und; he was slow in speech; and dead-slow in
anger until aroused by opposition.

For the physically weak-born, he had the gentle sympathy of the very
strong; for the physically undeveloped and the morally weak he had no
use whatever--_none_. In the West, his reserve with men had been
labelled taciturnity or swollen-headeduess, which did not fit the case
at all; whilst, in spite of his perfect manner towards them, his
indifference to woman _en masse_ or in the individual was supreme and
sincere.

He was the direct descendant of the founder of Nineveh where horses
were concerned, and his stables in the Oasis of Khargegh would have
been one of the sights of Egypt, had he permitted sightseers.

Educated at Harrow, where he had excelled in sport and captained the
Eleven at Lord's for two succeeding years; respected by the upper Forms
and worshipped by the lower, he had developed the English side of his
dual nationality until masters and schoolfellows had come to look upon
him as one of themselves.

From Harrow he had gone to Brazenose; then had quite suddenly thrown up
the 'Varsity and returned to Egypt.

Love?

Not at all, for was not his indifference to woman supreme and sincere?

Just the inevitable ending of a very commonplace, sordid little story
which had taught the youth one of life's bitterest lessons.

One of a multitude of guests at Hurdley Castle, he had met a woman,
beautiful but predatory, whose looks were taking on an autumnal tint,
and whose banking account had shrivelled under the frost of
extravagance.

His utter indifference to her wiles and her beauty had culminated in a
degrading scene of anger on her part, when, forgetting her breeding,
her birth and her nationality, she had first of all twitted him and
then openly laughed at his mixed parentage.

He had stood without uttering a word, white to the lips during her
tirade.

"Do you think that any white woman would marry you--a _half-caste_?"
had cried the woman, whose bills were coming in in shoals.

"Yes, many," he had quietly answered as he bent to pick up her torn,
handkerchief. "Am I not a rich man?"

He had returned to Egypt upon a visit to the Flat Oasis where dwelt his
parents, who, though noting the indescribable hurt in the eyes of their
firstborn, yet asked no question, for in Egypt a youth is his own
master and ofttimes married at the age of fourteen; how much more,
therefore, is he a man at over twenty years?

He had visite