wall. It was a very old garden. Those trees must have seen many,
many years, she thought, and felt again that sense of vague
oppression and melancholy which the lonely rooms of the palace had
given her; that row of acacias which cast such crooked shadows over
the path had been planted by very long-ago hands.

So she thought fleetingly, then stared about, her concern for other
things. Captain Kerissen lighted a cigarette; over his cupped hands
his eyes followed hers searchingly.

"That is the hall of banquets?" she said, pointing to the raised
colonnade.

"Ah, yes--you are quick to learn!" he complimented.

"And could we walk through that into the courtyard?"

"Undoubtedly."

"And this side is the _haremlik_," she murmured, glancing up at the
windows upon the third floor which she felt were those of that rose
and white room. Much of the rest of the wing, she saw, extending
down to the high wall at right angles to it, was in a ruinous and
dilapidated condition. "What is there?" she asked.

"The rooms the Khedive Ismail left unfinished. They are of no use."

"And on the other side?" she persisted, pointing towards the wall
that was the continuation of the men's wing, which stopped at the
colonnade.