He got a very dirty envelope from his pocket and brought it round the table to me.  “See!” he said.  “The priest says:  ’Of all my children Tufik lies next my heart.’”

He held the letter out to me; but it looked as if it had been copied from an Egyptian monument and was about as legible as an outbreak of measles.

“This,” he said gently, pointing, “is the priest’s blessing.  I carry it ever.  It brings me friends.”  He put the paper away and drew a long breath; then surveyed us all with shining eyes.  “It has brought me you.”

We were rather overwhelmed.  Aggie’s maid having responded to the bell, Aggie ordered ice cream for Tufik and a chair drawn to the table; but the chair Tufik refused with a little, smiling bow.

“It is not right that I sit,” he said.  “I stand in the presence of my three mothers.  But first—­I forget—­my gift!  For the sadness, Miss Pilk!”

He held out the tissue-paper package and Aggie opened it.  Tufik’s gift proved to be a small linen doily, with a Cluny-lace border!

We were gone from that moment—­I know it now, looking back.  Gone!  We were lost the moment Tufik stood in the doorway, smiling and bowing.  Tish saw us going; and with the calmness of the lost sat there nibbling cake and watching us through her spectacles—­and raised not a hand.

Aggie looked at the doily and Tufik looked at her.

“That’s—­that’s really very nice of you,” said Aggie.  “I thank you.”

Tufik came over and stood beside her.

“I give with my heart,” he said shyly.  “I have had nobody—­in all so large this country—­nobody!  And now—­I have you!” Aggie saw—­but too late.  He bent over and touched his lips to her hands.  “The Bible says:  ‘To him that overcometh I will give the morning star!’ I have overcometh—­ah, so much!—­the sea; the cold, wet England; the Ellis Island; the hunger; the aching of one who has no love, no money!  And now—­I have the morning star!”

He looked at us all three at once—­Charlie Sands said this was impossible, until he met Tufik.  Aggie was fairly palpitant and Tish was smug, positively smug.  As for me, I roused with a start to find myself sugaring my ice cream.

Charlie Sands was delayed that night.  He came in about nine o’clock and found Tufik telling us about his home and his people and the shepherds on the hills about Damascus and the olive trees in sunlight.  We half-expected Tufik to adopt Charlie Sands as a father; but he contented himself with a low Oriental salute, and shortly after he bowed himself away.

Charlie Sands stood looking after him and smiling to himself.  “Pretty smooth boy, that!” he said.

“Smooth nothing!” Tish snapped, getting the bridge score.  “He’s a sad-hearted and lonely boy; and we are going to do the kindest thing—­we are going to help him to help himself.”

“Oh, he’ll help himself all right!” observed Charlie Sands.  “But, since his people are Christians, I wish you’d tell me how he knows so much about the inside of a harem!”