an-shaven face
and typically British air, in this setting of Eastern voluptuousness.

The dusky servitor drew back a curtain and waved him to enter, bowing
low as the visitor passed. Cairn found himself in Antony Ferrara's
study. A huge fire was blazing in the grate, rendering the heat of the
study almost insufferable.

It was, he perceived, an elaborated copy of Ferrara's room at Oxford;
infinitely more spacious, of course, and by reason of the rugs,
cushions and carpets with which its floor was strewn, suggestive of
great opulence. But the littered table was there, with its nameless
instruments and its extraordinary silver lamp; the mummies were there;
the antique volumes, rolls of papyrus, preserved snakes and cats and
ibises, statuettes of Isis, Osiris and other Nile deities were there;
the many photographs of women, too (Cairn had dubbed it at Oxford "the
zenana"); above all, there was Antony Ferrara.

He wore the silver-grey dressing-gown trimmed with white swansdown in
which Cairn had seen him before. His statuesque ivory face was set in
a smile, which yet was no smile of welcome; the over-red lips smiled
alone; the long, glittering dark eyes were joyless; almost, beneath
the straightly-pencilled brows, sinister. Save for the short,
lustreless hair it was the face of a handsome, evil woman.

"My dear Cairn--what a welcome interruption. How good of you!"

There was strange music in his husky tones. He spoke unemotionally,
falsely, but Cairn could not deny the charm of that unique voice. It
was possible to understand how women--some women--would be as clay in
the hands of the man who had such a voice as that.

His visitor nodded shortly. Cairn was a poor actor; already his _role_
was oppressing him. Whilst Ferrara was speaking one found a sort of
fascination in listening, but when he was silent he repelled. Ferrara
may have been conscious of this, for he spoke much, and well.

"You have made yourself jolly comfortable," said Cairn.

"Why not, my dear Cairn? Every man has within him something of the
Sybarite. Why crush a propensity so delightful? The Spartan philosophy
is palpably absurd; it is that of one who finds himself in a garden
filled with roses and who holds his nostrils; who perceives there
shady bowers, but chooses to burn in the sun; who, ignoring the choice
fruits which tempt his hand and court his palate, stoops to pluck
bitter herbs from the wayside!"

"I see!" snapped Cairn. "Aren't you thi