TIBI
VNA           QVE
es          OMNIA
Dea          Isis

“And what’s behind the curtain?” he began, turning toward Mrs. Athelstone.

“The truth, of course.  But remember,” and her tone was half serious, “none but an adept may look behind the veil and live.”

“The truth is my long suit,” returned Simpkins mendaciously.  “So I’ll take a chance.”  As he spoke, the heavy velvet fell aside and disclosed a statue of a woman carved in black marble.  It stood on a pedestal of bronze, overlaid with silver, and above and behind were hangings of blue-gray silk.  A brilliant ray of light beat down on it.  Glancing up, Simpkins saw that it shone from a crescent moon in the arched ceiling above the altar.  Then his eyes came back to the statue.  There was something so lifelike in the pose of the figure, something so winning in the smile of the face, something so alluring in the outstretched arms, that he involuntarily stepped nearer.

“And now that you’ve seen Isis, what do you think of her?” asked Mrs. Athelstone, breaking the momentary silence.

“She’s the real thing—­the naked truth, sure enough,” returned Simpkins with a grin.

“It is a wonderful statue!” was the literal answer.  “There’s no other like it in the world.  Doctor Athelstone found it near Thebes, and took a good deal of pride in arranging this shrine.  The device is clever; the parting of the veil you see, makes the light shine down on the statue, and it dies out when I close it—­so”; and, as she pulled a cord, the veil fell before the statue and the light melted away.

[Illustration:  “‘She’s the Real Thing.’”]

“Aren’t you initiating the neophyte rather early?” a man’s voice asked at Simpkins’ elbow, and, as he turned to see who it was, Mrs. Athelstone explained:  “This is our new clerk, Mr. Simpkins; Doctor Brander is our treasurer, and our acting president while my husband’s away.  He left a few days ago for a little rest.”  And Mrs. Athelstone turned back to her desk.

Simpkins instantly decided to dislike the young clergyman beside him.  He was tall and athletic-looking, but with a slight stoop, that impressed the reporter as a physical assumption of humility which the handsome face, with its faintly sneering lines and bold eyes, contradicted.  But he acknowledged Brander’s offhand “How d’ye do?” in a properly deferential manner, and listened respectfully to a few careless sentences of instructions.

For the rest of the morning, Simpkins mechanically addressed circulars appealing for funds to carry on the good work of the Society, while his mind was busy trying to formulate a plan by which he could get Mrs. Athelstone to tell what she knew about the whereabouts of Madame Blavatsky’s soul.  He felt, with the accurate instinct of one used to classing the frailties of flesh and blood according to their worth in columns, that those devices which had so often led women to confide to him the details of the particular sensation that he was working up would avail him nothing here.  “You simply haven’t got her Bertillon measurements, Simp.,” he was forced to admit, after an hour of fruitless thinking.  “You’ll have to trust in your rabbit’s foot.”