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“Oh, don’t think I undervalue his Excellency here,” she said with a little laugh. “It is because he is strong, because he matters so much, that one feels he could do more. Ismail thinks there is no one like him in the world.”

“Except Gordon,” interrupted Kingsley.

“Except Gordon, of course; only Gordon isn’t in Egypt. And he would do no good in Egypt. The officials would block his way. It is only in the Soudan that he could have a free hand, be of real use. There, a man, a real man, like Gordon, could show the world how civilisation can be accepted by desert races, despite a crude and cruel religion and low standards of morality.”

“All races have their social codes–what they call civilisation,” rejoined Kingsley. “It takes a long time to get custom out of the blood, especially when it is part of the religion. I’m afraid that expediency isn’t the motto of those who try to civilise the Orient and the East.”

“I believe in struggling openly for principle,” she observed a little acidly.

“Have you succeeded?” he asked, trying to keep his gravity. “How about your own household, for instance? Have you Christianised and civilised your people–your niggers, and the others?”

She flushed indignantly, but held herself in control. She rang a bell. “I have no ‘niggers,'” she answered quietly. “I have some Berberine servants, two fellah boatmen, an Egyptian gardener, an Arab cook, and a Circassian maid. They are, I think, devoted to me.”

A Berberine servant appeared. “Tea, Mahommed,” she said. “And tell Madame that Donovan Pasha is here. My cousin admires his Excellency so much,” she added to Kingsley, laughing. “I have never had any real trouble with them,” she continued with a little gesture of pride towards the disappearing Berberine.

“There was the Armenian,” put in Dicky slyly; “and the Copt sarraf. They were no credit to their Christian religion, were they?”

“That was not the fault of the religion, but of the generations of oppression–they lie as a child lies, to escape consequences. Had they not been oppressed they would have been good Christians in practice as in precept.”

“They don’t steal as a child steals,” laughed Dicky.

“Armenians are Oriental through and through. They no more understand the Christian religion than the Soudanese understand freedom.”

He touched the right note this time. Kingsley flashed a half-startled, half-humorous look at him; the face of the lady became set, her manner delicately frigid. She was about to make a quiet, severe reply, but something overcame her, and her eyes, her face, suddenly glowed. She leaned forward, her hands clasped tightly on her knees–Kingsley could not but note how beautiful and brown they were, capable, handsome, confident hands–and, in a voice thrilling with feeling, said:

“What is there in the life here that gets into the eyes of Europeans and blinds them? The United States spent scores of thousands of lives to free the African slave. England paid millions, and sacrificed ministries and men, to free the slave; and in England, you–you, Donovan Pasha, and men like you, would be in the van against slavery. Yet here, where England has more influence than any other nation–“

“More power, not influence,” Dicky interrupted smiling.

“Here, you endure, you encourage, you approve of it. Here, an Englishman rules a city of slaves in the desert and grows rich out of their labour. What can we say to the rest of the world, while out there in the desert”–her eyes swept over the grey and violet hills–“that man, Kingsley Bey, sets at defiance his race, his country, civilisation, all those things in which he was educated? Egypt will not believe in English civilisation, Europe will not believe in her humanity and honesty, so long as he pursues his wicked course.”

She turned with a gesture of impatience, and in silence began to pour the tea the servant had brought, with a message that Madame had a headache. Kingsley Bey was about to speak–it was so unfair to listen, and she would forgive this no more readily than she would forgive slavery. Dicky intervened, however.