Out at the gate the Consul eyed her carriage with intense disfavour, especially Sawwâb the eunuch, who stood ready at the door.
“You will kindly come in mine,” he said peremptorily.
“Then you will kindly tell the Pasha’s man to follow,” she replied, with eyes that twinkled laughter at his show of temper.
He shouted to the Pasha’s coachman, and got in beside her. For a while they drove in silence, the Consul stealing glances at her face from time to time. She knew that he was struck by the new charm of her. His manner had a dash of gallantry which was amusing.
“I hate to see you in that carriage, with those servants,” he exclaimed at length impulsively. “You must forgive me. I have lived here years, and know the country.”
Again she laughed and her eyes quizzed him. The thought that she knew more than he did, possibly, was made conviction by his next remark:
“Please realize that you are absolutely free. Whatever may have happened—I mean whatever influences have been brought to bear—those people cannot hurt you now, or even reach you.” This man who knew the country suspected the good Pasha of iniquity, and looked upon his palace as a den of vice. She said:
“There has been nothing of the kind. I have never been so kindly treated or so happy.”
He hemmed and hawed, remarking:
“Well, remember what I say. And don’t forget that, as a British subject here, you have great privileges which, whatever happens, you will be unwise to forfeit. I hope you will confide in Mrs. Cameron. There is no one in this world more kind and trustworthy.”
She answered, “Thanks!” and turned from him to contemplate the passing scene. Their carriage flew along a sandy lane between walled gardens of the suburbs, with here and there a mansion closely shuttered towards the street. The road was covered with the long procession of the fellahin returning outward to their villages—men straddled over donkeys between empty paniers; women stalked erect and queenlike in their graceful drapery; here and there a camel sauntered, led by some bare-legged boy—the whole, obscured by clouds of dust, illumined warmly by the rays of the declining sun, or steeped in the deep shadow of mud walls. Foot-farers, forced aside to let the carriage pass, stared at its inmates with contemptuous eyes. The garb of Europe was a blot upon the peaceful scene. Her heart went out to all those people, plodding, contented, in the sunlit dust. Henceforth she would be nothing strange to them, she swore it.
“Here we are!” The Consul’s voice disturbed her reverie. He shouted to the driver and the carriage stopped. The harem carriage drew up close behind it. A door in a high wall was opened by a smiling negro. A minute later she was in a cool verandah, looking on a well-kept garden, outside a very English drawing-room.
It was a house where all was tidy and precise, a hostile element to one in love with the untrimmed profusion of the Pasha’s palace. She hated it as servants hate a nagging mistress.
“Now, having brought you two together, I shall leave you,” said the Consul pleasantly. “This young lady, Mrs. Cameron, has gone and got herself into a precious fix. Confess her thoroughly, and then we’ll find some way to get her out of it.”
“But I have no desire to get out of it,” cried the girl, exasperated. “The fix, as you are pleased to call it, is my greatest happiness.”
But the Consul was already gone, delighted as it seemed to wash his hands of her. She found herself alone with Mrs. Cameron.
“We’ll have some tea at once, and you must see the children,” was that lady’s first remark, so different from the attack anticipated that the guest, all nerved for battle, felt defrauded. Though ready to resist with fury, she lacked the energy required to open fight. Tea came, and with it the three tow-haired children, whose presence made all talk impossible. The girl sat moody, in abeyance, replying briefly to remarks addressed to her. The garden perfumes became stronger as the sun sank. They, or some kindred but more subtle influence, obscured her brain with fumes in which her purpose loomed unreal and enormous. The homely scene appealed to her against her will. Almost she had the sense of hands held out to her, while Mrs. Cameron was talking nonsense with the children. This playing on her nerves seemed a mean stratagem. Hot anger grew beneath her careless shell.
At length the youngsters were dismissed. The girl then braced herself to meet the blow. Again she felt a keen pang of deception when her hostess said:
“I am going to ask you a great favour. Stay the night with me! My husband is away at Alexandria. I am really lonely.”
“Thank you very much, but it is really quite impossible,”—there was poison in the honey of this sweet reply—“I have a carriage waiting.”
“We can send it with a message.”
“No, really, thank you! I have stayed too long already.” She suddenly bethought her of the master move, and rose determined.
“No, sit down, my dear!” cried Mrs. Cameron. “I have to talk to you. And though I would rather have had the night in which to think things over, I must, since you force me to it, speak quite simply now. I say: Don’t do it, child! Don’t take the step the Consul tells me that you contemplate! He thought that you had been seduced by unfair practices; but that, I
