Dr Porhoët smiled.
'I venture to think that no private library contains so complete a
collection, but I dare not show it to you in the presence of our friend
Arthur. He is too polite to accuse me of foolishness, but his sarcastic
smile would betray him.'
Susie went to the shelves to which he vaguely waved, and looked
with a peculiar excitement at the mysterious array. She ran her eyes
along the names. It seemed to her that she was entering upon an
unknown region of romance. She felt like an adventurous princess
who rode on her palfrey into a forest of great bare trees and mystic
silences, where wan, unearthly shapes pressed upon her way.
'I thought once of writing a life of that fantastic and grandiloquent
creature, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombast von
Hohenheim,' said Dr Porhoët, 'and I have collected many of his
books.'
He took down a slim volume in duodecimo, printed in the
seventeenth century, with queer plates, on which were all manner of
cabbalistic signs. The pages had a peculiar, musty odour. They were
stained with iron-mould.
'Here is one of the most interesting works concerning the black art.
It is the
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