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_"Ne touchez pas--ne touchez pas!"_
I refrained, somewhat wonderingly, from touching. Madame Brandt
explained.
"He thinks you would spoil the magnetic influence. It is a superstition
of his."
"But you are touching."
"He believes I have his magnetism--whatever that may be," she said, with
a smile. "Would you like to see an experiment? Anastasius!"
"Carissima."
"Is that the untamed Persian you were telling me of?" she asked,
pointing to a cage from which a ferocious gigantic animal more like a
woolly tiger than a tom-cat looked out with expressionless yellow eyes.
"Will you let Mr. de Gex try to make friends with it?"
"Your will is law, meine Konigin," replied Professor Papadopoulos,
bowing low. "But Hephaestus is as fierce as the flames of hell."
"See what he'll do," laughed Lola Brandt.
I approached the cage with an ingratiating, "Puss, puss!" and a hideous
growl welcomed me. I ventured my hand towards the bars. The beast
bristled in demoniac wrath, spat with malignant venom, and shot out its
claws.


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