ned with chairs covered
with yellow rep, and begged to take a seat. In two minutes Mademoiselle
Verbena appeared, drying her eyes with a tiny pocket-handkerchief, and
forcing a little pathetic smile of welcome. Mr. Greyne clasped her hand
in silence. She sat down in a rep chair at his right, and they looked at
each other.

"_Mais, mon Dieu!_ How monsieur is changed!" cried the Levantine. "If
madame could see him! What has happened to monsieur?"

"Miss Verbena," replied Mr. Greyne, "I have seen the Ouled on the
heights."

A spasm crossed the Levantine's face. She put her handkerchief to it for
a moment. "What is an Ouled?" she inquired, withdrawing it.

"I dare not tell you," he replied solemnly.

"But indeed I wish to know, so that I may sympathise with monsieur."

Mr. Greyne hesitated, but his heart was full; he felt the need of
sympathy. He looked at Mademoiselle Verbena, and a great longing to
unburden himself overcame him.

"An Ouled," he replied, "is a dancing-girl from the desert of Sahara."

"_Mon Dieu!_ How does she dance? Is it a valse, a polka, a quadrille?"
"No. Would that it were!" And Mr. Greyne, unable further to govern
his desire for full expression, gave Mademoiselle Verbena a slightly
Bowdlerised description of the dances of the desert. She heard him with
amazement.

"How terrible!" she exclaimed when he had finished. "And does one pay
much to see such steps of the Evil One?"

"I gave her twenty pounds. Abdallah Jack----"

"Abdallah Jack?"

"My guide informed me that was the price. He tells me it is against
the law, and that each time an Ouled dances she risks being thrown into
prison."

"Poor lady! How sad to have to earn one's bread by such devices, instead
of by teaching to the sweet little ones of monsieur the sympathetic
grammar of one's native country."

Mr. Greyne was touched to the quick by this allusion, which brought, as
in a vision, the happy home in Belgrave Square before him.

"You are an angel!" he exclaimed.

Mademoiselle Verbena shook her head.

"And this poor Ouled, you will go to her again?

"Yes. It seems that she is in communication with all the--the--well,
all the odd people of Algiers, and that one can only get at them through
her."

"Indeed?"

"Abdallah Jack tells me that while I am here I should pay her a weekly
salary, and that, in return, I shall see all the terrible ceremonies of
the Arabs. I have decided to do so------

"Ah, you have decided!"