David laughed drily. “Well, perhaps I’ve missed something in you. Thee never says now—not since thee went south a year ago, ‘Well, give my love to the girls.’ Something has left its mark, friend,” he added teasingly; for his spirits were boyish to-day; he was living in the present. There had gone from his eyes and from the lines of his figure the melancholy which Hylda had remarked when he was in England.
“Well, now, I never noticed,” rejoined Lacey. “That’s got me. Looks as if I wasn’t as friendly as I used to be, doesn’t it? But I am—I am, Saadat.”
“I thought that the widow in Cairo, perhaps—” Lacey chuckled. “Say, perhaps it was—cute as she can be, maybe, wouldn’t like it, might be prejudiced.”
Suddenly David turned sharply to Lacey. “Thee spoke of silver mining just now. I owe thee something like two hundred thousand pounds, I think—Egypt and I.”
Lacey winked whimsically at himself under the rim of his helmet. “Are you drawing back from those concessions, Saadat?” he asked with apparent ruefulness.
“Drawing back? No! But does thee think they are worth—”
Lacey assumed an injured air. “If a man that’s made as much money as me can’t be trusted to look after a business proposition—”
“Oh, well, then!”
“Say, Saadat, I don’t want you to think I’ve taken a mean advantage of you; and if—”
David hastened to put the matter right. “No, no; thee must be the judge!” He smiled sceptically. “In any case, thee has done a good deed in a great way, and it will do thee no harm in the end. In one way the investment will pay a long interest, as long as the history of Egypt runs. Ah, see, the houses of Assouan, the palms, the river, the masts of the dahabiehs!”