Good heavens! What next? He acknowledged me! What was I to do now? What did the impudent fellow want me to do? Evidently he was trying an experiment. Anthony is great on experiments, and always has been. But this was a bomb. I thought he wanted to see if I could catch it on the fly, and drop it into water before it had time to explode.
"Why didn't you tell us, Lord Ernest?" asked Monny, with a flash in her gray eyes. "I thought you hadn't been in Egypt since you were a child."
"I haven't, and I didn't recognize him at first," I answered, trying for the coolness which Anthony dared to count upon.
"You remember me now?" he inquired politely.
"I—er—yes," I replied, also in French. "Your face is familiar, though you've changed, I think, since—er—since you were in England. It must have been there—yes, of course. You were on a diplomatic mission. But your name—"
"You may have known me as Ahmed Antoun," said the wretch, not dreaming of that slip he had made.
Cleopatra, who has little French, nevertheless started, and fixed upon the face under the turban a stare of feverish interest. Brigit and the unobtrusive lady with the slanting eyes both showed such symptoms of surprise as must too late have warned Fenton that he had missed his footing, skating on thin ice.
"Antoun!" exclaimed Mrs. East. "Why, that's what you said you called your friend Captain Fenton."
I glanced at Anthony. His profile had no more expression than that of an Indian on an American penny, and, indeed, rather resembled it. If he were blaming me for letting anything out, I had a right to blame him for letting himself in. He was silent as well as expressionless. He left it all to me—diplomat or duffer.
"'Antoun Effendi' was the nickname my friend Fenton got at school," I explained to Cleopatra, "because it sounded a bit like his own name, and because he had—er—because he had associations with Egypt. He was proud of them and is still. But Antoun is a name often heard here. And every man who isn't a Bey or a Prince, or a Sheikh, is an Effendi. I quite remember you now," I hurried on, turning to Anthony once more. "You are Hadji as well as Effendi."