“I do say, and I will say, this beats all I’ve ever seen,” said good Mrs. Challoner, as she bent to examine the glittering vase of flowers near her plate.

“And this is real electric light?  And is it perfectly harmless?”

Heliobas smilingly assured her of the safety of his table decorations.  “Electricity,” he said, “though the most powerful of masters, is the most docile of slaves.  It is capable of the smallest as well as of the greatest uses.  It can give with equal certainty life or death; in fact, it is the key-note of creation.”

“Is that your theory, sir?” asked Colonel Everard.

“It is not only my theory,” answered Heliobas, “it is a truth, indisputable and unalterable, to those who have studied the mysteries of electric science.”

“And do you base all your medical treatment on this principle?” pursued the Colonel.

“Certainly.  Your young friend here, who came to me from Cannes, looking as if she had but a few months to live, can bear witness to the efficacy of my method.”

Every eye was now turned upon me, and I looked up and laughed.

“Do you remember, Amy,” I said, addressing Mrs. Everard, “how you told me I looked like a sick nun at Cannes?  What do I look like now?”

“You look as if you had never been ill in your life,” she replied.

“I was going to say,” remarked Mr. Challoner in his deliberate manner, “that you remind me very much of a small painting of Diana that I saw in the Louvre the other day.  You have the same sort of elasticity in your movements, and the same bright healthy eyes.”

I bowed, still smiling.  “I did not know you were such a flatterer, Mr. Challoner!  Diana thanks you!”

The conversation now became general, and turned, among other subjects, upon the growing reputation of Raffaello Cellini.

“What surprises me in that young man,” said Colonel Everard, “is his colouring.  It is simply marvellous.  He was amiable enough to present me with a little landscape scene; and the effect of light upon it is so powerfully done that you would swear the sun was actually shining through it.”

The fine sensitive mouth of Heliobas curved in a somewhat sarcastic smile.

“Mere trickery, my dear sir—­a piece of clap-trap,” he said lightly.  “That is what would be said of such pictures—­in England at least.  And it will be said by many oracular, long-established newspapers, while Cellini lives.  As soon as he is dead—­ah! c’est autre chose!—­ he will then most probably be acknowledged the greatest master of the age.  There may even be a Cellini ‘School of Colouring,’ where a select company of daubers will profess to know the secret that has died with him.  It is the way of the world!”

Mr. Challoner’s rugged face showed signs of satisfaction, and his shrewd eyes twinkled.

“Right you are, sir!” he said, holding up his glass of wine.  “I drink to you!  Sir, I agree with you!  I calculate there’s a good many worlds flying round in space, but a more ridiculous, feeble-minded, contrary sort of world than this one, I defy any archangel to find!”