"And live under the tent? I met a man last night who knows you, an Egyptian army man on leave, Verreker. He told me you were reclaiming quite a lot of desert."
"I should like to reclaim far more than I ever can. It's a good task."
"Hard work?"
"Deuced hard. That's why I like it."
"I know; man's love of taming the proud spirit."
"Is it that? I don't think I bother much about what prompts me to a thing. But—I say, Isaacson, sometimes it seems to me that you have a devilish long sight into things, an almost uncanny long sight."
He leaned forward.
"But in you I don't mind it."
"I don't say I acknowledge it. But why should you mind it in any one?"
Nigel quoted some words of Mrs. Chepstow, but Isaacson did not know he quoted.