He spoke of the passages quoted as being very charming, direct, and simple; and Muriel remarked that she had always thought of the Greeks as wicked old men who sat on cold marble and made hot epigrams.
“But in this case,” he laughed, “the author seems to have been a poor shepherd.”
“Then no wonder his views were peculiar,” said she. “‘Poverty makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows,’ they say.”
The colonel glanced at her apprehensively, but Muriel’s face seemed to show perfect innocence. “Oh, well, for that matter,” she added, musingly, “I suppose wealth does, too.”
Her host’s breath appeared to be taken away by her audacity. He was not used to the style of chatter current in what are called “smart” circles. He caught Daniel’s eye, and, seeing that he had been listening, winked at him; but Daniel turned quickly away, and made another abortive attempt to engage Lady Smith-Evered in conversation.
Mrs. Cavilland observed his difficulties, and helped him to enter the gaieties at her end of the table; but here, again, he felt himself to be out of harmony with the laughter, and he began to think himself a very surly fellow.
Mrs. Cavilland was amusing her neighbours by making fun of the wives of the minor officials in Cairo; and she was clever enough to rend them so gently that her feline claws were hardly to be observed, her victims seeming, as it were, to fall to pieces of their own accord.
“What a cat I am!” she laughed. “Mr. Lane, I can see your disapproving eye on me.”
Lady Smith-Evered leant forward. “Mr. Lane disapproves of everything English,” she said. “He prefers natives.”
“Oh, it’s not as bad as that,” Daniel replied, with a smile. “I’ve got the greatest admiration for my countrymen in the rough....”