"I understand," assented the Turkish woman, faintly smiling.

The Captain had brought forward little gilt chairs of a French
design which seemed oddly out of place in this room of the East, and
the three seated themselves. Out of place, too, seemed the grand
piano which Arlee's eyes, roving now past her hostess, discovered
for the first time.

"It was so kind of you," began Arlee again as the silence seemed to
be politely waiting upon her, "to send your automobile for me."

"Ah--my automobile!" echoed the woman on a higher note, and laughed,
with a flash of white teeth between carmined lips. "It pleased you?"

"Oh, yes, it is splendid!" the girl declared, in sincere praise. "It
is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen."

"I enjoy it very much--that automobile!" said the other, again
laughing, with a quick turn of her eyes toward the brother.

Negligently, rather caressingly, the young man murmured a few
Turkish words. She shrugged and leaned back in her chair, the flash
of animation gone. "And Cairo--that pleases you?" she asked of
Arlee.

Stumbling a little in her French, but resolutely rushing over the
difficulties, Arlee launched into the expression of how very much it
pleased her. Everything was beautiful to her. The color, the sky,
the mosques, the minarets, the Nile, the pyramids--they were all
wonderful. And the view from the Great Pyramid--and then she