under it. His box was tilted back, and he was lost in an indolent dream. He saw Aïda striving to scale a wall and "adjust" a cat who merely blinked at her efforts. He thought, what a privilege to have been born a Sudanese nigger with gigantic hands and steel thighs, unable to think or even be distressed by the vague weight of unthinkability, unable to do anything but work and grovel and grin, with a flash of white teeth and husky gurgle, and do it from morning to night. He recalled the image of Becky States, and in imagination heard her melodious, growling baritone. Becky and that enormous coon! She would straightway have behaved like the prize spaniel.
The tom-tom beat unceasingly. The little flat stomach never flagged. A toothless Turk pranced around the girl, uttering ribaldries that sent a rustle of merriment from window to window, and the niggers, lithe and powerful under their dingy pinafores, capered with unbelievable grace, to the droning accompaniment of cracked old throats.
Paul was losing all hold of fact. His body was anæsthetized. His faculties had been distilled into an essence which pervaded the scene. He was the scene; he was the blind nut-vender, the dirty little girl, the puppy staring covetously at the cat, the gold and turquoise of air and sky, the pearly sheen of a minaret; their identity was his
Until a voice said in his ear, "Say, listen, Minas, what do you think of Mademoiselle?"
Paul came slowly out of his trance. For a moment he could attach no meaning to the words, and had to piece them together. What did he think of the Armenian typist?
"I've barely made her acquaintance," he temporized. "Why?"
"She's my fiancée," announced Patrick.
