Some
upheld that the veil covered the most beautiful countenance in the
world; others,--and certainly with more reason, considering the sex
of the Veiled Lady,--that the face was the most hideous and horrible,
and that this was her sole motive for hiding it. It was the face of
a corpse; it was the head of a skeleton; it was a monstrous visage,
with snaky locks, like Medusa's, and one great red eye in the centre
of the forehead. Again, it was affirmed that there was no single and
unchangeable set of features beneath the veil; but that whosoever
should be bold enough to lift it would behold the features of that
person, in all the world, who was destined to be his fate; perhaps he
would be greeted by the tender smile of the woman whom he loved, or,
quite as probably, the deadly scowl of his bitterest enemy would
throw a blight over his life. They quoted, moreover, this startling
explanation of the whole affair: that the magician who exhibited the
Veiled Lady--and who, by the bye, was the handsomest man in the whole
world--had bartered his own soul for seven years' possession of a
familiar fiend, and that the last year of the contract was wearing
towards its close.
If it were worth our while, I could keep you till an hour beyond
midnight listening to a thousand such absurdities as these. But
finally our friend Theodore, who prided himself upon his common-sense,
found the matter getting quite beyond his patience.
"I offer any wager you like," cried he, setting down his glass so
forcibly as to break the stem of it, "that this very evening I find
out the mystery of the Veiled Lady!"
Young men, I am told, boggle at nothing over their wine; so, after a
little more talk, a wager of considerable amount was actually laid,
the money staked, and Theodore left to choose his own method of
settling the dispute.
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