"Don't be foolish, my good woman," she said, "and do for goodness' sake mind your business of looking after me. Although my god-daughter may bluff a bit for the fun of the game, and get let down a bit for her own good, yet I shouldn't advise anyone to get seeing her too often. Fate dealt her a royal straight flush in hearts, and better that you can't—no! not even if you hold a full house of intrigue and bad intent t'other end of Life's table."
"Humff!" replied the maid heavily through her nose, not having understood one word of her mistress's admonition.
Each day at breakfast and at dinner a bunch, big or little, of simple or hothouse flowers lay beside the girl's plate, without name or message.
Now, the finding of flowers upon your table does not, in Egypt, necessarily imply that the donor thereof is a son of the desert; the maître d'hôtel has been known to do it out of deference to your rank or purse; and only once had Jane Coop had the mixed pleasure of meeting the deaf-mute Nubian who daily left the posies at the hotel.
Refreshed from her siesta, she had descended to the hall via the stairs instead of the lift, and bumped into the ebony-hued slave as he bent to lay a sheaf of flowers upon the matting outside her mistress's door.
He had straightened himself and salaamed almost to the ground—which had delighted Jane Coop—and had offered the bunch to her.
"Oh, no, my man!" she had said, bridling, "you don't come over me that way. Just you take that trash back to where it came from. My young lady ain't that kind," and had shaken her fist in his face and flounced downstairs to lay a complaint.
What with the militant maids, the parrot and the dog, the ducal party was continually breaking out in some direction or another, but the maître d'hôtel, who simply worshipped the old lady, merely smiled and poured the oil of soothing words upon the troubled waters.
The girl had quite casually recounted the fight in the bazaar, and the wise old woman had made no comment; but, all the same, next day she indifferently asked a few questions of Lady Thistleton, who had a big heart, narrow mind, an ever-wagging tongue and two daughters.
"Oh, that's the son of the Arab and the English girl. You must remember the fuse there was in England over the runaway marriage—what was her name?—how she could, you know——"