she
had grasped something in him which till now had seemed to elude her.
Nevertheless, although her mood was changing, the sense of personal
outrage had not completely died out of her.

"There really are other serpent eaters?" she asked.

"Of course. Saadees."

"And that man is one? But he hated my taking the serpent."

"But I did not hate it."

"No."

More strongly she felt that she had grasped something in him which had
eluded her till now.

"Sit there for a minute quietly," he said, with a gentleness that,
though far less boyish, recalled to her mind the smiling gentleness of
Ibrahim. "And I will give you a new pleasure, and all your anger will go
from you as the waves go from the Nile when the breeze has died away."

"What is it?"

His eyes were full of a sort of happy cunning like a child's.

"Sit there and you will know."

He went out of the room, and came back in a moment carrying a good-sized
box carefully wrapped in silver paper. She began to think that he was
going to give her another present, perhaps some wonderful jewel. But he
undid the silver paper cautiously, opened a red-leather case, and
displayed a musical box. After placing it tenderly upon the
coffee-table, he bent down and set it going. There was a click, a slight
buzzing, and then upon Mrs. Armine's enraptured ears there fell the
strains of an old air from a forgotten opera of Auber's, "Come o'er the
Moonlit Sea!"

The change from the Saadee's atmosphere of savage fanaticism to this
mild and tinkling insipidity threw Mrs. Armine's nerves off their
balance.

"Oh, Baroudi!" she said.

Her lips began to tremble. She turned away her head. The effort not to
betray her almost hysterical amusement, which was combined with an
intense desire to pet this great, robust child, almost suffocated her.
There was a click. The music stopped.

"Wait a moment!" she heard him say.

And his voice sounded grave, like an intensely appreciative child's.

Click! "Parigi, O Cara!"

Mrs. Armine governed herself, drew breath, and once more turned towards
Baroudi. On his strong, bold face there was the delighted expression of
a boy. She looked, looked at him, and all her half-tender amusement died
away, and again, as in the Villa Androud, she was encompassed by fear.
The immense contrasts in this man, combined with his superb physique,
made him to her irresistibly fascinating. In him there was a complete
novelty to appeal to her jaded appetites, render