"They don't steal as a child steals," laughed Dicky.

"Armenians are Oriental through and through. They no more understand the
Christian religion than the Soudanese understand freedom."

He touched the right note this time. Kingsley flashed a half-startled,
half-humorous look at him; the face of the lady became set, her manner
delicately frigid. She was about to make a quiet, severe reply, but
something overcame her, and her eyes, her face, suddenly glowed. She
leaned forward, her hands clasped tightly on her knees--Kingsley could
not but note how beautiful and brown they were, capable, handsome,
confident hands--and, in a voice thrilling with feeling, said:

"What is there in the life here that gets into the eyes of Europeans and
blinds them? The United States spent scores of thousands of lives to
free the African slave. England paid millions, and sacrificed ministries
and men, to free the slave; and in England, you--you, Donovan Pasha, and
men like you, would be in the van against slavery. Yet here, where
England has more influence than any other nation--"

"More power, not influence," Dicky interrupted smiling.

"Here, you endure, you encourage, you approve of it. Here, an Englishman
rules a city of slaves in the desert and grows rich out of their labour.
What can we say to the rest of the world, while out there in the desert"
--her eyes swept over the grey and violet hills--"that man, Kingsley Bey,
sets at defiance his race, his country, civilisation, all those things in
which he was educated? Egypt will not believe in English civilisation,
Europe will not believe in her humanity and honesty, so long as he