“Ay, but if you grant one resemblance, you must also admit another,” said the Doctor quickly.  “The likeness between yourself and the old-world warrior, Araxes, is no less remarkable!” Gervase moved uneasily, and a sudden pallor blanched his face, making it look wan and haggard in the light of the rising moon.  “And it is rather singular,” went on the imperturbable savant, “that according to the legend or history—­whichever you please to consider it,—­for in time, legends become histories and histories legends—­Araxes should have been the lover of this very Ziska-Charmazel, and that you, who are the living portrait of Araxes, should suddenly become enamored of the equally living portrait of the dead woman!  You must own, that to a mere onlooker and observer like myself, it seems a curious coincidence!”

Gervase smoked on in silence, his level brows contracted in a musing frown.

“Yes, it seems curious,” he said at last, “but a great many curious coincidences happen in this world—­so many that we, in our days of rush and turmoil, have not time to consider them as they come or go.  Perhaps of all the strange things in life, the sudden sympathies and the headstrong passions which spring up in a day or a night between certain men and certain women are the strangest.  I look upon you, Doctor, as a very clever fellow with just a little twist in his brain, or let us say a ‘fad’ about spiritual matters; but in one of your more or less fantastic and extravagant theories I am half disposed to believe, and that is the notion you have of the possibility of some natures, male and female, having met before in a previous state of existence and under different forms, such as birds, flowers, or forest animals, or even mere incorporeal breaths of air and flame.  It is an idea which I confess fascinates me.  It seems fairly reasonable too, for, as many scientists argue that you cannot destroy matter, but only transform it, there is really nothing impossible in the suggestion.”

He paused, then added slowly as he flung the end of his cigar away: 

“I have felt the force of this odd fancy of yours most strongly since I met the Princess Ziska.”

“Indeed!  Then the impression she gave you first is still upon you--that of having known her before?”

Gervase waited a minute or two before replying; then he answered: 

“Yes.  And not only of having known her before, but of having loved her before.  Love!—­mon Dieu!—­what a tame word it is!  How poorly it expresses the actual emotion!  Fire in the veins—­delirium in the brain—­reason gone to chaos!  And this madness is mildly described as ‘love?’”

“There are other words for it,” said the Doctor.  “Words that are not so poetic, but which, perhaps, are more fitting.”

“No!” interrupted Gervase, almost fiercely.  “There are no words which truly describe this one emotion which rules the world.  I know what you mean, of course; you mean evil words, licentious words, and yet it has nothing whatever to do with these.  You cannot call such an exalted state of the nerves and sensations by an evil name.”