He looked gravely at her. “You call to my mind,” he said, “the prayer of Abu-Bakr, the first Khalif. When he heard that people were praising him, he used to say something like this: ‘O God, Thou knowest me better than I know myself, and I know myself better than other people know me. Make me, I pray Thee, better than they suppose, and forgive me what they know not.’”
Therewith he relapsed into silence once more; and Muriel, feeling that there was a sort of momentousness in this hour of his entrance into the political arena, held her peace. There was in her mind a sense of pride at the part she was playing in a great event. She felt that she was, as it were, a sharer in a diplomatic secret; it was almost as though she, too, were serving a great cause. Suddenly the things which made up her social life seemed to become insignificant, and her existence took on a larger aspect.
As they drove up to the door of the Residency, she turned to him as though he were an old friend. “I’m awfully glad my father is going to have you with him,” she said. “I feel a sort of personal interest in it all.”
Daniel’s reply was interrupted by Lord Blair’s appearance on the steps. He had heard the car drive up to the door, and had hastened out to greet the newcomer.
“Welcome, my dear Daniel,” he exclaimed, holding out his arms as though he were going to embrace his friend. “This is splendid, capital!”
The two men shook hands, and as they did so, Lord Blair winced as though his fingers had been crunched in a man-trap. For some minutes thereafter he held his right hand loosely in his left, bending the joints carefully to and fro, under the pretence of fiddling with his rings. Even after they had entered the drawing-room and Muriel was dispensing the tea, he was still clenching and unclenching his fist, and bending and straightening his first finger as though surreptitiously beckoning to somebody.
Muriel told her father of her morning’s work, and described with enthusiasm the camp in the desert.
“I’m very sorry,” he answered, turning to Daniel, “very sorry indeed, that you are not going to live here in the house, but I bow to your wishes. You must consider yourself entirely free; and indeed I know we shall lose you if you are not your own master.”
“Oh no,” Daniel replied, “I’m quite prepared to follow a routine. I’ll work here all the morning, talking to your native callers, and I’ll do the correspondence at the camp in the evenings.”
“That will be admirable,” said Lord Blair; and presently, when tea was over, he led Daniel away to his study.