For a time she watched him smoothing the creases from the crumpled gloves, wondering at his unexpected presence.
“I didn’t think you would be here tonight,” she said at length. “You don’t really like—this sort of thing, do you?” she added, with a vague movement of her hand towards the distant ballroom.
“Loathe it,” he answered promptly, moving slightly to face her and settling his long limbs more comfortably into the corner of the sofa. “But I make a point of coming to this particular function if I happen to be in Algiers. I meet old friends.”
“Desert friends?”
He nodded assent to the eager question.
“Is that why you wear Arab dress?”
“Partly,” he shrugged, “they would hardly know me in European clothes. But principally because I prefer it.”
“As you prefer to speak Arabic or French, rather than English?” she hazarded.
“How do you know?”
She flushed under his stare and looked away with an odd little smile.