e, whose hospitality you will enjoy this night,
lives some way up this narrow, insalubrious street, and he has bidden me
to escort you to his house."

Silently, and with a great show of passive obedience, Gilda made ready
to step out of the sledge.

"Come, Maria," she said curtly.

"The road is very slippery, mejuffrouw," he added warningly, "will you
not permit me--for your own convenience' sake--to carry you as far as
Ben Isaje's door?"

"It would not be for my convenience, sir," she retorted haughtily, "an
you are so chivalrously inclined perhaps you would kindly convey my
waiting woman thither in your arms."

"At your service, mejuffrouw," he said with imperturbable good temper.

And without more ado, despite her screams and her struggles, he seized
Maria round her ample waist and round her struggling knees at the moment
that she was stepping out of the sledge in the wake of her mistress.

The lamp outside the hostel at the corner illumined for a moment
Gilda's pale, wearied face, and Diogenes saw that she was trying her
best to suppress an insistent outburst of laughter.

"Hey there!" he shouted, "Pythagoras, Socrates, follow the jongejuffrouw
at a respectful distance and see that no harm come to her while I lead
the way with this featherweight in my arms."

Nor did he deposit Maria to the ground until he reached the door of Ben
Isaje's house; here, when the mevrouw began to belabour him with her
tongue and with her fists, he turned appealingly to Gilda:

"Mejuffrouw," he said merrily, "is this abuse not unmerited? I did but
obey your behests and see how I must suffer for mine obedience."

But Gilda vouchsafed him no reply, and in the darkness he could not see
if her face looked angered or smiling.

Ben Isaje, hearing the noise that went on outside his house, had already
hastened to open the door. He welcomed the jongejuffrouw with obsequious
bows. Behind him in the dark passage stood a lean and towzled-looking
serving woman of uncertain years who was as obsequious as her master.
When Gilda, confused and wearied, and mayhap not a little tired,
advanced timorously into the narrow passage, the woman rushed up to her,
and almost kneeling on the floor in the lowliness of her attitude, she
kissed the jongejuffrouw's hand.

Diogenes saw nothing more of Gilda and Maria after that. They vanished
into the gloom up the ladder-like staircase, preceded by the towzled but
amiable woman, who by her talk and clumsy