“I don’t know,” he answered lightly, and as though the suspicion had gone. He watched Dicky and his companions closely, however, though he chatted unconcernedly while they stood in apparent debate, and presently came on. Dicky was whistling softly, but with an air of perplexity, and he walked with a precision of step which told Kingsley of difficulty ahead. He had not long to wait, and as Dicky drew nearer and looked him in the eyes, he came to his feet again, his long body gathering itself slowly up, as though for deliberate action. He felt trouble in the air, matters of moment, danger for himself, though of precisely what sort was not clear. He took a step forward, as though to shield the lady from possible affront.
“I fancy they want to see me,” he said. He recognised the officer—Foulik Pasha of the Khedive’s household.
The Pasha salaamed. Dicky drew over to the lady, with a keen warning glance at Kingsley. The Pasha salaamed again, and Kingsley responded in kind. “Good-day to you, Pasha,” he said.
“May the dew of the morning bring flowers to your life, Excellency,” was the reply. He salaamed now towards the lady, and Kingsley murmured his name to her.
“Will you not be seated,” she said, and touched a chair as though to sit down, yet casting a doubtful glance at the squad of men and the brilliant kavass drawn up near by. The Pasha looked from one to the other, and Kingsley spoke.
“What is it, Pasha? Her ladyship doesn’t know why she should be honoured.”
“But that makes no difference,” she interposed. “Here is coffee—ah, that’s right, cigarettes too! But, yes, you will take my coffee, Pasha,” she urged.
The insolent look which had gathered in the man’s face cleared away. He salaamed, hesitated, and took the coffee, then salaamed again to her.
She had caught at a difficulty; an instinctive sense of peril had taken possession of her; and, feeling that the danger was for the Englishman who had come to her out of her old life, she had interposed a diplomatic moment. She wanted to gain time before the mystery broke over her. She felt something at stake for herself. Premonition, a troubling of the spirit, told her that she was in the presence of a crisis out of which she would not come unchanged.
Dicky was talking now, helping her—asking the Pasha questions of his journey up the river, of the last news from Europe, of the Khedive’s health, though he and Kingsley had only left Cairo a half-day before the Pasha.