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There was no more satirical laughter in his eyes. He was deeply in earnest, disturbed, even excited. “Egypt means everything in the world to me. I would do what I could for her.”

“What has she done for you?”

“She has brought me to you again–to make me know that what you were by Skaw Fell all those years ago, you are now, and a thousand times more.”

She parried the dangerous meaning in his voice, refused to see the tenderness in his manner.

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” she added in a tone vainly trying to be unconcerned. “It is a pity that our youth pursues us in forms so little desirable…. Who are they?” she added quickly, nodding towards the shore, from which Dicky was coming with an Egyptian officer and a squad of soldiers.

“H’m,” he responded laughing, “it looks like a matter of consequence. A Pasha, I should think, to travel with an escort like that.”

“They’re coming here,” she added, and, calling to her servant, ordered coffee.

Suddenly Kingsley got to his feet, with a cry of consternation; but sat down again smiling with a shrug of the shoulders.

“What is it?” she asked, with something like anxiety, for she had seen the fleeting suspicion in his look.

“I don’t know,” he answered lightly, and as though the suspicion had gone. He watched Dicky and his companions closely, however, though he chatted unconcernedly while they stood in apparent debate, and presently came on. Dicky was whistling softly, but with an air of perplexity, and he walked with a precision of step which told Kingsley of difficulty ahead. He had not long to wait, and as Dicky drew nearer and looked him in the eyes, he came to his feet again, his long body gathering itself slowly up, as though for deliberate action. He felt trouble in the air, matters of moment, danger for himself, though of precisely what sort was not clear. He took a step forward, as though to shield the lady from possible affront.

“I fancy they want to see me,” he said. He recognised the officer–Foulik Pasha of the Khedive’s household.

The Pasha salaamed. Dicky drew over to the lady, with a keen warning glance at Kingsley. The Pasha salaamed again, and Kingsley responded in kind. “Good-day to you, Pasha,” he said.

“May the dew of the morning bring flowers to your life, Excellency,” was the reply. He salaamed now towards the lady, and Kingsley murmured his name to her.

“Will you not be seated,” she said, and touched a chair as though to sit down, yet casting a doubtful glance at the squad of men and the brilliant kavass drawn up near by. The Pasha looked from one to the other, and Kingsley spoke.

“What is it, Pasha? Her ladyship doesn’t know why she should be honoured.”

“But that makes no difference,” she interposed. “Here is coffee–ah, that’s right, cigarettes too! But, yes, you will take my coffee, Pasha,” she urged.

The insolent look which had gathered in the man’s face cleared away. He salaamed, hesitated, and took the coffee, then salaamed again to her.

She had caught at a difficulty; an instinctive sense of peril had taken possession of her; and, feeling that the danger was for the Englishman who had come to her out of her old life, she had interposed a diplomatic moment. She wanted to gain time before the mystery broke over her. She felt something at stake for herself. Premonition, a troubling of the spirit, told her that she was in the presence of a crisis out of which she would not come unchanged.

Dicky was talking now, helping her–asking the Pasha questions of his journey up the river, of the last news from Europe, of the Khedive’s health, though he and Kingsley had only left Cairo a half-day before the Pasha.

The officer thanked the lady and salaamed again, then turned towards Kingsley.

“You wished to speak with me, perhaps, Pasha,” said Kingsley.

“If a moment of your time may have so little honour, saadat el bey.”