her little hands, in their
white kid gloves, and threw down a shower of roses. The falling flowers
frightened the horses. They pranced, bucked, reared. One Spahi--a great
fellow, eyes like a desert eagle, grand aquiline profile--on whom three
roses had dropped, looked up, saw mademoiselle--call her Valerie--gazing
down with her great, bright eyes--they were deuced fine eyes, by
Jove!----"

"You've seen her?" I asked.

"--and flashed a smile at her with his white teeth. It was his last day
in the service. He was in grand spirits. 'Mem Dieu! Mais quelles dents!'
she sang out. Her people laughed at her. The Spahi looked at her again--
not smiling. She shrank back on the balcony. Then his place was taken by
the Governor--small imperial, _chapeau de forme_, evening dress, landau
and pair. Mademoiselle was _desolee_. Why couldn't civilised men look
like Spahis? Why were all Parisians commonplace? Why--why? Her sister
and brother-in-law called her the savage worshipper, and took her down
to the cafe on the terrace to dine. And all through dinner mademoiselle
talked of the _beaux_ Spahis--in the plural, with a secret reservation
in her heart. After Algiers our Parisians went by way of Constantine to
Biskra. Now they saw desert for the first time--the curious iron-grey,
velvety-brown, and rose-pink mountains; the nomadic Arabs camping in
their earth-coloured tents patched with rags; the camels against the
skyline; the everlasting sands, broken here and there by the deep green
shadows of distant oases, where the close-growing palms, seen from far
off, give to the desert almost the effect that clouds give to Cornish
waters. At Biskra mademoiselle--oh! what she must have looked like under
the mimosa-trees before the Hotel de l'Oasis!------"

"Then you've seen her," I began.

"--mademoiselle became enthusiastic again, and, almost before they knew
it, her sister and brother-in-law were committed to a desert expedition,
were fitted out with a dragoman, tents, mules--the whole show, in
fact--and one blazing hot day found themselves out in that sunshine--you
know it--with Biskra a green shadow on that sea, the mountains behind
the sulphur springs turning from bronze to black-brown in the distance,
and the table flatness of the desert stretching ahead of them to the
limits of the world and the judgment day."

My companion paused, took a flaming reed from the fire, put it to his
pipe bowl, pulled hard at his pipe--all the time starin