“‘Take care. One listens to you who seems to be a spy!’
“My eyes followed those of the mask, and I observed a man who took no part in the conversation, but whose gaze was bent upon me. He was disguised like the rest, yet I found by a general whisper that none had observed him enter. His silence, his attention, had alarmed the fears of the other revellers,—they only excited me the more. Rapt in my subject, I pursued it, insensible to the signs of those about me; and, addressing myself only to the silent mask who sat alone, apart from the group, I did not even observe that, one by one, the revellers slunk off, and that I and the silent listener were left alone, until, pausing from my heated and impetuous declamations, I said,—
“‘And you, signor,—what is your view of this mighty era? Opinion without persecution; brotherhood without jealousy; love without bondage—’
“‘And life without God,’ added the mask as I hesitated for new images.
“The sound of that well-known voice changed the current of my thought. I sprang forward, and cried,—
“‘Imposter or Fiend, we meet at last!’
“The figure rose as I advanced, and, unmasking, showed the features of Mejnour. His fixed eye, his majestic aspect, awed and repelled me. I stood rooted to the ground.
“‘Yes,’ he said solemnly, ‘we meet, and it is this meeting that I have sought. How hast thou followed my admonitions! Are these the scenes in which the Aspirant for the Serene Science thinks to escape the Ghastly Enemy? Do the thoughts thou hast uttered—thoughts that would strike all order from the universe—express the hopes of the sage who would rise to the Harmony of the Eternal Spheres?’
“‘It is thy fault,—it is thine!’ I exclaimed. ‘Exorcise the phantom! Take the haunting terror from my soul!’
“Mejnour looked at me a moment with a cold and cynical disdain which provoked at once my fear and rage, and replied,—