glitters in his sapphire eyes tear-drops ready to fall? If so, I was not sure, for with a cry like that of a lost soul who has found sanctuary, he buried his face on my shoulder. . . .
After a long silence, he slipped from the arm of my chair, and wordlessly, his face averted, he passed into his room. After an hour or so, I went to my own room—but I could not sleep. . . .
Time passed, and I dwelt in a 'fool's paradise,' dreaming that it would last for ever.
The summer colony began to arrive. There were cottages all along the shore, but there were likewise big estates, whose owners were rated as 'somebodies,' to put it mildly.
A governor of a great and sovereign state; an ex-president of our nation; several foreign diplomats and some of their legation attaches—but why enumerate, when one woman only concerns this narrative?
Michaela Commnenus, tall, slight, dapper, inclined to swarthiness, with black eyes under crescent-curved black eyebrows; with supercilious smiling lips, a trifle too red for a woman; with suave Old World manners, and a most amazingly conceited opinion of herself as a 'Man-charmer.'
It was not her first summer in our midst; and although when she was in Washington at her legation I never gave her a thought, when I saw her too handsome face on the beach, I felt a trifle sick! I knew, positively, that the minute she set eyes on Heldar. . . . Of course I knew, too, that my witch-niece could take care of himself; but just the same, I sensed annoyance, and perhaps, tragedy.
Well, I was in nowise mistaken.
Heldar. and I were just about to shove off in my dory for a sail. It was his chief delight, and mine too, for that matter.
Casually, along strolled Michaela Commnenus, twirling a slender stick, caressing a slender black ringlet, smiling her approbation of herself. I'd seen that variety of casual approach before. As our flippant young moderns say: It was 'old stuff.'
Out of the corner of my eye I watched. The Don Juanita smirk faded when her calculating, appraising eyes met his sapphire orbs, now shining like the never-melting polar ice. An expression of bewilderment spread over her features. Her swarthy skin went a sickly greenish-bronze. Involuntarily she crossed herself and passed on. The woman was afraid, actually fear-struck!
'Ever see her before, Heldar?' I queried. 'She looked at you as if the devil would be a pleasanter sight. That's one woman who failed to fall for your vivid beauty, you sea-witch!'
'Who is she?' he asked in a peculiar tone. 'I liked her looks even less than she liked mine.'
'Michaela Commnenus,' I informed him, and was about to give his her pedigree as we local people knew her, but was interrupted by his violently explosive:
'Who?'
'Michaela Commnenus,' I stated again, a trifle testily. 'And you needn't shout! What's she done but again he interrupted, speaking his archaic Norsk:
'Ho! Varang Chiefs of the Guard Imperial! Thorfina! Arvia! Svea! And ye who followed them—Gudrun! Randvar! Haakon! Smid! And all ye Varangs in Valhalla, give ear! And ye, O fiends, witches, warlocks, trolls, vampyrs, and all the dark gods who dwell in Hel's halls where the eternal frozen fnres blaze without heat, give ear to my voice, and cherish my words, for I give ye all joyous tidings.
'She lives! After all these long centuries Michaela Commnenus dwells again on the chest of fair Earth! In a body of flesh and blood and bone, of nerve and tissue and muscle she lives! She lives, I say! And I have found her!
'Oh, now I know why the Norns who rule all fate sent me to this place. And I shall not fail ye, heroes! Content ye, one and all, I shall not fail!'
Was this the gorgeous beauty I'd learned to love for his gentleness?His was the face of a furious male demon for a moment; but then his normal expression returned and he sighed heavily.
'Heed me not, Aunt Joan,' he said drearily. 'I did but recall an ancient tale of foul treachery perpetrated on sundry Norsemen in the Varangian Guard of a Byzantine empress ages agone.
'The niddering—worse than 'coward' —who wrought the bane of some thirty-odd vikings, was a Commnenus, nice to the Empress Alexandra Commnenus. . . . I live too much in memories of the past, I fear, and for the moment somewhat forgot myself in the hate all good Norse pages should hold toward any who bear the accursed name of the Commneni.
'Still, even as I know you to be old Jara Wulf Red-Brand returned to this world through the gateway of birth—it would be nothing surprizing if this spawn of the Commneni were in truth that same Michaela Commnenus of whom the tale is told.'
'The belief in reincarnation is age-old,' I said reflectively. 'And in several parts of the world it is a fundamental tenet of religion. If there be truth in the idea, there is, as you say, nothing surprizing if anybody now living should have been anybody else in some former life. . . . And that sample of the Commneni appears quite capable of any treachery that might serve a purpose at the moment! But, Heldar,' I implored him, struck by a sudden intuition, 'I beg of you not to indulge in any of your devilries, witcheries, or Norse magic. If this Michaela is that other Michaela, yet that was long ago; and if she has not already atoned for her sin, you may be very sure that somewhere, sometime, somehow she will atone; so do not worry your regal head about her.'
'Spoken like a right Saga-man,' he smiled as I finished my brief homily. 'I thank you for your words of wisdom. And now, Jara Wulf Red-Brand, I know you to be fey as well as I am. 'Surely she will atone for her sin' . . . oh! a most comforting thought! So let us think no more about the matter.'
I glanced sharply at him. His too instant acquiescence was suspicious. But his sapphire eyes met mine fairly, smilingly, sending as always a warm glow of contentment through me. So I accepted his assurance as it sounded, and gave myself up to the enjoyment of the sail and the sound of his silvery voice as he sang an old English love ballad I'd known as a young woman. And under the spell of his magnetic personality gradually the episode of Michaela Commnenus faded into nothingness—for a while.
A couple of days later, just about dark, Heldar came down the stairs from the attic, where he'd been rummaging. In his hand he carried an old violin-case. I looked and grinned ruefully.
'You are a bad old Aunt Joan,' he scolded. 'Why did you not tell me you played the 'fidel,' even as Jara Wulf played one in her time? Think of all the sweet music you might have made in the past winter nights, and think of the dances I might have danced for your delight while you played—even as Ragnar danced for his old Jara.'
'But I did not tell you that I played a fiddle—because I don't,' I stated flatly. 'That is a memento of an absurd ambition I once cherished, but which died a-borning. I tried to learn the thing, but the noises I extracted were so abominable that I quit before I'd fairly got started.'
'You are teasing,' he retorted, his eyes sparkling with mischief. 'But I am not to be put off thus easily. Tonight you will play, and I will dance—such a dance as you have never beheld even when you were Jara Wulf.'
'If I try to play that thing,' I assured his seriously, 'you'll have a time dancing to my discords, you gorgeous tease!'
'We'll see,' he nodded. 'But even as my magic revealed to me the whereabouts of the 'fidel,' so my spirit tells me that you play splendidly.'
'Your 'magic' may be all right, but your 'spirit' has certainly misinformed you,' I growled.
'My spirit has never yet lied to me—nor has it done so this time.' His tone was grave, yet therein was a lurking mockery; and I became a trifle provoked.
'All right,' I assented grouchily. 'Whenever you feel like hearing me 'play,' I'll do it. And you'll never want to listen to such noises again.'
He went into his room laughing sweetly, and took the fiddle with him.
After supper he said nothing about me playing that old fiddle, and I fatuously thought he'd let the matter drop. But about ten o'clock he went to his room without a word. He emerged after a bit, wearing naught but a sheer loose palest blue silk robe, held at the waist only by a tiny jeweled gold filigree clasp. Loose as the robe was, it clung lovingly to his every curve as if caressi
ng the beauteous, statuesque body it could not and would not conceal.
He was totally devoid of all ornament save that tiny brooch, and his wondrous fiery-gold hair was wholly unconfined, falling below his waist in a cascade of shimmering sunset hues, against which his rose-pearl body gleamed through the filmy gossamer-like robe.
Again he sat and talked for a while. But along toward midnight he broke a short silence with:
'I'll be back in a minute. I wish to prepare for my dancing.'
From his room he brought four antique bronze lamps and a strangely shaped urn of oil. He filled the lamps and placed one at each corner of the living-room, on the floor.
Back into his room he went, and out again with an octagonal-shaped stone, flat on both sides, about an inch thick, and some four inches across. This he placed on the low taboret whereon I usually kept my nargilyeh. He propped up that slab of stone as if placing a mirror—which I decided it couldn't very well be, as it did not even reflect light but seemed as dull as a slab of slate.
As a final touch, he brought out that confounded old fiddle! And on his scarlet lips was a smile that a seraph might have envied, so innocent and devoid of guile it seemed.
'What's this?' I demanded—as if I didn't know!
'Your little 'fidel' with which you will make for your Heldar such rapturous music,' he smiled caressingly.
'Um-m-m-m!' I grunted. 'And what are