h his ears there were roses, and he held a rose in his hand with an
unlighted cigarette.

"What are we going to do to-day, Ibrahim?" said Mrs. Armine, lazily.

Ibrahim came up and stood beside her, looking down in his very gentle
and individual way. He smoothed the front of his djelabieh, lifted his
rose, smelt it, and said in his low contralto voice:

"We are goin' across the river, my lady."

"Are we?"

"We are goin' to take our lunchin'; we are goin' to be out all day."

"Oh! And what about tea?"

"We are goin' to take it with us in that bottle that looks all made of
silver."

"Silver and--gold," she murmured, looking into the radiant distance
where Thebes lay cradled in the arms of the sun-god.

"And when are we going, Ibrahim?"

He looked at her, and his soft, pale brown lips stretched themselves and
showed his dazzling teeth.

"When you are ready, my lady."

She looked up into his face. Ibrahim was twenty, but he was completely a
boy, despite his great height and his tried capacities as a dragoman.
Everything in him suggested rather the boy than the young man. His long
and slim and flexible body, his long brown neck, his small head, covered
with black hair which curled thickly, the expression in his generally
smiling eyes, even his quiet gestures, his dreamy poses, his gait, his
way of sitting down and of getting up, all conveyed, or seemed to
convey, to those about him the fact that he was a boy. And there was
something very attractive in this very definite youngness of his.
Somehow it inspired confidence.

"I suppose I am ready now."

Mrs. Armine spoke slowly, always looking up at Ibrahim.

"But is there a felucca to take us over?" she added.

"In four five minutes, my lady."

"Call to me from here when it is ready. I leave all the lunch and tea
arrangements to you."

"All what you want you must have, my lady."

Was that a formula of Ibrahim's? To-day he seemed to speak the words
with a conviction that was not usual, with some curious under-meaning.
How much of a boy was he really? As Mrs. Armine went upstairs she was
wondering about him.

Nigel had said to her, "You are blossoming here." And he had said to
her, "You are beautiful, but you do not trust your own beauty." And that
was true, perhaps. To-day she would be quite alone with Ibrahim and the
Egyptians; she would be in perfect freedom, and downstairs upon the
terrace the idea had come to her to fill up the time that must elapse