“Going very strong.  Never stronger.  Never so well as when I’m full up with work.  But you don’t hurry around enough in this dear, sleepy old country.  Men lunch.  In New York all the lunch one has time for is to swallow a plasmon lozenge in a street-car.”

His high pitched voice shrieked bombastic platitude into my ears for an illimitable time.  I answered occasionally with the fringe of my mind.  Could my agonised state of being have remained unperceived by any human creature save this young, hustling, dollar-centred New York floral decorator?

“Since we met, guess how many times I’ve crossed the Atlantic.  Four times!”

Long-suffering Atlantic!

“And about yourself.  Still going piano, piano with books and things?”

“Yes, books and things,” I echud.

The page came up and announced Hamdi’s intention of immediate appearance.

“And how is that charming young lady, your ward, Miss Carlotta?” continued my tormentor.

“Yes,” I answered hurriedly.  “A charming young lady.  You used to give her sweets.  Have you noticed that a fondness for sugar plums induces an equanimity of character?  It also spoils the teeth.  That is why the front teeth of all American women are so bad.”

I must be endowed with the low cunning of the fox, who, I am told, by a swift turn puts his pursuers off the scent.  The learned term the rhetorical device an ignoratio elenchi.  My young friend’s patriotism rose in furious defence of his countrywomen’s beauty.  I looked round the luxuriously furnished vestibule, wondering from which of the many doors the object of my hatred would emerge, and my young friend’s talk continued to ruffle the fringe of my mind.

“I’m afraid you’re expecting some one rather badly,” he remarked with piercing perceptiveness.

“A dull acquaintance,” said I.  “I shall be sorry when his arrival puts an end to our engaging conversation.”

Then the lift door opened and Hamdi stepped out like the Devil in an Alhambra ballet.

He looked at my card and looked at me.  He bowed politely.

“I did not know whom I should have the pleasure of seeing,” said he in his execrable French.  “In what way can I be of service to Sir Marcus Ordeyne?”

“What have you done with Carlotta?” I asked, glaring at him.

His ignoble small-pox pitted face assumed an expression of bland inquiry.

“Carlotta?”

“Yes,” said I.  “Where have you taken her to?”

“Explain yourself, Monsieur,” said Hamdi.  “Do I understand that Lady Ordeyne has disappeared?”

“Tell me what you have done with her.”

His crafty features grew satanic; his long fleshy nose squirmed like the proboscis of one of Orcagna’s fiends.

“Really, Monsieur,” said he, with a hideous leer—­oh, words are impotent to express the ugliness of that face!  “Really, Monsieur, supposing I had stolen Miladi, you would be the last person I should inform of her whereabouts.  You are simple, Monsieur.  I had always heard that England was a country of arcadian innocence, so unlike my own black, wicked country, and now—­” he shrugged his shoulders blandly, ’j’en suis convaincu.”