"It smells delicious, as enticing as perfumes from Paradise. I think you must have made it."
"Drink it, and believe so—you absurd person!" she said, gently.
He sipped, and she did likewise.
"It's perfect, simply perfect. But what has been put into it to give it this peculiar, delicious flavour, Ruby?"
"Ah, that's my secret."
She sipped from her little cup.
"It is extraordinarily good," she said.
She pointed to the small paper packets, which Hamza had not yet carried off.
"The preparation is almost like some sacred rite," she said. "We put in a little something from this packet, and a little something from that. And we smoke the cups with one of those burning sticks of mastic. And then, at the very end, when the coffee is frothing and creaming, we dust it with sugar. This is the result."
"Simply perfect."