The Princess looked at him as he spoke and smiled. The jewelled scarab, set as a brooch on her bosom, flashed luridly in the moon, and in her black eyes there was a similar lurid gleam.
“Come and talk to me,” she said, laying her hand on his arm; “I am tired, and the conversation of one’s ball-room partners is very banal. Monsieur Gervase would like me to dance all night, I imagine; but I am too lazy. I leave such energy to Lady Fulkeward and to all the English misses and madams. I love indolence.”
“Most Russian women do, I think,” observed the Doctor.
She laughed.
“But I am not Russian!”
“I know. I never thought you were,” he returned composedly; “but everyone in the hotel has come to the conclusion that you are!”
“They are all wrong! What can I do to put them right?” she inquired with a fascinating little upward movement of her eyebrows.
“Nothing! Leave them in their ignorance. I shall not enlighten them, though I know your nationality.”
“You do?” and a curious shadow darkened her features. “But perhaps you are wrong also!”
“I think not,” said the Doctor, with gentle obstinacy. “You are an Egyptian. Born in Egypt; born of Egypt. Pure Eastern! There is nothing Western about you. Is not it so?”