instinct flashed and passed. But it seemed to him born of an automatic
feeling that he must protect--not himself, but the woman from the man.
There was confusion in it all; links were missing. He studied her
intently. She was a woman who had none of the external feminine signals
in either dress or manner, no graces, no little womanly hesitations and
alarms, no daintiness, yet neither anything distinctly masculine. Her
charm was strong, possessing; only he kept forgetting that he was
talking to a--woman; and the thing she inspired in him included, with
respect and wonder, somewhere also this curious hint of dread. This
instinct to protect her fled as soon as it was born, for the interest of
the conversation in which she so quickly plunged him obliterated all
minor emotions whatsoever. Here, for the first time, he drew close to
Egypt, the Egypt he had sought so long. It was not to be explained. He
_felt_ it.

Beginning with commonplaces, such as "You like Egypt? You find here what
you expected?" she led him into better regions with "One finds here what
one brings." He knew the delightful experience of talking fluently on
subjects he was at home in, and to some one who understood. The feeling
at first that to this woman he could not say mere anythings, slipped
into its opposite--that he could say everything. Strangers ten minutes
ago, they were at once in deep and intimate talk together. He found his
ideas readily followed, agreed with up to a point--the point which
permits discussion to start from a basis of general accord towards
speculation. In the excitement of ideas he neglected the uncomfortable
note that had stirred his caution, forgot the warning too. Her mind,
moreover, seemed known to him; he was often aware of what she was going
to say before he actually heard it; the current of her thoughts struck a
familiar gait, and more than once he experienced vividly again the odd
sensation that it all had happened before. The very sentences and