"if I might be excused from eating
anything tonight. You see, the perfume of the incense burning is so
unusual for me, that it makes me a little--er, headachy. Don't think
me a silly, will you?"

Patty's wheedlesome air won them all, and they took away the
highly-spiced, and strongly-flavoured dish. Then Blaney came with a
small cup of thick, muddy-looking coffee.

"Just the thing for you," he declared, "set you up in a jiffy! Real
Egyptian, no Turkish business. Just the thing for you!"

Patty gratefully accepted the coffee, but one taste was enough! It was
thick with pulverized coffee grounds, it was sickishly sweet, and it
was strong and black enough to please the blackest Egyptian who ever
desired that brand.

"Thank you," she said, hastily handing the cup back. "It is so--so
powerful, a little is quite enough. I'm sure that is all I want."

The others sipped the muddy fluid with apparent relish, and Patty began
to wonder if she wished she had gone home with Philip. At any rate she
was glad he would return for her, and she hoped it would be soon.

She asked where the Farringtons were.

"In the other room, I think," said Alla. "We'll find them after
supper. Here are the sweetmeats now. You must try these."

The sweetmeats were Oriental, of course. There was Turkish Delight and
other sticky, fruity, queer-looking bits, that seemed to Patty just
about the most unappetising candies she had ever seen.

She refused them, a little positively, for she dreaded being persuaded
to taste them, and it was hard to refuse the insistence of the guests
who offered them.

"You'll learn," said Miss Norton, the pianist of the program. "It took
me a long time to acquire the taste. But I've got it now," she added,
as she helped herself bountifully to the saccharine bits.

Supper over, it was rumoured about that now Blaney would himself read
from his own poems. A rustle of enthusiasm spread through the rooms,
and Patty could easily see that this was the great event of the
evening. She was glad now that she had stayed, for surely these poems
would be a revelation of beauty and genius.

There was a zithern accompaniment by the girl in orange, but it was
soft and unobtrusive, that the lines themselves might not be obscured.

Standing on the little platform, Blaney, in robes and turban, made a
profound salaam, and then in his melodious voice breathed softly the
following "Love Song ":

"Thy beauty is a star