tin, and the faintest trace of Devonshire
lavender, created a perfect scandal among those whose locks were either
limply curtaining their owner's cheeks or blinding the eye, or cached
under some head covering were acquiring a wave which might with luck
last out the dinner and bridge hours.

Secondly, although a penniless companion, she allowed no familiarity
from the men and no condescension from the women; and thirdly, her
shoes gave reason for envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness,
being on the day you met her exquisite champagne coloured things, her
critics little guessing that the reason she wore them was that she had
none thicker, and no money wherewith to buy any.

This last point sounds almost absurd, but those who know will any day
back the woman with dainty ankles, pretty feet, the glimpse of white
lace and a plain face, against the really beautiful countenance up
above the shapeless ankle-calf combine, and the foot that in two days
gives a shoe the shape of the bows of a dinghey.

So because of all these reasons, also because all the nice, wise people
who loved her having stayed behind, she stood alone, her heart
clamouring for life and adventure, which comes to about the same thing,
and which she sensed is to be found so much more easily in the East she
was leaving behind in the space of a few hours. The rest of her
rebelling against the West, the monotonous days on the boat racing her
back to England in November, with nothing to do, too much to eat, and
the trail of medicine glasses, cushions, gouty, dyspeptic, and neurotic
employers lengthening into the drab future.

"Allah! help me!" she whispered, and really meaning it, as she turned
to look again at the camels stalking on into the desert, and finding
herself instead looking straight into the eyes of an Arab standing
behind her.

And here, I hope, endeth the dullest part of the book.

CHAPTER 17

Arabs as a race are tall, most of them having a grave look of nobility,
all without exception, inheriting from their forefathers Ishmail or
Johtan that air of studied calm, that seldom smiling, never restless
attitude, which expresses the height of dignity and gravity. There
were many of them in this motley station crowd, also Bedouins, smaller
of stature, and the members of the many other tribes which go to
populating the great Egyptian desert. But not one of all the men,
magnificent though some of them were, could compare with Hahmed t