the events of the past two hours had been phantasmal.
He would presently return to sanity (or, blasphemously, he dared to
petition heaven that he would) and find himself...? Perhaps in the hands
of the police!

"Oh, God!" he groaned--"Oh, God!"

He opened his eyes...

A woman stood before the sandalwood screen! She had the pallidly dusky
skin of a Eurasian, but, by virtue of nature or artifice, her cheeks
wore a peachlike bloom. Her features were flawless in their chiseling,
save for the slightly distended nostrils, and her black eyes were
magnificent.

She was divinely petite, slender and girlish; but there was that in
the lines of her figure, so seductively defined by her clinging Chinese
dress, in the poise of her small head, with the blush rose nestling
amid the black hair--above all in the smile of her full red lips--which
discounted the youth of her body; which whispered "Mine is a soul old
in strange sins--a soul for whom dead Alexandria had no secrets, that
learnt nothing of Athenean Thais and might have tutored Messalina"...

In her fanciful robe of old gold, with her tiny feet shod in
ridiculously small, gilt slippers, she stood by the screen watching
the stupefied man--an exquisite, fragrantly youthful casket of ancient,
unnameable evils.

"Good evening, Soames!" she said, stumbling quaintly with her English,
but speaking in a voice musical as a silver bell. "You will here be
known as Lucas. Mr. King he wishing me to say that you to receive two
pounds, at each week."...

Soames, glassy-eyed, stood watching her. A horror, the horror of
insanity, had descended upon him--a clammy, rose-scented mantle. The
room, the incredible, book-lined room, was a red blur, surrounding the
black, taunting eyes of the Eurasian. Everything was out of focus; past,
present, and future were merged into a red, rose-haunted nothingness...

"You will attend to Block A," resumed the girl, pointing at him with a
little fan. "You will also attend to the gentlemen."...

She laughed softly, revealing tiny white teeth; then paused, head tilted
coquettishly, and appeared to be listening to someone's conversation--to
the words of some person seated behind the screen. This fact broke in
upon Soames' disordered mind and confirmed him in his opinion that he
was a man demented. For only one slight sound broke the silence of the
room. The red carpet below the little tables was littered with
rose petals, and, in the super-heated atmosphe