She appeared in the doorway of the living room wearing a white burnoose, her pale brown hair caught up in a loose knot, her feet thrust into yellow Moorish slippers much too large for her. In the thin morning sunlight Lawrence, dressed for his journey, was locking a metal trunk. Lilla sat down and fixed her eyes on the clock. The furniture of the living room, gathered from various parts of the Mohammedan world, was carved and inlaid. In the corners long-barreled muskets, with stocks of mother of pearl, flanked cabinets full of brittle copies of the Koran, witch doctors' switches, and outlandish fetishes. Above these objects there dangled from the molding the cagelike silver head armor of the Wadai cavalry horses, the tassels of Algerian marriage palanquins, oval shields of bullock-hide and bucklers of hammered brass, crude drums and harps from Uganda. On the four walls, against pieces of reddish bark cloth, gleamed savage weapons arranged in circular trophies--the war spears of the Wanandi, the swords of the Masai, the bows and poisoned arrows of the Wakamba, besides jeweled yataghans, scimitars with gilded hilts, and damascened pistols. Over the bookcases--which were crammed full of heavy volumes, portfolios, and maps--appeared framed photographs; among the likenesses of Europeans in duck tunics one saw the visages of Egyptians, Persians, and Arabs, or some ghastly black apparition daubed with white paint and crowned with a shako of squirrel fur and plumes. In the air there was a faint odor of skins, dried herbs, sandalwood, and camphor. But on the center table, in a large African gourd that had been polished till it looked like porcelain, stood the little bouquet that some one had presented to her at the restaurant. These flowers, because neither he nor she had thought to give them water, were already faded. "Have you telephoned to the Brassfields?" "Yes," she said, with a wan smile, "and caused quite a sensation." A small, wiry, middle-aged man, with an honest, lantern-jawed face, entered the living room bearing a breakfast tray. After one glance, keeping his eyes cast down, he bowed respectfully. He was Parr, Lawrence Teck's valet in America and right-hand man in Africa. With her head bent forward, she stared at some petals that had fallen from the gourd. Her neck rose from the white burnoose in a curve of the palest amber; her delicate lips were parted; her loosened tresses were filled with the feeble sunshine. She seemed to symbolize quiet. But when the telephone bell rang she started violently. It was a call from Long Island, where Aunt Althea Balbian was summering. The servants had learned of Lilla's whereabouts from the Brassfields. Aunt Althea had fallen seriously ill in the night. Parr showed his downcast eyelids and lantern jaws in the doorway. "A maid is here from madam's house downtown with a steamer trunk and three suitcases." "Tell her to take them back," Lilla said in a muffled voice.