ereavements," I said looking the other way.

"Very sad and they have left life empty. Still I should not complain
for I have had my share of good. Also it isn't true to say that nothing
interests me. Egypt interests me, though after what has happened I do
not feel as though I could return there. All Africa interests me and,"
she added dropping her voice, "I can say it because I know you will not
misunderstand, you interest me, as you have always done since the first
moment I saw you."

"_I!_" I exclaimed, staring at my own reflection in a silver plate which
made me look--well, more unattractive than usual. "It's very kind of
you to say so, but I can't understand why I should. You have seen very
little of me, Lady Ragnall, except in that long journey across the
desert when we did not talk much, since you were otherwise engaged."

"I know. That's the odd part of it, for I feel as though I had seen you
for years and years and knew everything about you that one human being
can know of another. Of course, too, I do know a good lot of your life
through George and Harut."

"Harut was a great liar," I said uneasily.

"Was he? I always thought him painfully truthful, though how he got at
the truth I do not know. Anyhow," she added with meaning, "don't suppose
I think the worse of you because others have thought so well. Women who
seem to be all different, generally, I notice, have this in common. If
one or two of them like a man, the rest like him also because something
in him appeals to the universal feminine instinct, and the same applies
to their dislike. Now men, I think, are different in that respect."

"Perhaps because they are more catholic and charitable," I suggested,
"or perhaps because they like those who like them."

She laughed in her charming way, and said,

"However these remarks do not apply to you and me, for as I think I told
you once before in that cedar wood in Kendah Land where you feared lest
I should catch a chill, or become--odd again, it is another you with
whom something in me seems to be so intimate."

"That's fortunate for your sake," I muttered, still staring at and
pointing to the silver plate.

Again she laughed. "Do you remember the _Taduki_ herb?" she asked. "I
have plenty of it safe upstairs, and not long ago I took a whiff of it,
only a whiff because you know it had to be saved."

"And what did you see?"

"Never mind. The question is what shall we _both_ see?"

"Nothing," I said