know," murmured Kilfane, "old Sin Sin has his uses, Lola. Those
doors are perfectly made."

"Pooh!" scoffed the woman, with a flash of her dark eyes; "he is half a
ship's carpenter and half an ape!"

She moved along the passage, her arm linked in that of Sir Lucien. The
others followed, and:

"Is she truly married to that dreadful Chinaman?" whispered Mollie
Gretna.

"Yes, I believe so," murmured Kilfane. "She is known as Mrs. Sin Sin
Wa."

"Oh!" Mollie's eyes opened widely. "I almost envy her! I have read that
Chinamen tie their wives to beams in the roof and lash them with leather
thongs until they swoon. I could die for a man who lashed me with
leather thongs. Englishmen are so ridiculously gentle to women."

Opening a door on the left of the corridor, Mrs. Sin displayed a room
screened off into three sections. One shaded lamp high up near the
ceiling served to light all the cubicles, which were heated by small
charcoal stoves. These cubicles were identical in shape and appointment,
each being draped with quaint Chinese tapestry and containing rugs, a
silken divan, an armchair, and a low, Eastern table.

"Choose for yourself," said Mrs. Sin, turning to Rita and Mollie Gretna.
"Nobody else come tonight. You two in this room, eh? Next door each
other for company."

She withdrew, leaving the two girls together. Mollie clasped her hands
ecstatically.

"Oh, my dear!" she said. "What do you think of it all?"

"Well," confessed Rita, looking about her, "personally I feel rather
nervous."

"My dear!" cried Mollie. "I am simply quivering with delicious terror!"

Rita became silent again, looking about her, and listening. The harsh
voice of the Cuban-Jewess could be heard from a neighboring room, but
otherwise a perfect stillness reigned in the house of Sin Sin Wa. She
remembered that Mrs. Sin had said, "It is quiet--so quiet."

"The idea of undressing and reclining on these divans in real oriental
fashion," declared Mollie, giggling, "makes me feel that I am an
odalisque already. I have dreamed that I was an odalisque, dear--after
smoking, you know. It was heavenly. At least, I don't know that
'heavenly' is quite the right word."

And now that evil spirit of abandonment came to Rita--communicated to
her, possibly, by her companion. Dread, together with a certain sense
of moral reluctance, departed, and she began to enjoy the adventure at
last. It was as though something in the faintly perfumed atmosphere of