Part 25 (1/2)

”It's all very well, Horace, but unless something is done _soon_ it will be too late. We can't go _on_ keeping a mule in the study without the servants suspecting something, and where are we to put poor, dear papa?

It's too ghastly to think of his having to be sent away to--to a Home of Rest for Horses--and yet what _is_ to be done with him?... Why do you come if you can't do anything?”

”I shouldn't be here unless I could bring you good news. You remember what I told you about the Jinnee?”

”Remember!” cried Sylvia. ”As if I could forget! Has he really come back, Horace?”

”Yes. I think I have brought him to see that he has made a foolish mistake in enchanting your unfortunate father, and he seems willing to undo it on certain conditions. He is somewhere within call at this moment, and will come in whenever I give the signal. But he wishes to speak to you first.”

”To _me_? Oh, no, Horace!” exclaimed Sylvia, recoiling. ”I'd so much rather not. I don't like things that have come out of bra.s.s bottles. I shouldn't know what to say, and it would frighten me horribly.”

”You must be brave, darling!” said Horace. ”Remember that it depends on you whether the Professor is to be restored or not. And there's nothing alarming about old Fakrash, either, I've got him to put on ordinary things, and he really doesn't look so bad in them. He's quite a mild, amiable old noodle, and he'll do anything for you, if you'll only stroke him down the right way. You _will_ see him, won't you, for your father's sake?”

”If I must,” said Sylvia, with a shudder, ”I--I'll be as nice to him as I can.”

Horace went to the window and gave the signal, though there was no one in sight. However, it was evidently seen, for the next moment there was a resounding blow at the front door, and a little later Jessie, the parlour-maid, announced ”Mr. Fatrasher Larmash--to see Mr. Ventimore,”

and the Jinnee stalked gravely in, with his tall hat on his head.

”You are probably not aware of it, sir,” said Horace, ”but it is the custom here to uncover in the presence of a lady.” The Jinnee removed his hat with both hands, and stood silent and impa.s.sive.

”Let me present you to Miss Sylvia Futvoye,” Ventimore continued, ”the lady whose name you have already heard.”

There was a momentary gleam in Fakrash's odd, slanting eyes as they lighted on Sylvia's shrinking figure, but he made no acknowledgment of the introduction.

”The damsel is not without comeliness,” he remarked to Horace; ”but there are lovelier far than she.”

”I didn't ask you for either criticisms or comparisons,” said Ventimore, sharply; ”there is n.o.body in the world equal to Miss Futvoye, in my opinion, and you will be good enough to remember that fact. She is exceedingly distressed (as any dutiful daughter would be) by the cruel and senseless trick you have played her father, and she begs that you will rectify it at once. Don't you, Sylvia?”

”Yes, indeed!” said Sylvia, almost in a whisper, ”if--if it isn't troubling you too much!”

”I have been turning over thy words in my mind,” said Fakrash to Horace, still ignoring Sylvia, ”and I am convinced that thou art right. Even if the contents of the seal were known of all men, they would raise no clamour about affairs that concern them not. Therefore it is nothing to me in whose hands the seal may be. Dost thou not agree with me in this?”

”Of course I do,” said Horace. ”And it naturally follows that----”

”It naturally follows, as thou sayest,” said the Jinnee, with a cunning a.s.sumption of indifference, ”that I have naught to gain by demanding back the seal as the price of restoring this damsel's father to his original form. Wherefore, so far as I am concerned, let him remain a mule for ever; unless, indeed, thou art ready to comply with my conditions.”

”Conditions!” cried Horace, utterly unprepared for this conclusion.

”What can you possibly want from me? But state them. I'll agree to anything, in reason!”

”I demand that thou shouldst renounce the hand of this damsel.”

”That's out of all reason,” said Horace, ”and you know it. I will never give her up, so long as she is willing to keep me.”

”Maiden,” said the Jinnee, addressing Sylvia for the first time, ”the matter rests with thee. Wilt thou release this my son from his contract, since thou art no fit wife for such as he?”

”How can I,” cried Sylvia, ”when I love him and he loves me? What a wicked tyrannical old thing you must be to expect it! I _can't_ give him up.”

”It is but giving up what can never be thine,” said Fakrash. ”And be not anxious for him, for I will reward and console him a thousandfold for the loss of thy society. A little while, and he shall remember thee no more.”