There is a maxim in the East--"Avoid the veil"; and to this hitherto I had paid the strictest attention. Soft glances from _harêm_ windows usually leave me cold. But the presence of an armlet finer than anything in the Treasure of Zagazig placed a new complexion upon this affair, and the connoisseur within me took the matter out of my hands. Across the intervening patch of darkness our glances met; the girl's dark lashes were lowered demurely, then raised again, and the boldness of my unfaltering gaze was rewarded by a smile. Thus encouraged:-- "O daughter of the moon," I whispered fancifully in Arabic, "condescend to speak to one whom the sight of thy beauty hath enslaved." "I fear to be discovered, Inglîsi," came the soft reply; "or willingly would I converse with thee, for I am lonely and wretched." She sighed again and directed upon me a glance that was less wretched than roguish. Evidently the adventure was much to her liking. "Let me solace your loneliness," I replied; "for assuredly we can conceive some plan of meeting." She lowered her eyes at that, and seemed to hesitate; then-- "In the roof of your house," she whispered, often glancing over her shoulder into the room beyond, "is a trap--which is bolted...." Footsteps sounded in the lane beneath--whereat the vision at the window vanished and the lattice was closed; but not before the girl had intimated by a gesture that I was to remain. Discreetly withdrawing into my dusty apartment, I endeavored to make out the form of the intruder who now was passing underneath the window; but the density of the shadows in the lane rendered it impossible for me to do so. He seemed to pause for a time and I imagined that I could see him staring upward; then he passed on and silence again claimed that deserted quarter of Cairo. For fully half an hour I waited, and was preparing to depart when a part of the shadows overlying the projecting window seemed to grow blacker, and I realized with joy that at last the lattice was reopening, but that the room within was now in darkness. Whilst I watched, remaining scrupulously invisible, a small parcel deftly thrown dropped upon the floor at my feet--and my neighbor's window was reclosed. Closing my own, I picked up the parcel. It proved to be a small ivory box, which at some time had evidently contained _kohl_, wrapped in a piece of silk and containing a note. Returning to the lower floor I directed the light of my electric torch upon this charmingly romantic billet. It was conceived in English and characterized by the rather alarming _naiveté_ of the Oriental woman. I give it in its entirety. "To-morrow night, nine o'clock." II