nce at me, and became docile as suddenly as she had grown
passionate. I turned to Judith.

"Will you ever forgive me--" I began.

But the sight of her face froze me. It was white and hard and haggard,
and the lips were drawn into a thin line, and the delicate colour she
had put upon her cheeks stood out in ghastly contrast. Her dress, like
the foam of a summer sea, mocked the winter in her face.

"There is nothing to forgive," she said, smiling icily. "I came for
a variety entertainment and I have not been disappointed. Good-bye.
Perhaps Mr. Pasquale will be so kind as to put me into a cab."

"I will drive you home, if you will allow me," said Pasquale.

We separated, shaking hands as if nothing had happened, as perfunctorily
as if we had been the most distant of acquaintances.

On our way back we spoke very little. Carlotta nestled close against
me, seeking the shelter of my arm. She cried, I don't know why, but it
seemed to afford comfort. I kissed her lips and her hair.

At home, I drew the sofa near the fire--it has been a raw night and she
feels the cold like a tropical plant--and sat down by her side.

"Did you hear what I said to Hamdi Effendi--that you were my wife?"

"But that was only a lie," she answered in her plain idiom.

My petting and soothing together with the sense of home security and a
cup of French chocolate prepared by Antoinette, who, astonished at our
early return and seeing her darling in distress, had hastened to provide
culinary consolation, had restored her wonted serenity of demeanour.
Polyphemus also purred reassuringly upon her lap.

"It was a lie this evening," said I, "but in a few days I hope it will
be true."

"You are going to marry me?" she asked, suddenly sitting erect and
looking at me rather bewildered.

"If you will have me, Carlotta."

"I will do what Seer Marcous tells me," she answered. "Will you marry me
to-morrow?"

"I think it hardly possible, my dear," I answered. "But I shall lose no
time, I assure you. Once you are my wife neither Hamdi Effendi nor the
Sultan of Turkey can claim you. No one can take an Englishman's wife
away from him."

"Hamdi is a devil," said Carlotta.

"We can laugh at him," said I.

"Did you ever see such an ugly mug?"

Where she gets her occasional bits of slang from I do not know; but her
little foreign staccato pronunciation gives them unusual quaintness. I
laughed, and Carlotta, throwing Polyphemus off her lap, laughed too,