated pavement. She was oblivious of the chattering men and women as if they had been shrubs and flowers in a garden where she walked alone.

Now she had come up to them, and Abernathy heard Conover's soft, attention-calling cough. She raised a startled glance, and he heard dully, as though from far away, "Madame Foulik Bey, may I present Doctor Abernathy?"

Fringed lids swept up from plumb-less eyes, and he saw her pupils expand like a cat's, spreading till they seemed to stain the amber irides like drops of ink let fall in tiny pools of clear-strained honey. Her red, moist lips were parted as she drank a sudden gasp of breath, and in her throat a small pulse wavered underneath the pale-gold skin. Her left hand, slender, rose-tipped, delicate as something molded out of Saxon porcelain, fluttered upward to the soft curve where the little palpitation quivered. Soft fingers closed upon and soothed the quaking flesh as one might soothe a trembling, frightened bird. Then she mastered her emotion, and