strand of her dark, disordered hair.

"Say that you were on the roofs," she besought her.

For a moment the girl put the warm rose of her cheek against the old
woman's dark, wrinkled one.

"But you are good, Dadi," she said softly, using the Turkish word
for familiar old servants.

With a sound of mingled vexation and affection Miriam pushed her
ahead of her into the drawing-room.

It was a long, dark room, on whose soft, buff carpet the little gilt
chairs and sofas were set about with the empty expectancy of a stage
scene in a French salon. French were the shirred, silk shades upon
the electric lamps, French the music upon the chic rosewood piano.

And then, as if some careless property man had overlooked them in
changing the act, two window balconies of closely carved old wood,
of solidly screening mashrubiyeh wood, jutted out from one
cream-tinted wall, and above a gilded sofa, upholstered in the
delicate fabric of the Rue de la Paix, hung a green satin banner
embroidered in silver with a phrase from the Koran.

Tewfick Pasha was at one side of the room, filling his match case.
He was in evening dress, a ribbon of some order across a rather
swelling shirt bosom, a red fez upon his dark head.

At his daughter's entrance he turned quickly, with so sharp a gleam