A glare of light on the stair-head, a clink of innumerable bangles, a rustle of much fine gauze, and the Dainty Iniquity stands revealed, blazing--literally blazing--with jewelry from head to foot. Take one of the fairest miniatures that the Delhi painters draw, and multiply it by ten; throw in one of Angelica Kaufmann’s best portraits, and add anything that you can think of from Beckford to Lalla Rookh, and you will still fall short of the merits of that perfect face. For an instant, even the grim, professional gravity of the Police is relaxed in the presence of the Dainty Iniquity with the gems, who so prettily invites every one to be seated, and proffers such refreshments as she conceives the palates of the barbarians would prefer. Her Abigails are only one degree less gorgeous than she. Half a lakh, or fifty thousand pounds’ worth--it is easier to credit the latter statement than the former--are disposed upon her little body. Each hand carries five jewelled rings which are connected by golden chains to a great jewelled boss of gold in the centre of the back of the hand. Ear-rings weighted with emeralds and pearls, diamond nose-rings, and how many other hundred articles make up the list of adornments. English furniture of a gorgeous and gimcrack kind, unlimited chandeliers and a collection of atrocious Continental prints--something, but not altogether, like the glazed plaques on _bonbon_ boxes--are scattered about the house, and on every landing--let us trust this is a mistake--lies, squats, or loafs a Bengali who can talk English with unholy fluency. The recurrence suggests--only suggests, mind--a grim possibility of the affectation of excessive virtue by day, tempered with the sort of unwholesome enjoyment after dusk--this loafing and lobbying and chattering and smoking, and, unless the bottles lie tippling among the foul-tongued handmaidens of the Dainty Iniquity. How many men follow this double, deleterious sort of life? The Police are discreetly dumb. “Now _don’t_ go talking about ‘domiciliary visits’ just because this one happens to be a pretty woman. We’ve _got_ to know these creatures. They make the rich man and the poor spend their money; and when a man can’t get money for ’em honestly, he comes under _our_ notice. _Now_ do you see? If there was any domiciliary ‘visit’ about it, the whole houseful would be hidden past our finding as soon as we turned up in the courtyard. We’re friends--to a certain extent.” And, indeed, it seemed no difficult thing to be friends to any extent with the Dainty Iniquity who was so surpassingly different from all that experience taught of the beauty of the East. Here was the face from which a man could write _Lalla Rookhs_ by the dozen, and believe every work that he wrote. Hers was the beauty that Byron sang of when he wrote--