ered with gold, from which escaped her heavy long black hair, all
entangled round her moon-shaped face, flushed from her recent meal. The
sleeves of her _djebba_ pushed back showed two enormous shapeless arms,
loaded with bracelets, with long chains wandering through a heap of
little mirrors, of red beads, of scent-boxes, of microscopic pipes, of
cigarette cases--the childish toyshop collection of a Moorish woman at
her rising.

The room, filled with the heavy opium-scented smoke of Turkish tobacco,
was in similar disorder. Negresses went and came, slowly removing their
mistress's coffee, the favourite gazelle was licking the dregs of a cup
which its delicate muzzle had overturned on the carpet, while seated at
the foot of the bed with a touching familiarity, the melancholy Cabassu
was reading aloud to madame a drama in verse which Cardailhac was
shortly going to produce. The Levantine was stupefied with this reading,
absolutely astounded.

"My dear," said she to Jansoulet, in her thick Flemish accent, "I don't
know what our manager is thinking of. I am just reading this _Revolt_,
which he is so mad about. But it is impossible. There is nothing
dramatic about it."

"Don't talk to me of the theatre," said Jansoulet, furious, in spite of
his respect for the daughter of the Afchins. "What, you are not dressed
yet? Weren't you told that we were going out?"

They had told her, but she had begun to read this stupid piece. And with
her sleepy air:

"We will go out to-morrow."

"To-morrow! Impossible. We are expected to-day. A most important visit."

"But where?"

He hesitated a second.

"To Hemerlingue's."

She raised her great eyes, thinking he was making game of her. Then he
told her of his meeting with the baron at the funeral of de Mora and the
understanding they had come to.

"Go there, if you like," said she coldly. "But you little know me if you
believe that I, an Afchin, will ever set foot in that slave's house."

Cabassu, prudently seeing what was likely to happen, had fled into a
neighbouring room, carrying with him the five acts of _The Revolt_ under
his arm.

"Come," said the Nabob to his wife, "I see that you do not know the
terrible position I am in. Listen."

Without thinking of the maids or the negresses, with the sovereign
indifference of an Oriental for his household, he proceeded to picture
his great distress, his fortune sequestered over seas, his credit
destroyed over here, his whole car