phrases with which she pointed the turns of her unusual ideas were never
wholly unexpected.

For her ideas were decidedly unusual, in the sense that she accepted
without question speculations not commonly deemed worth consideration at
all, indeed not ordinarily even known. Henriot knew them, because he had
read in many fields. It was the strength of her belief that fascinated
him. She offered no apologies. She knew. And while he talked, she
listening with folded arms and her black eyes fixed upon his own,
Richard Vance watched with vigilant eyes and listened too, ceaselessly
alert. Vance joined in little enough, however, gave no opinions, his
attitude one of general acquiescence. Twice, when pauses of slackening
interest made it possible, Henriot fancied he surprised another quality
in this negative attitude. Interpreting it each time differently, he yet
dismissed both interpretations with a smile. His imagination leaped so
absurdly to violent conclusions. They were not tenable: Vance was
neither her keeper, nor was he in some fashion a detective. Yet in his
manner was sometimes this suggestion of the detective order. He watched
with such deep attention, and he concealed it so clumsily with an
affectation of careless indifference.

There is nothing more dangerous than that impulsive intimacy strangers
sometimes adopt when an atmosphere of mutual sympathy takes them by
surprise, for it is akin to the false frankness friends affect when
telling "candidly" one another's faults. The mood is invariably
regretted later. Henriot, however, yielded to it now with something like
abandon. The pleasure of talking with this woman was so unexpected, and
so keen.

For Lady Statham believed apparently in some Egypt of her dreams. Her