" The words kept recurring over and over again.

Did he, Michael, spend his life "walking on his head"? He wished that
he knew.

He was passing the wide terrace of Shepheard's Hotel, where tourists
enjoy afternoon-tea. The scene was cosmopolitan and gay. Michael was
walking on the side-path, under the level of the terrace.

Suddenly he felt something drop lightly on his hat. He looked up, and
as he did so a stephanotis flower fell into the street and his eyes
were met by two of clear azure blue.

"What a brown study!" a taunting voice said. "Come and have a cup of
tea."

"No, thanks," Michael said. "I'm not dressed for this sort of thing."
He indicated the gaily-dressed crowd.

"I insist," Millicent Mervill said, and as she spoke, she stretched out
her hand and nipped out the book Michael had in his coat-pocket. "Now
you'll have to come and get it, and I'll order tea. Fresh tea, for
two, please, Mohammed," she said to the waiter who was standing near
her table.

Michael turned reluctantly and walked up the flight of steps which took
him on to the hotel-terrace.

"How nice!" Mrs. Mervill said happily. "Now tell me where you have
been. I heard you were in Cairo. Were you going back without seeing
me?"

"How did you know I was in Cairo?"

"Ah, that's telling! First of all you tell me what you have been
doing. You look tired." Her voice was tender. "You are not happy?
And I have been very good!"

"I am tired," Michael said. "Cairo tires me after the desert. I have
been to el-Azhar."

"To the university! I want to go there. If we had only gone together!
Why didn't you take me?"

A strange smile changed Michael's expression. If Millicent Mervill had
been there! He thought of her in that courtyard, in her luxurious
modern clothes. How absurd her becoming hat would have seemed, how
grotesque her daintily slippered feet! How little she divined his
thoughts.

"What took you there to-day? Tell me."

"I have an old friend there, a student."

"A native, do you mean?"

"Yes, a native from the country south of Gondokoro."

"Gondokoro? How did you come to know him?"

Millicent Mervill's curiosity was unlimited. Her persistence resembled
the perseverance which is Islam.

"It's a long story," Michael said. "I always go to see him when I come
to Cairo. He's a mystic and a religious recluse. I like him. We are
great friends."

Mohammed had returned with the tea, and Michael, who