Unfortunately, the painter's very good friend, Denzil Murray, also becomes inspired with a passion for Ziska, and the lad's temper is roused when Armand openly admits that his intentions with regard to the Princess are strictly dishonorable. Murray suggests that it were well Ziska should know this, but Armand laughs at the other's idea that the bringing of such tidings to Ziska's ears would lower him one jot in that lovely lady's estimation:
"My good boy, do you not know that there is
something very marvelous in the attraction we call
love? It is a preordained destiny,—and if one soul
is so constituted that it must meet and mix with
another, nothing can hinder the operation. So that,
believe me, I am quite indifferent as to what you
say of me to Madame la Princesse or to any one
else. It will not be for either my looks or my character
that she will love me, if, indeed, she ever does
love me; it will be for something indistinct, indefinable,
but resistless in us both, which no one
on earth can explain."
The hot-headed young Highlander, however,
will not be put off with any such reasoning, and
the rivalry might have resulted awkwardly at an
early date of its upspringing had not Armand
steadfastly refused to quarrel.
There is one person at the hotel who makes a shrewd guess at the spiritual identity of both Ziska
