I glanced about me.

“I can’t offer you a chair,” she said. “But you’ll find my prayer-mat just behind you.”

Just as I put my heel upon it, however, it began to slip, and leaning over, she put her finger upon it.

“Let me hold it,” she said, “while you lower yourself. I once had a visitor who lost two of his trouser-buttons.”

“It was myself,” I said.

She looked at me steadfastly.

“But surely,” she said, “I haven’t seen you before?”

I bowed to her gravely.

“You certainly have,” I said.

She lifted her eyebrows a little.