shadow, over all the days in
Egypt behind her, blotting out their sunshine, their gaiety, their glow.

"Pretty well," she said, at last. "Do you care about such things?"

He shrugged his mighty shoulders.

"Madame, I am not a tourist. What should I do in the temples among the
bats, and in the tombs where one can almost smell the dead people? You
must not come to us Egyptians for all that. You must go to the old
English maidens--is that it?--maidens who wear helmets on their grey
hair done so"--he put up his brown hands, and pretended to twist up a
tiny top-knot at the back of his head--"and who stroke the heads of the
dragomans sitting there at their feet, what they call their
'tootsicums,' and telling them thousands of lies. Or you must go to the
thin antiquaries, with the red noses and the heads without any hair, who
dig for mummies while their wives--ah, well I must not say that! But we
Egyptians, we have other things to do than to go and stare at the
Sphinx. We have always seen it. We know it is there, that it is not
going to run away. So we prefer to enjoy our lives while we can, and not
to trouble about it. Do you blame us?"

"No," she said. "I never blame any one for enjoying life."

There was in his look and manner, even in his attitude, a something that
was almost like a carelessly veiled insolence. In a European she would
perhaps have resented it. In him not only did she not resent it, but she
was attracted by it. For it seemed to belong as of right to his great
strength, his bold and direct good looks, which sprang to the eyes, his
youth, and his Eastern blood. Such a man must feel often insolent,
however carefully he might hide it. Why should he not show some grains
of his truth to her?

"Nor for any way of enjoying life, madame?" he said.

And he leaned still a little more forward, put up one big hand to his
cheek, let it drop down to his splendid throat, and kept the fingers
inside his soft turn-down collar while he looked into her eyes.

"I didn't say that."

"Would you care much what way it was if it gave the enjoyment?"

"Would you?"

"I! Certainly not. But--I am not like Mr. Armeen."

He slightly mispronounced the name.

"Mr. Armine?" she said. "What about him?"

"Would he not think that some things one might do and many things one
must not do? All the Englishmen are like that. Oh, dear, if one does the
thing they think wrong! Oh, dear! Oh, Law!"

He took away his hand from his throat