d a descending curve ending in
absolute passivity. The floor had seemingly begun to revolve and was
moving insidiously, so that the pattern of the carpet formed a series
of concentric rings. She found this imaginary phenomenon to be soothing
rather than otherwise, and resigned herself almost eagerly to the
delusion.

Mrs. Sin allowed her to fall back upon the cushions--so gently and so
slowly that the operation appeared to occupy several minutes and to
resemble that of sinking into innumerable layers of swansdown. The
sinuous figure bending over her grew taller with the passage of each
minute, until the dark eyes of Mrs. Sin were looking down at Rita from
a dizzy elevation. As often occurs in the case of a neurotic subject,
delusion as to time and space had followed the depression of the sensory
cells.

But surely, she mused, this could not be Mrs. Sin who towered so loftily
above her. Of course, how absurd to imagine that a woman could remain
motionless for so many hours. And Rita thought, now, that she had been
lying for several hours beneath the shadow of that tall, graceful, and
protective shape.

Why--it was a slender palm-tree, which stretched its fanlike foliage
over her! Far, far above her head the long, dusty green fronds projected
from the mast-like trunk. The sun, a ball of fiery brass, burned
directly in the zenith, so that the shadow of the foliage lay like a
carpet about her feet. That which she had mistaken for the ever-receding
eyes of Mrs. Sin, wondering with a delightful vagueness why they seemed
constantly to change color, proved to be a pair of brilliantly plumaged
parrakeets perched upon a lofty branch of the palm.

This was an equatorial noon, and even if she had not found herself to
be under the influence of a delicious abstraction Rita would not
have moved; for, excepting the friendly palm, not another vestige of
vegetation was visible right away to the horizon; nothing but an ocean
of sand whereon no living thing moved. She and the parrakeets were alone
in the heart of the Great Sahara.

But stay! Many, many miles away, a speck on the dusty carpet of the
desert, something moved! Hours must elapse before that tiny figure,
provided it were approaching, could reach the solitary palm.
Delightedly, Rita contemplated the infinity of time. Even if the figure
moved ever so slowly, she should be waiting there beneath the palm to
witness its arrival. Already, she had been there for a period which sh