hotly; then flushing suddenly he bit his lips and was silent.

"Who is this that has beautiful eyes?" suddenly demanded a slow,
gruff voice, and a little thin gentleman, dressed in a kind of
academic gown and cap, appeared on the scene.

"Hullo! here's our F.R.S.A.!" exclaimed Lord Fulkeward. "By Jove!
Is that the style you have got yourself up in for tonight? It
looks awfully smart, don'cher know!"

The personage thus complimented adjusted his spectacles and
surveyed his acquaintances with a very well-satisfied air. In
truth, Dr. Maxwell Dean had some reason for self-satisfaction, if
the knowledge that he possessed one of the cleverest heads in
Europe could give a man cause for pride. He was apparently the
only individual in the Gezireh Palace Hotel who had come to Egypt
for any serious purpose. A purpose he had, though what it was he
declined to explain. Reticent, often brusque, and sometimes
mysterious in his manner of speech, there was not the slightest
doubt that he was at work on something, and that he also had a
very trying habit of closely studying every object, small or
great, that came under his observation. He studied the natives to
such an extent that he knew every differing shade of color in
their skins; he studied Sir Chetwynd Lyle and knew that he
occasionally took bribes to "put things" into his paper; he
studied Dolly and Muriel Chetwynd Lyle, and knew that they would
never succeed in getting husbands; he studied Lady Fulkeward, and
thought her very well got up for sixty; he studied Ross Courtney,
and knew he would never do anything but kill animals all his life;
and he studied the working of the Gezireh Palace Hotel, and saw a