“Would it grieve you, if he were?”

“No-o,” she replied, thoughtfully.

“Then,” said I, dropping her hands and turning away, “Harry is dead.”

She stood silent for a couple of minutes, regarding the row of pink toes that protruded beneath the peignoir.  At last her bosom shook with a sigh.  She glanced up at me sweetly.

“I am so glad,” she said.

That is all she has vouchsafed to say with regard to the unhappy young man.  “She was so glad!” She has not even asked how he met his death.  She has simply accepted my statement.  Harry is dead.  He has gone out of her life like yesterday’s sunshine or yesterday’s frippery.  If I had told her that yesterday’s cab-horse had broken his neck, she could not be more unconcerned.  Nay, she is glad.  Harry had not treated her nicely.  He had boxed her up in a cabin where she had been sick, and had subjected her to various other discomforts.  I, on the contrary, had surrounded her with luxuries and dressed her in red silk.  She rather dreaded Harry’s coming.  When she learned that this was improbable she was relieved.  His death had turned the improbable into the impossible.  It was the end of the matter.  She was so glad!

Yet there must have been some tender passage in their brief intercourse.  He must have kissed her during their flight from home to steamer.  Her young pulses must have throbbed a little faster at the sight of his comely face.

What kind of a mythological being am I housing?  Did she come at all out of Hamdi Effendi’s harem?  Is she not rather some strange sea-creature that clambered on board the vessel and bewitched the miserable boy, sucked the soul out of him, and drove him to destruction?  Or is she a Vampire?  Or a Succubus?  Or a Hamadryad?  Or a Salamander?

One thing, I vow she is not human.

If only Judith were here to advise me!  And yet I have an uneasy feeling that Judith will suggest, with a certain violence that is characteristic of her, the one course which I cannot follow:  to send Carlotta back to Hamdi Effendi.  But I cannot break my word.  I would rather, far rather, break Carlotta’s beautiful neck.  I have not written to Judith.  Nor, by the way, have I received a letter from her.  Delphine has been whirling her off her legs, and she is ashamed to confess the delusion of the sequestered life.  I wish I were enjoying myself half as much as Judith.

“I have adopted Mademoiselle,” said I to Antoinette this morning.  “If she returned to Asia Minor they would put a string round her neck, tie her up in a sack, and throw her into the sea.”

“That would be a pity,” said Antoinette, warmly.

“Cela depend,” said I.  “Anyhow she is here, and here she remains.”

“In that case,” said Antoinette, “has Monsieur considered that the poor angel will need clothes and articles of toilette—­and this and that and the other?”