“She was your guest to-night,” said Féraz suddenly, and with such a sternness in his accent as caused her ladyship to look at him in blank surprise.
“Certainly! One must always ask a celebrity.”
“If one must always ask, then one is bound always to respect,” said Féraz coldly. “In our code d’honneur, we never speak ill of those who have partaken of our hospitality.”
So saying, he turned on his heel and walked away with so much haughtiness of demeanour that Lady Melthorpe stood as though rooted to the spot, staring speechlessly after him. Then rousing herself, she looked at El-Râmi and shrugged her shoulders.
“Really,” she began,—“really, Mr. El-Râmi, your brother’s manner is very strange——”
“It is,” returned El-Râmi quickly—“I admit it. His behaviour is altogether unpolished—and he is quite unaccustomed to society. I told Lord Melthorpe so,—and I was against his being invited here. He says exactly what he thinks, without fear or favour, and in this regard is really a mere barbarian. Allow me to apologise for him!”
Lady Melthorpe bowed stiffly,—she saw, or fancied she saw, a faint ironical smile playing on El-Râmi’s lips beneath his dark moustache. She was much annoyed,—the idea of a “boy,” like Féraz, presuming to talk to her, a leader of London fashion, about a code d’honneur! The thing was monstrous,—absurd! And as for Irene Vassilius, why should not she be talked about?—she was a public person; a writer of books which Mrs. Grundy in her church-going moods had voted as “dangerous.” Truly Lady Melthorpe considered she had just cause to be ruffled, and she began to regret having invited these “Eastern men,” as she termed them, to her house at all. El-Râmi perceived her irritation, but he made no further remark; and, as soon as he could conveniently do so, he took his formal leave of her. Quickly threading his way through the now rapidly thinning throng, he sought out Féraz, whom he found in the hall talking to Roy Ainsworth and making final arrangements for the sitting he was to give the artist next day.
“I should like to make a study of your head too,” said Roy, with a keen glance at El-Râmi as he approached—“but I suppose you have no time.”
“No time—and still less inclination!” responded El-Râmi laughingly; “for I have sworn that no ‘counterfeit presentment’ of my bodily form shall ever exist. It would always be a false picture—it would never be me, because it would only represent the perishable, whilst I am the imperishable.”
“Singular man!” said Roy Ainsworth. “What do you mean?”