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“Great importance?”

“Yes, about a costume. Look at me.”

“With pleasure.”

“Don’t you find traces of the Cushite race in my profile?”

I was at loss what to say. An interview of this nature was so foreign to me.

“Oh, there’s nothing surprising about it,” she continued. “I remember when I was an Egyptian. And were you also an Egyptian, Monsieur Pigeonneau? Don’t you remember? How very curious. At least, you don’t doubt that we pass through a series of successive incarnations?”

“I do not know.”

“You surprise me, Monsieur Pigeonneau.”

“Will you tell me, Madam, to what I am indebted for this honour?”

“To be sure. I haven’t yet told you that I have come to beg you to help me to design an Egyptian costume for the fancy ball at Countess N——‘s. I want a costume that shall be absolutely accurate and bewilderingly beautiful. I have been hard at work at it already, M. Pigeonneau. I have gone over my recollections, for I remember very well when I lived in Thebes six thousand years ago. I have had designs sent me from London, Boulak and New York.”

“Those would, of course, be more reliable.” “No, nothing is so reliable as one’s intuition. I have also studied in the Egyptian Museum of the Louvre. It is full of enchanting things. Figures so slender and pure, profiles so delicate and clear cut, women who look like flowers, but, at the same time, with something at once rigid and supple. And a god, Bes, who looks like Sarcey! My goodness, how beautiful it all is!”

“Pardon me, but I do not yet quite understand—-“

“I haven’t finished. I went to your lecture on the toilet of a woman of the Middle Empire, and I took notes. It was rather dry, your lecture, but I grubbed away at it. By aid of all these notes I have designed a costume. But it is not quite right yet. So I have come to beg you to correct it. Do come to me to-morrow! Will you? Do me that honour for the love of Egypt! You will, won’t you? Till to-morrow, I must hurry off. Mama is in the carriage waiting for me.”

She disappeared as she said these last words, and I followed. When I reached the vestibule she was already at the foot of the stairs and from here I heard her clear voice call up:

“Till to-morrow. Avenue du Bois-de-Boulogne, at the corner of the Villa Said.”

“I shall not go to see this mad creature,” I said to myself.

The next afternoon at four o’clock I rang the door-bell. A footman led me into an immense, well-lighted hall crowded with pictures and statues in marble and bronze; sedan chairs in Vernis Martin set with porcelain plaques; Peruvian mummies; a dozen dummy figures of men and horses in full armour, over which, by reason of their great height, towered a Polish cavalier with white wings on his shoulders and a French knight equipped for the tournament, his helmet bearing a crest of a woman’s head with pointed coif and flowing veil.

An entire grove of palm-trees in tubs reared their foliage in this hall, and in their midst was seated a gigantic Buddha in gold. At the foot of the god sat a shabbily dressed old woman reading the Bible.

I was still dazzled by these many marvels when the purple hangings were raised and Miss Morgan appeared in a white peignoir trimmed with swans-down. She was followed by two great, long-muzzled boarhounds.

“I was sure you would come, Monsieur Pigeonneau.”

I stammered a compliment.

“How could one possibly refuse anything to so charming a lady?”

“O, it is not because I am pretty that I am never refused anything. I have secrets by which I make myself obeyed.”

Then, pointing to the old lady who was reading the Bible, she said to me:

“Pay no attention to her, that is mama. I shall not introduce you. Should you speak she could not reply; she belongs to a religious sect which forbids unnecessary conversation. It is the very latest thing in sects. Its adherents wear sackcloth and eat out of wooden basins. Mama greatly enjoys these little observances. But you can imagine that I did not ask you here to talk to you about mama. I will put on my Egyptian costume. I shan’t be long. In the meantime you might look at these little things.”