Denzil avoided his keen look.
“Really, Doctor, you are getting awfully inquisitive!” he exclaimed with a hard laugh. “You want to know altogether too much!”
“Yes, I always do; it is a habit of mine,” responded Dr. Dean, calmly. “But in the present case, it doesn’t need much perspicuity to fathom your mystery. The dullest clod-hopper will tell you he can see through a millstone when there’s a hole in it. And I was always a good hand at putting two and two together and making four out of them. You and Gervase are in love with the same woman; the woman has rejected you and is encouraging Gervase; Gervase, you think, will on this very night be in the position of the accepted lover, for which successful fortune attending him, you, the rejected one, propose to kill him to-morrow morning if you can, unless he kills you. And you are going to Cairo to get your pistols or whatever weapons you have arranged to fight with, and also to say good-bye to your sister.”
Denzil kept his eyes fixed studiously on the table-cloth and made no answer.
“However,” continued the Doctor complacently, “you can have it all your own way as far as I am concerned. I never interfere in these sort of matters. I should do no good if I attempted it. Besides, I haven’t the slightest anxiety on your behalf—not the slightest. Waiter, some more coffee, please?”
“Upon my word!” exclaimed Denzil, with a fretful laugh, “you are a most extraordinary man, Doctor!”
“I hope I am!” retorted the Doctor. “To be merely ordinary would not suit my line of ambition. This is very excellent coffee”—here he peered into the fresh pot of the fragrant beverage just set before him. “They make it better here than at the Gezireh Palace. Well, Denzil, my boy, when you get into Cairo, give my love to Helen and tell her we’ll all go home to the old country together; I, myself, have got quite enough out of Egypt this time to satisfy my fondness for new experiences. And let me assure you, my good fellow, that your proposed duel with Gervase will not come off!”
“It will come off!” said Denzil, with sudden fierceness. “By Heaven, it shall!—it must!”
“More wills than one have the working out of our destinies,” answered Dr. Dean with some gravity. “Man is not by any means supreme. He imagines he is, but that is only one of his many little delusions. You think you will have your way; Gervase thinks he will have his way; I think I will have my way; but as a matter of fact there is only one person in this affair whose ‘way’ will be absolute, and that person is the Princess Ziska. Ce que femme veut Dieu veut.”
“She has nothing whatever to do with the matter,” declared Denzil.