"Assuredly no, madame. These are English milords from Marseilles. The Riviera season has been a failure: the mistral blows eternally. Therefore the party abandons Cannes and telegraphs for apartments at the Hôtel Magnifique." "Are they from London? Possibly I may be acquainted with some of them. What are their names?" Thémistocle would inquire. He departed amid a whirlwind of bows, leaving Mrs Carfrae to continue her _déjeûner_ in the sunny verandah of her sitting-room. She came to Algiers every spring, and she came unattended save for a grim-faced Scottish maid of her own age. It was Mrs Carfrae's habit to assume that she and her wheeled chair were a drag upon the world; and she systematically declined invitations to join friends upon the Riviera. People, she explained, who would otherwise have been playing tennis at the Beau Site or roulette at the Casino would feel bound to relinquish these pursuits and entertain her. So she came to Algiers by herself, this proud, lonely old lady. "Carthew?" she mused. "That is the name of Johnny Carr's familiar spirit. And that letter was in Johnny's handwriting. Well, Thémistocle, who are--stand _still_, man!" Thémistocle reluctantly curtailed an elaborate obeisance, and came to attention. The leader of the expedition, he announced, was Milord the Right Hon. Sir Hilton Bart., with Milady Hilton Bart. The names of the other guests were not known, but there were eleven of them. They arrived on the steamer that afternoon, and drove in an imposing procession up the long and dusty hill that leads to Mustapha Supérieur, leaving Algiers--that curious combination of Mauretanian antiquity and second-rate French provincialism--baking peacefully in the hot sunshine below. As Thémistocle had predicted, they came unshepherded by the good Mr Cook. They were of the breed and caste that has always found its own way about the world. There was Sir Arthur Hilton, a slow-moving Briton of few words, with a pretty wife of complementary volubility. There were one or two soldiers on leave; there was a Cambridge don; there were three grass widows. There were two newly emancipated schoolgirls, gobbling life in indigestible but heavenly lumps. There was a tall and beautiful damosel, with a demeanour which her admirers--and they were many--described as regal, and which her detractors--and their name was legion--described as affected; and whom her chaperon, Lady Hilton, addressed as "Nina, dearest." And there was a squarely built, freckle-faced young man with whom we are already acquainted. His name was Jim Carthew.