Muriel looked at him questioningly. “Were you alone in the desert?” she asked. There had come into her mind a vision of that harîm of which she had heard tell.
“Well, I wasn’t exactly alone ...,” he replied; for he had many friends among the natives.
His answer gave fresh colour to her thoughts, and a sense of annoyance crept over her.
“It seems to me,” she remarked, “that I ought to remind you of the Biblical saying, ‘Physician, heal thyself.’”
She got up, and, with a little nod to him, strolled back to the rose-bushes. He watched her as she added fresh blooms to the bunch she was carrying; and he noticed how the sunlight caught her hair and made it beautiful. He would have liked to have gone after her and taken her in his arms.
Presently he returned to the house, and, finding that there were no more native visitors, went to talk over serious matters of policy with the regular Secretaries.
He remained to luncheon at the Residency, and at the table Lord Blair enquired eagerly as to whether he had found his first morning’s work interesting, and appeared to be relieved to hear that such was the case.
Muriel joined in the conversation. “I was eavesdropping behind the bushes,” she said, “and I can say with confidence that Mr. Lane enjoyed it all thoroughly, especially the part where he smashed up the gardener’s work of weeks.” Therewith she related the incident of the wooden stake, but in her narrative the faggot became an immense tree-trunk.
Lord Blair rubbed his hands. “That’s the sort of thing!” he exclaimed. “Dear me, dear me!—what strength you have, Daniel!”
“Yes,” said Muriel, “his mere presence would make the dullest party piquant. One has only to recollect that if he were suddenly to get out of control, every person in the vicinity would run the risk of being banged into a boneless emulsion....”