Muriel was impressed, and questioned him.
“Yes,” he told her, “I always try to give between £500 and £1,000 a year to the poor.”
“I call that very fine of you,” she declared, warming to him immediately.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he answered. “I’m blessed with abundance, you know; and I like to practise what I preach. I’m not like some fellows I could mention—full of high principles in public, and full of sins in secret.”
“Who are you thinking of, specially?” she asked, noticing the marked inflection in his words.
He hesitated. “Well, Cousin Daniel, for example.”
“Oh, Daniel’s all right,” she replied.
“I don’t know so much about that,” he laughed. “There are some things you couldn’t understand, little woman. But ... well, there are some pretty tough female devils in the Cairo underworld; and Master Daniel has been seen more than once in low cafés and places with a girl who’s known as the ‘worst woman in Egypt’—the famous Lizette: but I don’t suppose you’ve heard of her.”
The words were like a knife in Muriel’s heart. So people were right, then, about Daniel’s disreputable character.
“Oh, that’s all past,” she replied, hardly knowing what she said.