Le Breton said nothing. He knew if this English girl had any idea who he was, she would not be sitting there talking to him so freely. Although he was the Sultan of El-Ammeh, in the eyes of her nation he was a "nigger."
There was a further silence which Pansy broke.
"What made you swim out all those miles the other night?" she asked.
"I get moods when I want to lose the earth and find a heaven to my own liking."
"What sort of heaven would that be?"
"Where there would be only one houri, and she all-sufficing."
"A houri? Why that's a sort of Mohammedan angel-woman."
Evidently Le Breton was in a confessional mood, for he said:
"Nowadays I often wonder what use my life is. There's no pleasure in it except, perhaps—women."
"So long as it's 'women,' it's all right. The trouble starts when it comes to—'woman.'"