."

"May I ask why?"

"I am desirous of marrying his widow!"

"My dear Major, you cannot possibly be serious! A woman of that class?"

"Pardon me, sir, but you have, for all your cleverness, fallen a victim
to the prevailing error. The lady is in every way my social equal, in
her own country my superior. She _is_ a caliph's daughter. The title
which the playgoing public imagined was of the usual bombastic,
just-on-the-programme sort, is hers by right. Her late father, Caliph Al
Hamid Sulaiman, was one of the richest and most powerful Mohammedans in
existence. He died five months ago, leaving an immense fortune to be
conveyed to England to his exiled but forgiven child."

"Ah, I see. Then, naturally, of course----"

"The suggestion is unworthy of you, Mr. Narkom, and anything but
complimentary to me. The inheritance of this money has had nothing
whatever to do with my feeling for the lady. That began two years ago,
when, by accident, I was permitted to look upon her face for the first,
last, and only time. I should still wish to marry her if she were an
absolute pauper. I know what you are saying to yourself, sir: 'There is
no fool like an old fool.' Well, perhaps there isn't. But"--he turned to
Cleek--"I may as well begin at the beginning and confess that even if I
did not desire to marry the lady I should still have a deep interest in
her husband's death, Mr. Cleek. He is--or was, if dead--the only son of
my cousin, the Earl of Wynraven, who is now over ninety years of age. I
am in the direct line, and if this Lord Norman Ulchester, whom you and
the public know only as 'Zyco the Magician,' were in his grave there
would only be that one feeble old man between me and the title."

"Ah, I see!" said Cleek in reply; then, seating himself at the table, he
arranged the shade of the lamp so that the light fell full upon the
major's face while leaving his own in the shadow. "Then your interest in
the affair, Major, may be said to be a double one."

"More, sir, a triple one. I have a rival in the shape of my own son. He,
too, wishes to marry Zuilika, is madly enamoured of her; in fact, so
wildly that I have always hesitated to confess my own desires to him for
fear of the consequences. He is almost a madman in his outbursts of
temper; and where Zuilika is concerned---- Perhaps you will understand,
Mr. Cleek, when I tell you that once when he thought her husband had
ill-used her he came within an ace of killing the man. T