t wait at least till he is a widower," replied Jenkins calmly.
"And, in that case, you run the risk of having a long time to wait, for
his Levantine seems to enjoy excellent health."

Felicia Ruys turned pale.

"He is married?"

"Married? certainly, and father of a bevy of children. The whole camp of
them landed a couple of days ago."

For a minute she remained overwhelmed, looking into space, her cheeks
quivering. Opposite her, the Nabob's large face, with its flattened
nose, its sensual and weak mouth, spoke insistently of life and reality
in the gloss of its clay. She looked at it for an instant, then made a
step forward and, with a gesture of disgust, overturned, with the high
wooden stool on which it stood, the glistening and greasy block, which
fell on the floor shattered to a heap of mud.

JANSOULET AT HOME

Married he was and had been so for twelve years, but he had mentioned
the fact to no one among his Parisian acquaintances, through Eastern
habit, that silence which the people of those countries preserve upon
affairs of the harem. Suddenly it was reported that madame was coming,
that apartments were to be prepared for herself, her children, and her
female attendants. The Nabob took the whole second floor of the house
on the Place Vendome, the tenant of which was turned out at an expense
worthy of a Nabob. The stables also were extended, the staff doubled;
then, one day, coachmen and carriages went to the Gare de Lyon to meet
madame, who arrived by train heated expressly for her during the journey
from Marseilles and filled by a suite of negresses, serving-maids, and
little negro boys.

She arrived in a condition of frightful exhaustion, utterly worn out
and bewildered by her long railway journey, the first of her life, for,
after being taken to Tunis while still quite a child, she had never left
it. From her carriage, two negroes carried her into her apartments on an
easy chair which, subsequently, always remained downstairs beneath
the entrance porch, in readiness for these difficult removals. Mme.
Jansoulet could not mount the staircase, which made her dizzy; she
would not have lifts, which creaked under her weight; besides, she
never walked. Of enormous size, bloated to such a degree that it was
impossible to assign to her any particular age between twenty-five and
forty, with a rather pretty face but grown shapeless in its features,
dull eyes beneath lids that drooped, vulgarly dressed in fo