176 
THE STRAND MAGAZINE . 
think I am. It’s too difficult to tell you in 
the street. 77 
A passing taxi crawled along. The driver, 
seeing two people talking, slowed up by them. 
They were in the shadows, and he could not 
see their rags. 
“ Taxi ! 57 said the woman, suddenly. 
The driver came to a dead stop. 
“ Please come with me, 77 she said, “ and 
I can explain. Besides, you are hungry and 
cold. I can give you food and warmth and 
money to set you on your feet again. 77 
“ My God ! 77 he said. “ Who are you ? 77 
“ Never mind now. 77 
The taxi-driver opened the door for them, 
looking queerly at his two wretched fares 
until he heard the address. 
“ Tell him to drive to Nassau Court. 77 
Nassau Court ! It was a magic address — 
a great block of private flats attached to the 
most famous hotel in the Strand. 
“ One of these here fancy-dress balls, 
I s’pose/ 7 the taxi-driver murmured. u Ara- 
bian Nights 7 entertainments and such. 77 
II. 
The man sat by her side, bewildered. In 
one moment he had been whisked from the 
wet and misery of the Embankment on the 
wings of adventure. As for the woman, her 
poverty and squalor seemed suddenly to fall 
from her, and by her bearing she showed 
that she was used to giving commands. 
He had noticed that in her manner when 
she called the taxi-driver, in the complete 
self-possession with which she entered the 
cab. It was no strange thing to her ; she 
sat back against the leather of the seat 
with the air of one used to luxury and 
wealth. 
Who was she ? He wanted to ask her again, 
but in his bewilderment he seemed unable 
to put a sentence together, and by the time 
he had recovered, and was on the point of 
asking her, the cab had passed the large 
hotels in Northumberland Avenue, slid round 
the shining emptiness of Trafalgar Square, 
down the Strand to the quiet courtyard of 
Nassau Court. 
A night porter in splendid livery came out 
of the glass doors as the taxi drew up and 
opened the door for them. He did not seem 
at all dismayed when the ragged pair alighted. 
On the contrary, as if it were the most usual 
thing in the world for two tramps to drive 
up at two o'clock in the morning to the 
splendour of Nassau Court, he smiled at the 
woman and said, “ Good evening, miss. 77 
He said nothing to the man, only looking 
at him with the casual, expressionless glance 
of a well-trained servant. 
“ You might pay the taxi, Nichols, 77 she 
said. 
And the servant paid the fare and led 
the way inside. A bright fire burnt in the 
hall, and the electric light gave the place 
gaiety and brightness after the squalor of 
the Embankment. They passed into a 
lift., and glided noiselessly and swiftly to the 
second floor. 
“ Good night, miss, 77 the servant said. 
“ Good night, Nichols, 77 said the woman in 
rags, as he closed the lift door gently, and 
sank out of view with the subdued whooing 
of the lift. 
She led the way to a room numbered 342 
— there are seven hundred suites in Nassau 
Court — and the door opened on a vision of 
comfort. The first impression the man 
received was one of pink luxury ; that was 
the leit motif running through the harmony 
of colour in the room. The carpet that 
yielded to his footsteps — luckily they had 
dried their feet on the mat in the hall — 
was of a deeper note than the walls, which 
supplied a soft tone of salmon-pink that 
blended with the crushed strawberry of silken 
curtains and the dawn-pink of the lamp- 
shades. He perceived vaguely that there 
was daintiness in this room, daintiness in 
the little marble and terra-cotta statues of 
Venuses and Apollos, and in the lace fripperies 
that belonged to the table-centre or mingled 
with the silken curtains. The furniture was 
Empire, graceful and gilt and loudly pink, 
and a delicate ormolu clock, all cupids and 
nymphs, struck the hour with a clear and 
musical chime, like the drip of water in 
a grotto. 
They looked utterly fantastic, these two 
people in rags and tatters, in this setting of 
luxurious comfort. 
The ordered beauty of the room, the scent 
of a heavy bouquet of Malmaison roses in 
a Sevres bowl on the rosewood piano, and 
the sight of the warm fire on the hearth, 
and, best of all, the glimpse of some food in 
a chafing-dish — all these charmed and gratified 
the senses. 
He decided to look upon this as an adven- 
turous dream. 
She must have seen the amazement and 
incredulity in his face, for she laughed gaily 
and said, in a voice quite different from the 
voice she had used on the Embankment 
“ Oh, it’s all real. You needn’t be afraid. 
I’m a fairy queen — Queen Cophetua, if you 
like. Now, sit down there. 77 She pointed 
