Pharos, the Egyptian by Guy Boothby — Read

To infer that my introduction that evening to the beautiful violinist and her diabolical companion, Monsieur Pharos, produced no effect upon me, would be as idle as it would misleading. On leaving Medenham House I was conscious of a variety of sensations, among which attraction for the woman, repugnance for the man, and curiosity as to the history and relationship of both could be most easily distinguished. What was perhaps still more perplexing, considering the small, but none the less genuine, antagonism that existed between us, by the time I reached my own abode I had lost my first intense hatred for the man, and was beginning to look forward, with a degree of interest which a few hours before would have surprised me, to that next meeting which he had prophesied would so soon come to pass.

Lightly as I proposed to myself to treat it, his extraordinary individuality must have taken a greater hold upon me than I imagined, for, as in the afternoon, I soon discovered that, try to divert my thoughts from it how I would, I could not dispel his sinister image from my mind. Every detail of the evening's entertainment was vividly photographed upon my brain, and without even the formality of shutting my eyes, I could see the crowded room, the beautiful violinist standing, instrument in hand, beside the piano, and in the chair at her feet her strange companion, huddled up beneath his rug.