A few minutes afterwards Ishmael and Helena and old Mahmud were sitting in the guest-room together, drinking new milk and eating soft bread.
"But where is your boy, O Rani?" asked Ishmael, who missed the great fan of ostrich feathers.
Helena made a halting excuse. Mosie had been troublesome—she had sent him back to where he came from—Cairo.
"Cairo?" asked the Arab woman, with a glance of suspicion.
Helena looked confused, but Ishmael saw nothing. He was more than usually excited, enthusiastic, and full of great hopes. After a while he talked of the Bedouin who was coming.
"Our brother is not, in fact, a Bedouin," he said.
"Not a Bedouin?"
"Neither is he a Moslem. He is a Christian and indeed an Englishman."
"An Englishman?"
"All yes, but he is one who loves the Moslems, and has gone through shame and degradation rather than do them a wrong."