“Miss Emanuel, Mr. Merryweather,” said the Princess; and Raie shook hands with a new tinge of colour in her cheeks. Then an almost involuntary look passed between them—the intuitive sign when Jew meets Jew.
“We were distressed to hear of your accident last night,” the Princess said, as they took their seats beside him. “Do tell us about it. Do you feel better this morning?”
“Oh, yes, thank you,” he replied, in a genial voice. “It was a mere scratch, which the people chose to magnify into a serious wound. I shall be as right as ninepence pretty soon. It was my own fault for prying where I wasn’t wanted. I got into one of the caves on the other side of the mount, not knowing that it was the parlour of an Arab gentleman until he set on me and whipped out a knife. I wouldn’t have intruded if I had known it was his den. I guess I’ll keep to the township for the future, anyway.”
“Have you been long in Syria?” asked the Princess, when they had both commented on the adventure. “I suppose you have visited Jerusalem and the neighbourhood?”
He answered in the negative.
“I came from Port Said to Jaffa, and from Jaffa to here,” he explained. “I am really en route from Australia to England.”
Raie wondered what business had brought him to Haifa, but she was too well-bred to ask.
“I suppose England is your home?” she said gently, thinking that there was no harm in questioning so far.
“I have no home, Miss Emanuel,” was his prompt reply. “The world is my home.”
There was a touch of sadness in his words, as well as in his voice. The girl glanced up suddenly, and meeting the gaze from his deep eyes looked as suddenly away. She felt instinctively that this was a man who had been brought into contact with the rough side of life, but who yet retained his natural refinement of birth. He interested her strangely, and so strongly that she longed to find out more about him. If he were a Jew, how was it that he intended to go to England? Surely he must be aware of the expulsion of the Jews?