breakfast, which was served on a
marble loggia; and by half-past nine Stephen and Nevill were out in the
wide, tree-shaded streets, where masses of bougainvillaea and clematis
boiled over high garden-walls of old plaster, once white, now streaked
with gold and rose, and green moss and lichen. After the thunderstorm of
the day before, the white dust was laid, and the air was pure with a
curious sparkling quality.

They passed the museum in its garden, and turned a corner.

"There's Mademoiselle Soubise's shop," said Nevill.

It was a low white building, and had evidently been a private house at
one time. The only change made had been in the shape and size of the
windows on the ground-floor; and these were protected by green
_persiennes_, fanned out like awnings, although the house was shaded by
magnolia trees. There was no name over the open door, but the word
"_Antiquites_" was painted in large black letters on the house-wall.

Under the green blinds was a glitter of jewels displayed among brocades
and a tangle of old lace, or on embossed silver trays; and walking in at
the door, out of the shadowy dusk, a blaze of colour leaped to the eyes.
Not a soul was there, unless some one hid and spied behind a carved and
gilded Tunisian bed or a marqueterie screen from Bagdad. Yet there was a
collection to tempt a thief, and apparently no precaution taken against
invaders.

Delicate rugs, soft as clouds and tinted like opals, were heaped in
piles on the tiled floor; rugs from Ispahan, rugs from Mecca; old rugs
from the sacred city of Kairouan, such as are made no more there or
anywhere. The walls were hung with Tunisian silks and embroidered stuffs
from the homes of Jewish families, where they had served as screens for
talismanic words too sacred to be seen by common eyes; and there was
drapery of ancient banners, Tyrian-dyed, whose gold or silver fringes
had been stained with blood, in battle. From the ceiling were suspended
antique lamps, and chandeliers of rare rock crystal, whose prisms gave
out rose and violet sparks as they caught the light.

On shelves and inlaid tables were beggars' bowls of strange dark woods,
carried across deserts by wandering mendicants of centuries ago, the
chains, which had hung from throats long since crumbled into dust,
adorned with lucky rings and fetishes to preserve the wearer from evil
spirits. There were other bowls, of crystal pure as full-blown bubbles,
bowls which would ring at a t