nd that evening her face and figure seemed
instinct with the joy of youth.

"Never before have I tasted such hot-cakes and sandwiches, and muffins
... there could be nothing like them, nor any hot-cakes to set above
them in all Europe. The sinister look had now quite passed from my
host's face as he sat before me stirring tea and munching muffins
comfortably; he seemed goodheartedness embodied. On the table were some
wonderful lucid china bowls filled with cigarettes, Parascho and
_caporal ordinaire_, Egyptian and every imaginable kind. After tea we
pushed back our chairs and smoked. His conversation was delightful, and
showed me at once that he was a man of brilliant gifts, yet an
eccentric. I felt much as Mark Twain must have felt when he first met
Rudyard Kipling; Twain has summed up, in that inimitable way of his, the
feeling of being in the presence of an overwhelming personality. 'I
believed that he knew more than any person I had met before, and I knew
that he knew that I knew less than any person he had met before--though
he did not say it, and I was not expecting that he would.'... That was
exactly how I felt when I was talking tea with Ombos ... his
conversation was as exhilarating as wine; his presence diffused a
stimulating atmosphere; I felt exalted by his joyous enthusiasm.

"Well (to get on), after I left him at the door of his old shop (which
was such a dingy entrance to all the luxury of the interior of the
place), and I think we were loth to part, it was agreed between us that,
should I remain in the town, we were to meet again. As I walked down the
little _pave_ street something I couldn't account for began to sweep
over me; it was not merely that the presence of Ombos had fascinated me;
there was something else. There was something that stirred in my
heart--a thing which you will not understand. If you had known Ombos you
might have understood. I wanted to go back and have another look at that
bronze statue; I was becoming desperately afraid that I had been too
hasty in my inspection of it--that I had under-estimated it. I was very
young, heedless, self-esteemed and smug, and had hardly paused to pay a
moment's tribute to it. I felt that Albert of Cologne was standing
there, absorbed, proud, erect, and defiant, waiting for me to find my
_true_ eyes.

* * * * *

"Of course, I did see the bronze statue again, or I shouldn't be
sitting here wasting your time and patien