The Great Taboo

That same afternoon Muriel had a visitor. M. Jules Peyron, formerly of the College de France, no longer a mere Polynesian god, but a French gentleman of the Boulevards in voice and manner, came to pay his respects, as in duty bound, to Mademoiselle Ellis. M. Peyron had performed his toilet under trying circumstances, to the best of his ability. The remnants of his European clothes, much patched and overhung with squares of native tappa cloth, were hidden as much as possible by a wide feather cloak, very savage in effect, but more seemly, at any rate, than the tattered garments in which Felix had first found him in his own garden parterre. M. Peyron, however, was fully aware of the defects of his costume, and profoundly apologetic.

"It is with ten thousand regrets, mademoiselle," he said, many times over, bowing low and simpering, "that I venture to appear in a lady's _salon_ -- for, after all, wherever a European lady goes, there her _salon_ follows her -- in such a _tenue_ as that in which I am now compelled to present myself. _Mais que voulez-vous? Nous ne sommes pas a Paris_! " For to M. Peyron, as innocent in his way as Mali herself, the whole world divided itself into Paris and the Provinces.