He opened it smiling, and showed me the contents. I had fraudulently brought in a bag of uncut rubies. I treated the Roumanian as a cheat and told him that if he did not make the matter right with the customs I should hand him over to the authorities. Smiling all the while he promised that, since I took the affair to heart, he would go and make his peace, and he left. I never saw him or his rubies again, it is needless to say. I believe that from this time forward they have been seeking me in vain to charge me with smuggling a package through the customs-house. XXII GAB For eight years Gab and I have lived together on terms of the greatest intimacy, like two sisters. Gab is much younger than I and regards me with deep affection. Often I look at her curiously. She seems to read what is in my face and replies to my mute interrogation. “You cannot understand me. You are Saxon and I am Latin.” When I survey her I find myself thinking as she thinks, and I wonder if there exists a way of comprehending that we Anglo-Saxons do not possess. Gab is deeply serious. She has long, black eyes which seem to slumber perpetually. When she walks, despite her youth, she proceeds with slow and protracted steps, which give you an impression that she must be of a serious and meditative nature. When I became acquainted with her she was living in a dark little apartment, furnished in Hindu style, where in her black velvet costume she looked like some Byzantine princess. Jean Aicard, the poet, said one day that her voice is of velvet, her skin and locks are of velvet, her eyes are of velvet and her name ought to be _Velours_. If one could compare her to a living creature a boa constrictor would be most appropriate, for her movements are like those of a snake. There is nothing sinuous, nothing rampant about them, but the _ensemble_ of her motions suggests the suppleness of the young adder. I knew Gab for at least two years before it entered into my head that she was fond of me. She was always so calm, so silent, so undemonstrative, so unlike any other human being that only a supernatural personality, it seemed, would ever be able to understand her. Her eyes and her hair are just alike, deep black and very brilliant. In her presence people never know for certain whether she is looking at them or not. Yet nothing about them escapes her, and through her half-closed eyes she penetrates to the very depths of their souls. She is neither tall nor slight, neither plump nor thin. Her skin is like alabaster, her abundant locks are parted in the middle and brought together in a knot behind the head, just as our grandmothers did their hair. Her teeth are small, regular and white as pearls. Her nose is straight and graceful. Her face is full and her head is so large that she never finds quite hair enough to dress it with.