So ran my reflections--at random and to no clear end; and, as is often the case in such circumstances, my steps bore them company; so that all at once I became aware that instead of having gained the lobby of the hotel, I had taken some wrong turning and was in a part of the building entirely unfamiliar to me. A long corridor of the inevitable white marble extended far behind me. I had evidently traversed it. Before me was a heavily curtained archway. Irritably, I pulled the curtain aside, learnt that it masked a glass-paneled door, opened this door--and found myself in a small court, dimly lighted and redolent of some pungent, incense-like perfume. One step forward I took, then pulled up abruptly. A sound had come to my ears. From a second curtained doorway, close to my right hand, it came--a sound of muffled _tapping_, together with that of something which dragged upon the floor. Within my brain the words seemed audibly to form: "The man with the limp!" I sprang to the door; I had my hand upon the drapery ... when a woman stepped out, barring the way! No impression, not even a vague one, did I form of her costume, save that she wore a green silk shawl, embroidered with raised white figures of birds, thrown over her head and shoulders and draped in such fashion that part of her face was concealed. I was transfixed by the vindictive glare of her eyes, of her huge dark eyes. They were ablaze with anger--but it was not this expression within them which struck me so forcibly as the fact that they were in some way familiar. Motionless, we faced one another. Then-- "You go away," said the woman--at the same time extending her arms across the doorway as barriers to my progress. Her voice had a husky intonation; her hands and arms, which were bare and of old ivory hue, were laden with barbaric jewelry, much of it tawdry silverware of the bazaars. Clearly she was a half-caste of some kind, probably a Eurasian. I hesitated. The sounds of dragging and tapping had ceased. But the presence of this grotesque Oriental figure only increased my anxiety to pass the doorway. I looked steadily into the black eyes; they looked into mine unflinchingly. "You go away, please," repeated the woman, raising her right hand and pointing to the door whereby I had entered. "These private rooms. What you doing here?" Her words, despite her broken English, served to recall to me the fact that I was, beyond doubt, a trespasser! By what right did I presume to force my way into other people's apartments? "There is some one in there whom I must see," I said, realizing, however, that my chance of doing so was poor. "You see nobody," she snapped back uncompromisingly. "You go away!" She took a step towards me, continuing to point to the door. Where had I previously encountered the glance of those splendid, savage eyes?