“Don’t go in—there!” she again admonished him. “It means peril to your immortal soul if you do. I caution you for the second time.”
“But how can it harm me?”
“I have warned you,” she answered abruptly—was this his June Tilney of the bright morning airs?—“and I repeat: it is my wish that you do not visit there to-night.” Something in her tone aroused opposition.
“Nevertheless, Miss Tilney, I mean to see the Devil to-night.”
“Then go see her! But deny her if you dare!” She vanished in a doorway across the street....
Shocked as was Oswald, he stolidly pulled the bell until the massive doors opened. A light at the end of a large, dim court showed him the staircase of the atelier. A moment later he had let fall a grinning bronze knocker in the image of a faun’s hoof, and he had hardly time to ask himself the mystery of Miss Tilney’s request, when he was welcomed by Count Van Zorn.
Nothing could have been pleasanter than the apartment into which he was conducted. The Count apologized for the absence of the young lady—Miss Tilney was a slave to social obligations! Invern winced. He looked about while the Count busied himself with carafe and glasses. Decidedly an ideal home for a modern wizard of culture. Book-shelves crowded with superb volumes, pictures of the Barbizon school on the walls, an old-fashioned grand pianoforte, an alcove across which was drawn black velvet drapery; everything signalized the retreat of a man devoted to literature and the arts. There were no enchantments lurking in the corners. Then his glance fell upon a warmly colored panel, a Monticelli, of luscious hues with richly wrought figures. It depicted a band of youths and maidens in flowing costumes, strayed revellers from some secret rites, but full of life’s intoxication; hard-by stood an antique temple, at its portals a wicked smiling garden god. And over all was the flush of a setting sun, a vivid stain of pomegranate.... The desk of the piano held an engraving. Invern approached, but turned away his head. He saw that it was by that man of unholy genius, Félicien Rops. The Count crossed to his visitor and smilingly told him to look again.
“My Rops! You do not admire this Temptation of St. Anthony? No? Yet how different in conception from the conventional combination of the vulgar and voluptuous. Wagner’s Parsifal is only a variation on this eternal theme of the Saint tempted by the Sinner. The Woman here is crucified—what a novel idea!”
Invern was ill at ease. The place was not what it seemed. He read the titles of several imposing tomes: the Traité Methodique de Science Occulte, by Dr. Papus; Sar Péladan’s Amphitheatre des Sciences Mortes, and Comment on devient mage; Au Seuil du Mystère and Le Serpent de la Genése, by Stanislaus de Guaita. Eliphas Levi, Nicolas Flamel, Ernest Bosc, Saint-Martin, Jules Bois, Nehor, Remy de Gourmont’s Histoires Magiques, and many other mystics were represented. Upon the dados were stamped winged Assyrian bulls, the mystic rose, symbolic figures with the heads of women and anonymous beasts, lion’s paws terminating in fish-tails and serpent scales. Inscriptions in a dead language, possibly Chaldean, streamed over the walls, and the constellations were painted in gold upon a dark-blue ceiling. Luini’s Sacrifice to Pan, an etching of the picture in the Brera at Milan, caught his eye and he wondered why its obvious Satanic quality had been so seldom noted by diabolists. A cumbrous iron lamp of ornate Eastern workmanship, in which burned a wisp of green flame, comprised all that was bizarre in this apartment; otherwise, the broad student’s table, the comfortable chairs and couches, did not differ from hundreds of other studios on the left bank of the Seine.
Count Van Zorn coaxed Invern into a lounging chair and gave him a glass of wine. It was Port, of a quality that to the young man’s palate tasted like velvet fire. He was soon smoking a strong cigar in company with the old man, his fears quite obliterated. But his visitor noted that the Count was engrossed. As he sat, his eyes fastened upon the pattern of the polished parquet, Van Zorn looked like a man planning some grave project, perhaps a great crime. His head was hollowed at the temples, on his forehead the veins were puffy, his eyebrows, black as ink in the morning, were now interspersed with whitish-gray—the dye had worn away. At intervals he groaned snatches of melody, and once Invern heard him gabble in a strange tongue.