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“You very much are,” answered Dicky, thrust a cigar at him, and set him down in the deepest chair he could find. He sprawled wide, and lighted his cigar, then lay back and looked down his long nose at his friend.

“I mean it, too,” he said after a minute, and reached for a glass of water the waiter brought. “No, thanks, no whiskey–never touch it–good example to the slaves!” He laughed long and low, and looked at Dicky out of the corner of his eye. “Good-looking lot I sent you, eh?”

“Oosters, every one of ’em. Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. I learnt their grin, it suits my style of beauty.” Dicky fitted the action to the word. “You’ll start with me in the morning to Assiout?”

“I can start, but life and time are short.”

“You think I can’t and won’t marry her?”

“This isn’t the day of Lochinvar.”

“This is the day of Kingsley Bey, Dicky Pasha.”

Dicky frowned. He had a rare and fine sense where women were concerned, were they absent or present. “How very artless–and in so short a time, too!” he said tartly.

Kingsley laughed quietly. “Art is long, but tempers are short!” he retorted.

Dicky liked a Roland for his Oliver. “It’s good to see you back again,” he said, changing the subject.

“How long do you mean to stay?”

“Here?” Dicky nodded. “Till I’m married.”

Dicky became very quiet, a little formal, and his voice took on a curious smoothness, through which sharp suggestion pierced.

“So long?–Enter our Kingsley Bey into the underground Levantine world.”

This was biting enough. To be swallowed up by Cairo life and all that it involves, was no fate to suggest to an Englishman, whose opinion of the Levantine needs no defining. “Try again, Dicky,” said Kingsley, refusing to be drawn. “This is not one huge joke, or one vast impertinence, so far as the lady is concerned. I’ve come back-b-a-c-k” (he spelled the word out), “with all that it involves. I’ve come back, Dicky.”

He quieted all at once, and leaned over towards his friend. “You know the fight I’ve had. You know the life I’ve lived in Egypt. You know what I left behind me in England–nearly all. You’ve seen the white man work. You’ve seen the black ooster save him. You’ve seen the ten-times-a-failure pull out. Have I played the game? Have I acted squarely? Have I given kindness for kindness, blow for blow? Have I treated my slaves like human beings? Have I–have I won my way back to life–life?” He spread out a hand with a little grasping motion. “Have I saved the old stand off there in Cumberland by the sea, where you can see the snow on Skaw Fell? Have I? Do you wonder that I laugh? Ye gods and little fishes! I’ve had to wear a long face years enough–seven hard years, seven fearful years, when I might be murdered by a slave, and I and my slaves might be murdered by some stray brigade, under some general of Ismail’s, working without orders, without orders, of course–oh, very much of course! Why shouldn’t I play the boy to-day, little Dicky Donovan? I am a Mahommedan come Christian again. I am a navvy again come gentleman. I am an Arab come Englishman once more.

“I am an outcast come home. I am a dead man come to life.”

Dicky leaned over and laid a hand on his knee. “You are a credit to Cumberland,” he said. “No other man could have done it. I won’t ask any more questions. Anything you want of me, I am with you, to do, or say, or be.”

“Good. I want you to go to Assiout to-morrow.”

“Will you see Ismail first? It might be safer–good policy.”

“I will see My Lady first…. Trust me. I know what I’m doing. You will laugh as I do.” Laughter broke from his lips. It was as though his heart was ten years old. Dicky’s eyes moistened. He had never seen anything like it–such happiness, such boyish confidence. And what had not this man experienced! How had he drunk misfortune to the dregs! What unbelievable optimism had been his! How had he been at once hard and kind, tyrannical and human, defiant and peaceful, daring yet submissive, fierce yet just! And now, here, with so much done, with a great fortune and great power, a very boy, he was planning to win the heart of, and marry, his avowed foe, the woman who had condemned him without stint.