."

Gregorio meanwhile had run up to his room and entered it breathless with
excitement. The first glance told him that Amos had seized all he
could, for nothing remained save a wooden bench and one or two coarse,
half-disabled cooking utensils.

Gregorio swore a little as he realised what had happened. Then he saw in
a corner by the window his son and Ahmed.

"She has gone," said Ahmed, as Gregorio's gaze rested on him. But she
might have gone merely to market, or to see a neighbour, for all the
imperturbable Arab face disclosed. As soon as he had spoken the man bent
over the child, laughing softly as the youngster played with his beard.
For the Arab, as he is miscalled, is fond of children, and there are
none to whom children take so readily as to the Egyptian fellahin.

Gregorio watched the two for a moment, and then placing his remaining
piastres in the man's hand bade him bring food and wine. As soon as
he was left alone with his son, he flung himself down on the floor and
kissed, "You shall be a great man, ay, a rich man, my son."

He repeated the sentence over and over again, punctuating it with
kisses, while the two-year-old regarded him wonderingly, until Ahmed
returned.

When the meal was ended Gregorio took the boy in his arms and sang to
him softly till at last the infant slept. Then he placed him gently on
the floor, having first made of his coat a bed, and went to the window
and flung back the shutters. He smoked quietly as the minutes went by,
waiting impatiently for his wife to return. It seemed to him monstrous
that the boy who was to inherit a fortune should be sleeping on the
dirty floor wrapped in an old coat; that an Arab, a mere fellah, should
amuse his son and play with him, when Greek nurses were to be hired in
Alexandria had one only the money. Long after midnight he heard a step
on the stairs, and a minute after the door opened. He recognised his
wife's footsteps, and he rose to meet her. As she came into the room she
looked quickly round, and seeing her son went toward him and kissed him.
Gregorio, half afraid, stood by the window watching her. She let her
glance rest on him a minute, then she turned round and laid her cloak
upon the floor.

"Xantippe!"

But she did not answer.

"Xantippe, I have fed our son. The good days are coming when we shall be
rich and happy."

But Xantippe was too busy folding out the creases of her cloak to
notice him. The moonlight streamed on to her, an