And Mahmoud Baroudi?  Was there any drama being acted behind the strong, but enigmatic, exterior which he offered to the examination of the world and of this woman?

Mrs. Armine sometimes wondered, and could not determine.  She knew really little of him, for though he seemed often to be very carelessly displaying himself exactly as he was, at the close of each interview she went back to the villa with a mind not yet emptied of questions.  She was often strangely at ease with him because he did not ask from her that which she could not give, and therefore she could be herself when with him.  But the Eastern man does not pour confidences into the ear of the Western woman, nor are the workings of his mind like the workings of the mind of a Western man.  Never till now had Mrs. Armine known a secret intimacy, or any intimacy, like this, procured by bribery, and surely hastening to a swift and decisive ending.

Upon the Hohenzollern Baroudi must have laid his plans to see her as he was seeing her now.  He did not tell her so, but she knew it.  Had she not known it upon ship-board?  In their exchange of glances how much had been said and answered?

Despite her life of knowledge, she said to herself now that she did not know.  And there was much in Baroudi’s mind, even in connection with herself, that she could not possibly know.

Something about him, nevertheless, she was able to find out.

Baroudi’s father was a rich Turco-Egyptian.  His mother had been a beautiful Greek girl, who had embraced Islam when his father fell in love with her and proposed to marry her.  She assumed the burko, and vanished from the world into the harim.  And in the harim she had eventually died, leaving this only son behind her.

The Turco-Egyptians are as a rule more virile, more active, more dominant, and perhaps more greedy than are the pure-bred Egyptians.  In the days before the English protectorate they held many important positions among the ruling classes of Egypt.  They lined their pockets well, plundering those in their power with the ruthlessness characteristic of the Oriental character.  The English came and put a stop to their nefarious money-making.  And even to-day love of the Englishman is far less common than hatred in the heart of a Turco-Egyptian.  In the Turco-Egyptian nature there is, nevertheless, not seldom something that is more nearly akin to the typical Englishman’s nature than could be found in the pure-bred Egyptian.  And possibly because he sometimes sees in the Englishman what—­but for certain Oriental characteristics that hold him back—­he might almost become himself, the Turco-Egyptian often nourishes a peculiar venom against him.  Men may hate because of ignorance, but they may hate also because of understanding.