has told me a thousand things
about Algeria, his life in the army, his family. But what interests
me--us--is that he knows of a villa to be let by the year,
Djenan-el-Maqui. It is old but in good repair, pure Arab in style, so
he says, and only eighty pounds a year. Of course it is quite small. But
there is a garden. And it is only some ten or twelve minutes from here
in the best part of Mustapha Inferieur. Shall we go and look at it now?"

"Isn't it rather late?"

"Then to-morrow," she said quickly.

"Yes, let us go to-morrow."

Djenan-el-Maqui proved to be suited to the needs of Charmian and Claude,
and it charmed them both by its strangeness and beauty. It lay off the
high road, to the left of the Boulevard Brou, a little way down the
hill; and though there were many villas near it, and from its garden one
could look over the town, and see cavalry exercising on the Champs de
Manoeuvres, which shows like a great brown wound in the fairness of
the city, it suggested secrecy, retirement, and peace, as only old
Oriental houses can. Around it was a high white wall, above which the
white flat-roofed house showed itself, its serene line broken by two
tiny white cupolas and by one upstanding and lonely chamber built on the
roof. On passing through a doorway, which was closed by a strong wooden
door, the Heaths found themselves in a small paved courtyard, which was
roofed with bougainvillea, and provided with stone benches and a small
stone table. The sun seemed to drip through the interstices of the
bright-colored ceiling and made warm patches on the worn gray stone. The
house, with its thick white walls, and windows protected by grilles,
confronted them, holding its many secrets.

"We must have it, Claude," Charmian almost whispered.

"But we haven't even seen it!" he retorted, smiling.

"I know it will do."

She was right. Soon Claude loved it even more than she did; loved its
mysterious pillared drawing-room with the small white arches, the
faint-colored and ancient Moorish tiles, the divans strewn with
multi-colored cushions, the cabinets and tables of lacquer work, and the
low-set windows about which the orange-hued venusta hung; the gallery
running right round it from which the few small bedrooms opened by low
black doors; the many nooks and recesses where, always against a
background of colored tiles, more divans and tiny coffee tables
suggested repose and the quiet of dreaming. He delighted in the coolness