“Is she truly married to that dreadful Chinaman?” whispered Mollie Gretna.

“Yes, I believe so,” murmured Kilfane.  “She is known as Mrs. Sin Sin Wa.”

“Oh!” Mollie’s eyes opened widely.  “I almost envy her!  I have read that Chinamen tie their wives to beams in the roof and lash them with leather thongs until they swoon.  I could die for a man who lashed me with leather thongs.  Englishmen are so ridiculously gentle to women.”

Opening a door on the left of the corridor, Mrs. Sin displayed a room screened off into three sections.  One shaded lamp high up near the ceiling served to light all the cubicles, which were heated by small charcoal stoves.  These cubicles were identical in shape and appointment, each being draped with quaint Chinese tapestry and containing rugs, a silken divan, an armchair, and a low, Eastern table.

“Choose for yourself,” said Mrs. Sin, turning to Rita and Mollie Gretna.  “Nobody else come tonight.  You two in this room, eh?  Next door each other for company.”

She withdrew, leaving the two girls together.  Mollie clasped her hands ecstatically.

“Oh, my dear!” she said.  “What do you think of it all?”

“Well,” confessed Rita, looking about her, “personally I feel rather nervous.”

“My dear!” cried Mollie.  “I am simply quivering with delicious terror!”

Rita became silent again, looking about her, and listening.  The harsh voice of the Cuban-Jewess could be heard from a neighboring room, but otherwise a perfect stillness reigned in the house of Sin Sin Wa.  She remembered that Mrs. Sin had said, “It is quiet—­so quiet.”

“The idea of undressing and reclining on these divans in real oriental fashion,” declared Mollie, giggling, “makes me feel that I am an odalisque already.  I have dreamed that I was an odalisque, dear—­after smoking, you know.  It was heavenly.  At least, I don’t know that ‘heavenly’ is quite the right word.”

And now that evil spirit of abandonment came to Rita—­communicated to her, possibly, by her companion.  Dread, together with a certain sense of moral reluctance, departed, and she began to enjoy the adventure at last.  It was as though something in the faintly perfumed atmosphere of the place had entered into her blood, driving out reserve and stifling conscience.

When Sir Lucien reappeared she ran to him excitedly, her charming face flushed and her eyes sparkling.

“Oh, Lucy,” she cried, “how long will our things be?  I’m keen to smoke!”

His jaw hardened, and when he spoke it was with a drawl more marked than usual.

“Mareno will be here almost immediately,” he answered.

The tone constituted a rebuff, and Rita’s coquetry deserted her, leaving her mortified and piqued.  She stared at Pyne, biting her lip.

“You don’t like me tonight,” she declared.  “If I look ugly, it’s your fault; you told me to wear this horrid old costume!”