what you want. But you probably know that already, and it's
nothing to your credit. It certainly isn't a sign that a
person cares for you because she prefers to look at your
profile rather than at what the dragomans are trying to show her."

Carlton drew himself up stiffly. "If you knew your ALICE
better," he said, with severity, "you would understand that it
is not polite to make personal remarks. I ask you, as my
confidante, if you think she has noticed me, and you make fun
of my looks! That's not the part of a confidante."

"Noticed you!" laughed Miss Morris, scornfully. "How could
she help it? You are always in the way. You are at the door
whenever they go out or come in, and when we are visiting
mosques and palaces you are invariably looking at her instead
of the tombs and things, with a wistful far-away look,
as though you saw a vision. The first time you did it, after you
had turned away I saw her feel to see if her hair was all right
You quite embarrassed her."

"I didn't--I don't!" stammered Carlton, indignantly. "I
wouldn't be so rude. Oh, I see I'll have to get another
confidante; you are most unsympathetic and unkind."
But Miss Morris showed her sympathy later in the day, when
Carlton needed it sorely; for the dinner towards which he had
looked with such pleasurable anticipations and lover-like
misgivings did not take place. The Sultan, so the equerry
informed him, had, with Oriental unexpectedness, invited the
Duke to dine that night at the Palace, and the Duke, much to
his expressed regret, had been forced to accept what was in