Could all these people read her mind and follow the track of her distastes and desires, even the dragomans and the donkey-boys? For an instant she felt as if the stalwart Englishmen, the governing race, whom she knew so well, were only children—short-sighted and frigid children—that these really submissive Egyptians, Baroudi, Ibrahim, and the praying Hamza, were crafty and hot-blooded men with a divinatory power.
"Your coffee," said Baroudi, handing to her a cup.
She drank a little, put down the cup, and said:
"The first night we were at the Villa Androud your Nubian sailors came up the Nile and sang just underneath the garden. Why did they do that?"
"Because they are my men, and had my orders to sing to you."
"And Ibrahim—and Hamza?" she asked.
"They had my orders to bring you here."
"Yes," she said.
She was silent for an instant.
"Yes; of course they had your orders."