"I have the right to call myself so, if I choose," he admitted. "I am pleased to meet you again. I was waiting for a friend when you beckoned. If you did not recognize my face at first, may I ask what it was you wanted of me?"
There was no limit, then, to his audacity. He had not learned his lesson yet, after all, it would seem.
Monny could not bear tamely to lose her hat, though she must have felt her hatpins trembling in the balance. "I told you before," she repeated, "that it was I who beckoned you." He looked at her, without speaking; and somehow the green turban and the long straight gown, by adding to his dignity, added also to his remote air of cold politeness. How could she go on? Had she the cheek to go on? She had; but the cheek was flushed with embarrassment.
"I—er—I am anxious for a guide, some one who knows Egypt well, and several languages," she desperately blurted out, looking like a half-frightened, half-defiant child. "I thought——"
"There are plenty of dragomans, Madame," Green Turban reminded her. "I can recommend you several."
"I don't want a regular dragoman," she said. "And I'm not 'Madame.' I am Miss Gilder."
"Indeed?" Chilling indifference in the tone. (Monny's hat was practically mine. I thought I should rather value it.)
"Yes. But of course that can't matter to you."
"No. It cannot, Mademoiselle."
"What I want to say, is this. You're a Hadji, which means you've been to Mecca; Lord Ernest Borrow's just told us. So you must be very intelligent. Are you in business?"