In less than ten minutes she drew the curtain and stood before him again. But now she was a different creature. Her Bond Street costume had disappeared, the twentieth-century had gone. The piquant head was covered only with the dark masses of hair that gleamed seductively. She was clad in a sort of peignoir, a loose flowing robe of Oriental texture, crimson of hue, with dull gold braiding and tassels. Her face was rouged and powdered, but in the brilliant electric glare it seemed neither out of keeping nor meretricious. As she stood, holding the drawn curtain with one hand, she looked as if she had stepped straight out of the pages of the _Arabian Nights_. "Do you like it?" she asked carelessly, sure of the effect. Poor Lionel, on most occasions ready of tongue, who took a pride in never showing surprise, could only murmur "Admirable!" With this, however, she seemed content, and sat down in a convenient chair. "Luckily, it is a straight make-up," she said, taking a cigarette and lighting it. "As a rule I use grease-paint, but to-night I was in a hurry and made-up dry. I want to talk. I am not on for a while, and my dress can be slipped on in five minutes. I mean to tell you as briefly as I can my history. It is your due." Lionel made a noble gesture of dissent. "I am sure," he said chivalrously, "it is all it should have been--" She interrupted with some acerbity. "That is not my reason. I have nothing either to excuse or condone. But as I have already put you to considerable trouble, and mean (if you are willing to help, me) to put you to still more, it is but fair that you should know all." Lionel bowed as gracefully as he could. "I will make it as short as I can," she continued. "There is much that is strange and improbable in it, but I beg you to keep silent and forbear to question me until the end. I was born in a little village on the southeast coast. I was a twin, the other child being a sister, the replica of myself. My mother died when I was only two years old. When I was seventeen I was kidnaped by a tribe of Rumanian gipsies who wished to be revenged on my father. He had prosecuted some of them for poaching on his land. I was smuggled to the coast, and then across to the continent.