out Fatime suggested reservations," he remarked. "I
wonder why? I have a good many curios in the room, and some rather
wonderful prints, but it was Fatime who held you while you waited.
Yet you are not one of those, I should imagine," he added, blowing
out a cloud of cigarette smoke, "to whom the call of sex is
irresistible."

Arnold shook his head.

"No, I don't think so," he admitted simply. "To tell you the truth,
I think that it was the actual presence of the picture here, rather
than its suggestions, which interested me most. Your room is so
masculine," Arnold added, glancing around. "It breathes of war and
sport and the collector. And then, in the middle of it all, this
girl, with her barely veiled limbs and lascivious eyes. There is
something a little brutal about the treatment, don't you think?"

Sabatini shrugged his shoulders.

"The lady is too well known," remarked Sabatini, shrugging his
shoulders. "A single touch of the ideal and the greatness of that
picture would be lost. Greve was too great an artist to try for it."

"Nevertheless," Arnold persisted, "she disturbs the serenity of your
room."

Sabatini threw away his cigarette and passed his arm through his
companion's.

"It is as well always to be reminded that life is many-sided," he
murmured. "You will not mind a _tete-a-tete_ dinner?"

Some curtains of dark green brocaded material had been silently
drawn aside, and they passed into a smaller apartment, of which the
coloring and style of decoration was the same. A round table, before
which stood two high-backed, black oak chairs, and which was lit
with softly-shaded candles, stood in the middle of the room. It was
very simply set out, but the two wine-glasses were richly cut in
quaint fashion, and the bowl of violets was of old yellow Sevres.
Arnold sat opposite his host and realized how completely the man
seemed to fit in with his surroundings. In Mrs. Weatherley's
drawing-room there had been a note of incongruity. Here he seemed so
thoroughly in accord with the air of masculine and cultivated
refinement which dominated the atmosphere. He carried himself with
the ease and dignity to which his race entitled him, but, apart from
that, his manner had qualities which Arnold found particularly
attractive. His manicured nails, his spotless linen, his links and
waistcoat buttons,--cut from some quaint stone,--the slight
affectations of his dress, the unusual manner of brushing back his
hair and a