"You don't mean to say, Mr.
Holcombe," he began, slowly, with the patronage of the older man and
with a touch of remonstrance in his tone, "that you're _still_
with the husband in that case?"
Holcombe looked coldly over Mr. Meakim's head. "I have only a purely
professional interest in any one of them," he said. "They struck me as
a particularly nasty lot. Good-morning, sir."
"Well," Meakim called after him, "you needn't see nothing of them if
you don't want to. You can get rooms to yourself."
Holcombe did get rooms to himself, with a balcony overlooking the bay,
and arranged with the proprietor of the Albion to have his dinner
served at a separate table. As others had done this before, no one
regarded it as an affront upon his society, and several people in the
hotel made advances to him, which he received politely but coldly. For
the first week of his visit the town interested him greatly,
increasing its hold upon him unconsciously to himself. He was restless
and curious to see it all, and rushed his guide from one of the few
show-places to the next with an energy which left that fat Oriental
panting.
[Illustration: Stopping for half-hours at a time before a bazaar.]
But after three days Holcombe climbed the streets more leisurely,
stopping for half-hours at a time before a bazaar, or sent away his
guide altogether, and stretched himself luxuriously on the broad wall
of the fortifications. The sun beat down upon him, and wrapped him
into drowsiness.
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