y were of iron.

Not even here was there freedom, she thought with a throb of dread,
not even here where one faced dark gardens and blank walls and the
empty west.

* * * * *

Somehow that dinner had passed, that queer dinner in the candle
light between the silent, painted woman and the politely talkative
young man, and passed without a word from outside for the girl whose
nerves were fraying with the suspense. The old woman and the little
girl had served them with a meal which would have been judged
delicious in any European hotel and though Arlee's nerves were
tricky her young appetite was not and she ate and talked with a
determined little air of trying to dissipate the strangeness of the
situation.

And with the coffee came inspiration. She began to plan ... half
listening to the Captain's amiable efforts to entertain her with an
account of the palace, and of its history under Ismail, the Mad
Khedive, who had occupied it for some months, tearing down and
building in his feverish way, only to weary at the first hint of
completion. She was wondering why in the world the inspiration had
not arrived at once. Perhaps something in this fatalistic air, this
stupid acceptance of authority had numbed her.

With alacrity she accepted the Captain's suggestion of a stroll in
the garden, and was relieved when the silent sister did not rise to
accompany them, but remained in the candle-light with her coffee and
cigarette. She found the woman's lightly mocking, watchful eyes, the
enigmatic smile upon the carmined lips, increasingly hard to bear.
That woman didn't like her--she had failed, somehow, to propitiate
her hostile curiosities.

Back through the old empty rooms of the past, the Captain led her,
and passing by the screened alcove from which Arlee had looked down
into the ancient banquet hall he came to a small dark painted door
which he unlocked. The door opened upon a flight of worn and narrow
stone steps descending into the garden.

* * * * *

It had been night in the palace of darkened windows but in the
garden it was yet day, although the rose and gold of sunset had
faded to paling pinks and translucent ambers and in the east the
stars were shining in the deepening blue. It was the same garden on
which her windows opened; Arlee recognized the huge lebbek tree in
the center, the row of acacias, and the palms against the farthest
wall. It was a very