The room was large, and two windows, draped with curtains, stood open to the soft night.

The bed in the centre of the room was one of the wide Indian charpais which are unrivalled for comfort, and glimmered softly white beneath its filmy mosquito curtains in the lamplight shed by four handsome rose-shaded lamps.  Small tables stood everywhere, bearing vases of fresh flowers, roses, and stephanotis; a rich, deep rose-coloured carpet spread all over the floor, with only a small border of chetai visible round the walls; and two easy-chairs of the same colour and numerous smaller ones piled up with cushions completed the equipment of the room.  The air was full of scent, and the scheme of colour in the room perfect.  Nothing but rose and white was allowed to meet the eye.  The flowers were selected with this view, and the great bowls of roses all blushed the same glorious tint through the snowy whiteness of the stephanotis.

The room suggested, in its softly-lighted glow of pink and white, a bridal chamber.

Hamilton turned to his servant with a pleased smile on his handsome, animated face.

“You are an artist, Pir Bakhs, and a sort of magician, to do all this in twelve hours.”

Pir Bakhs bowed and salaamed by the door, his well-formed polished face wreathed in many smiles.

Downstairs the girl was already waiting for her lord, bathed, and with her long hair shaken out and brushed after the dust of the desert ride, and looped back from her forehead by a fresh green ribbon.  She did not sit down, but stood waiting.

This room showed the same care as the upper one, and the table was laid out with Hamilton’s plate and glass and four beautiful epergnes held the flowers.

Natives are artists, particularly in colour arrangements; the whole colour scheme here was white and green, and any table in Belgravia would have had hard work to equal this one.  Saidie stood looking at it, and the servants, already ranged by the sideboard, stood with their eyes on the ground, yet conscious of her wonderful beauty, and pleased by it in the same way that they would have felt pride and pleasure in the beauty and good condition of a new horse or camel acquired by their master.

After a few minutes Hamilton came down.  He had put on his evening clothes as they had been laid out for him by the bearer, and looked radiant as he entered.

Saidie gave a little cry as she saw him.  His present dress, well cut and close-fitting, showed his splendid figure to greater advantage than the loose suit she had seen him in hitherto.  His long neck carried his fine, spirited head erect, and the masses of thick, black hair, with just the least wave in it, shone in the lamplight.  His well-cut face, with its gay animation and charming, debonair, unaffected expression, made a kingly and perfect picture to the girl’s dazzled eyes.

As they took their places and their soup was served, she could not detach her gaze from his face.