George Lauriston hesitated. If he had foreseen in continuing this acquaintance merely a flirtation with a pretty and somewhat forward girl, all his ascetic principles and resolutions would have had to give way under the strong admiration she had excited in him. But the strange circumstances of his first meeting with her which, though they had been thrust into the background of his mind by the absorbing interest of his deep-seated ambition, now again appealed to his imagination with great force; the advice of the old doctor, and perhaps a suggestion of that sacred instinct which the lower animals listen to and live by, all tended to warn him from a danger more than ephemeral, and at the same time to throw over the acquaintance an extraordinary glamour of romantic attraction. The girl apparently guessed his reluctance, which she was not without means to overcome. Advancing a step further in the doorway, and leaning forward so that her slight grey-and-green-clad figure was visible almost to the waist, she pointed to her left arm, which hung in a picturesque sling of soft orange Indian silk. This gesture was irresistible. He felt that it justified his immediate and hasty return. How could he excuse his boorish conduct in not calling before to ask after the little arm that had been injured through him? The lady, however, was in forgiving mood. She drew back into the doorway as soon as she saw that her end was gained, and when he reached it she was leaning against the old carved oak banisters, waiting for him, all smiles and laughter. “Yes, come in,” she whispered, putting her finger to her lips and glancing at the inner door on her right hand. Again Lauriston thought reluctantly of the _Arabian Nights_, and the lady kept in a cage by the tyrannical genie, but it was too late to retreat now, even if he could have found strength to resist the spell of the dancing eyes, or the dumb eloquence of the wounded arm. She sprang forward as soon as he had entered and shut the door softly. It was cool in the bare hall after the heat of the streets. The girl’s dress was a simple robe of silk, with lights and shades of grey changing into green, made something after the fashion of the so-called æsthetic gowns he had aforetime abhorred, but falling in straight crisp folds instead of clinging to her like damp rags, as did the garments of crumpled South Kensington devotees a few years ago. She mounted two steps and turned, holding the banister-rail and leaning on it. “I thought you would have come before,” she said with a first touch of shyness, looking down upon her hand with a most coquettish air of being quite ready to look up again if she were invited to do so. “I didn’t dare,” said Lauriston at the foot of the stairs, “I was so ashamed of the mischief I had done.” “You might have called to ask if I had got better.” “What would Mr. Rahas have said?”