Now Clarence Massey and Dicky Wood were not Oriental enthusiasts. They had been educated up to toleration of Japanese screens, and to a soulless and calm admiration of the colours of Japanese plates. So much their girl cousins, their partners at balls had done for them; but they had soared no higher, and hanging lamps, unless of coloured glass profusely ornamented with beads, had little meaning for them. Yet there they stood spellbound, staring into the mysteriously obscure little Oriental warehouse, as if it had been an Aladdin’s palace of quaint splendours. For the little picture had human interest. A small lamp, not of ancient Asiatic, but of modern European pattern, was set on the narrow mantelpiece in a space cleared for it amid brass trays and Indian pottery, and by its light the young men could see, seated at a table close under the dismantled fireplace, a dark-faced man whose head was covered by a scarlet fez. Behind him stood a girl attractive enough to rivet the attention, not alone of a couple of susceptible young hussars, but of an army of veterans. From her head hung veil-fashion over her shoulders a long piece of thin, yellowish, undyed silk, kept in its place by a fillet of gold, from which dangled a row of tiny sequins that glittered and shone on the peeping fringe of black hair that overshadowed the upper part of a little face that looked dusky against the shining silk. A strip of gold-intersected gauze, worn as a yashmak, covered, but scarcely concealed her breast and the lower part of her young face, showing row upon row of many-coloured beads around her neck, and gleaming, regular teeth between open lips, that were, perhaps, somewhat too flexible and somewhat too full. She stood there motionless for a few moments, evidently unseen by the man at the table, and brimming over with hardly contained girlish merriment. The young men watched, fascinated, unwilling to acknowledge to themselves that this little scene, passing in what was after all a public shop crammed with wares piled high to attract all comers, was part of a strictly domestic drama into which it was not their business to pry. “Why doesn’t she look up? I can swear she has deuced fine eyes!” murmured Massey, who was getting much excited.