-he--I--" So many things occurred
to him to say at one and the same time that he emitted a snort of
warring and incoherent syllables. Finally, with supreme control, "Do
you know that your 'gentleman of rank' couldn't set foot in a
gentleman's club in this country?"

"I think it's _mean_!" retorted the girl, her blue eyes very bright
and indignant. "You English come here and look down on even the
highest members of the country you are pretending to assist. Why do
you? When he was at Oxford he went into your English homes."

"English madhouses--for admitting him."

A brief silence ensued.

The girl ate a cake. It was a nice cake, powdered with almonds, but
she ate it obliviously. The angry red shone rosily in her cheeks.

The young man took a hasty drink of his tea, which had grown cold
in its cup, and pushed it away. Obstinately he rushed on in his mad
career.

"I simply cannot understand you!" he declared.

"Does it matter?" said she, and bit an almond's head off.

"It would be bad enough, in any city, but in Cairo--! To permit him
to insult you with his company, alone, upon the streets!"

"When you have said insult you have said a little too much," she
returned in a small, cold voice of war. "Is there anything against
Captain Kerissen personally?"

"Who knows anything about any of those fellows? They are all
alike--with half a dozen wives locked up behind their barred
windows."

"He isn't married."

"How do you know?"

"I--inferred it."

The Englishman snorted: "According to his custom, you know, it isn't
the proper thing to mention his ladies in public."

"You are frightfully unjust. Captain Kerissen's customs are the
customs of the civilized world, and he is very anxious to have his
country become modernized."

"Then let him send his sisters out walking with fellow officers....
For _him_ to walk beside _you_----"

"He was following the custom of my country," said the girl, with
maddening superiority. "Since I am an _American_ girl----"

The young Englishman said a horrible thing. He said it with immense
feeling.

"American goose!" he uttered, then stopped short. Precipitately he
floundered into explanation:

"I beg your pardon, but, you know, when you say such bally nonsense
as that--! An American girl has no more business to be imprudent
than a Patagonian girl. You have no idea how these people
regard----"

"Oh, don't apologize," murmured the girl, with charming sweetness.
"I don't min