“Pardon me! One moment! Is this lady——”
Mr. Greyne paused.
“Sir?” said Alphonso, settling his Spanish neck-tie, and gazing steadily towards Marseilles.
“Is this lady—well, sinful?”
Alphonso threw up his hands with a wild Asiatic gesture.
“Sinful! La Belle Fatma! She is a lady of the utmost respectability known to all the town. You go to her house at eight, you take coffee upon the red sofas, you talk with La Belle, you see the dances and hear the music. Do not fear, sir; it is good, it is respectable as England, your country——”
“If it is respectable I don’t want to see it,” interposed Mr. Greyne. “It would be a waste of time.”
The clerk lifted his head from the ledger, and Alphonso, by means of standing with his back almost square to Mr. Greyne, and looking over his right shoulder, succeeded at length in fixing his eye upon him.
“I have not travelled here to see respectable things,” continued Mr. Greyne, with a slight blush. “Quite the contrary.”
“Sir?”