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So now he appeared in the oracle’s retreat respectfully, “What is it, Eugenia?” upon his admiring lips.

“Sit down, my husband,” she murmured.

Mr. Greyne subsided by the fire, placing his pointed patent-leather toes upon the burnished fender. Without the fog grew deeper, and the chorus of the muffin bells more plaintive. The fire-light, flickering over Mrs. Greyne’s majestic features, made them look Rembrandtesque. Her large, oxlike eyes were fixed and thoughtful. After a pause, she said:

“Eustace, I shall have to send you upon a mission.”

“A mission, Eugenia!” said Mr. Greyne in great surprise.

“A mission of the utmost importance, the utmost delicacy.”

“Has it anything to do with Romeike & Curtice?”

“No.”

“Will it take me far?”

“That is my trouble. It will take you very far.”

“Out of London?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Out of–not out of England?”

“Yes; it will take you to Algeria.”

“Good gracious!” cried Mr. Greyne.

Mrs. Greyne sighed.

“Good gracious!” Mr. Greyne repeated after a short interval. “Am I to go alone?” “Of course you must take Darrell.” Darrell was Mr. Greyne’s valet.

“And what am I to do at Algiers?”

“You must obtain for me there the whole of the material for book six of ‘Catherine’s Repentance,'” “Catherine’s Repentance” was the gigantic novel upon which Mrs. Greyne was at that moment engaged.

“I will not disguise from you, Eustace,” continued Mrs. Greyne, looking increasingly Rembrandtesque, “that, in my present work, I am taking a somewhat new departure.”

“Well, but we are very comfortable here,” said Mr. Greyne.

With each new book they had changed their abode. “Harriet” took them from Phillimore Gardens to Queensgate Terrace; “Jane’s Desire” moved them on to a corner house in Sloane Street; with “Isobel’s Fortune” they passed to Curzon Street; “Susan’s Vanity” landed them in Coburg Place; and, finally, “Margaret’s Involution” had planted them in Belgrave Square. Now, with each of these works of genius Mrs. Greyne had taken what she called “a new departure.” Mr. Greyne’s remark is, therefore, explicable.

“True. Still, there is always Park Lane.”

She mused for a moment. Then, leaning more heavily upon the carved lions of her chair, she continued:

“Hitherto, although I have sometimes dealt with human frailty, I have treated it gently. I have never betrayed a Zola-spirit.”

“Zola! My darling!” cried Mr. Eustace Greyne. “You are surely not going to betray anything of that sort now!”

“If she does we shall soon have to move off to West Kensington,” was his secret thought.

“No. But in book six of ‘Catherine’ I have to deal with sin, with tumult, with African frailty. It is inevitable.”

She sighed once more. The burden of the new book was very heavy upon her.

“African frailty!” murmured the astonished Eustace Greyne.

“Now, neither you nor I, my husband, know anything about this.”

“Certainly not, my darling. How should we? We have never explored beyond Lucerne.”

“We must, therefore, get to know about it–at least you must. For I cannot leave London. The continuity of the brain’s travelling must not be imperiled by any violent bodily activity. In the present stage of my book a sea journey might be disastrous.”

“Certainly you should keep quiet, my love. But then—“

“You must go for me to Algiers. There you must get me what I want. I fear you will have to poke about in the native quarters a good deal for it, so you had better buy two revolvers, one for yourself and one for Darrell.”

Mr. Greyne gasped. The calmness of his wife amazed him. He was not intellectual enough to comprehend fully the deep imaginings of a mighty brain, the obsession work is in the worker.

“African frailty is what I want,” pursued Mrs. Greyne. “One hundred closely-printed pages of African frailty. You will collect for me the raw material, and I shall so manipulate it that it will fall discreetly, even elevatingly, into the artistic whole. Do you understand me, Eustace?”

“I am to travel to Algiers, and see all the wickedness to be seen there, take notes of it, and bring them back to you.”

“Precisely.”

“And how long am I to stay?”