they were open.  Beneath them were fitted book-cases containing rows of books, in English and French, many of them works on agriculture, on building, on mining, on the sugar and cotton industries in various parts of the world.  There was a large writing-table of lacquer-work, on which stood a movable electric lamp without a shade, in the midst of a rummage of pamphlets and papers.  Near it were a coffee-table and two deep arm-chairs.  From the ceiling, which was divided into compartments painted in dark red and blue, hung a heavy lamp by a chain of gilded silver.  A stick of incense burned in a gilded holder.  The dining-room, on the other side of the screen, was fitted with divans running round the walls, and contained a large table and a number of chairs with curved backs.  The table was covered with a long and exquisitely embroidered Indian cloth, of which the prevailing colour was a brilliant orange-red, that glowed and had a sheen which was almost fiery.  In the centre of this table stood a tawdry Japanese vase, worth, perhaps, five or six shillings.  A lovely bracket of carved wood fixed to the wall held a cheap cuckoo-clock from Switzerland.

Mrs. Armine looked around in silence, with eyes that missed no detail.  The clock whirred, a minute door flew open, the cuckoo appeared, and the two notes that are the cry of the English spring went thinly out to the Nile.  Then the cuckoo disappeared, and the little door shut sharply.

Mrs. Armine smiled.

“You bought that?” she asked.

“Yes, madame.  Everything here was bought by me, and arranged according to my poor judgment.”

He opened the door, and led them into a long passage with a shining parquetted floor.

“Here are the bedrooms, madame.”

He pushed back two or three doors, showing beautiful little cabins, evidently furnished from Paris, with bedsteads, mosquito-curtains, long mirrors, small arm-chairs in white, and green and rose-colour; walls painted ivory-white; and delicate, pretty, but rather frivolous, curtains and portieres, with patterns of flowers tied up with ribands, and flying and perching birds.  All the toilet arrangements were perfect, and each room had a recess in which was a large enamelled bath.

“That is my bedroom, madame,” said Baroudi, pointing to a door which he did not open.  “It is the largest on the boat.  And here is my room for sitting alone.  When I want to be disturbed by no one, when I want to smoke the keef, to eat the hashish, or just to sit by myself and forget my affairs, and dream quietly for a little, I shut myself in here.”

An embroidered curtain, the ground of which was orange colour, covered with silks of various hues, faced them at the end of the corridor.  Baroudi pulled aside this curtain, pushed back a sliding door of wood that was almost black, and said: 

“Will you go in first, madame?”

Mrs. Armine stepped in, with an almost cautious slowness.