ass, and she clinked her own to it and
brought her lips to touch the brim, but not to that toast could she
swallow a single one of the bubbles that went winking up and down
the hollow stem.

The glass trembled suddenly in her hand as she set it down. An
overpowering sense of fatigue was upon her. With the death of her
poor hope, with the collapse of all those flighty, childish dreams,
the leaden weight of realities seemed to descend crushingly upon
her. She felt stricken, inert, apathetic.

It was all so unreal, so bizarre. This could not possibly be taking
place in her life, this fantastic scene, this table set with lights
and food at the end of a dark, deserted old room opposite this
grimacing, foppish stranger....

She could barely master strength for her replies. How had it all
gone? Excellently? She was satisfied with her new home? With the
service? The appointments?

He plied her with questions and she tried to summon her spirit: she
achieved a few perfunctory phrases, the words of a frightened child
struggling for its manners. She tried to smile, unconscious of the
betrayal of her eyes.

He told her, sketchily, of his day. A bore, those affairs, those
speeches, he told her, gazing at her, his wine glass in his hand, a
flush of wine and excitement in his face. She found it unpleasant to
look at him. Her glance evaded his.

She stammered a word of praise for the palace. It must be very
ancient, she told him. Very--interesting.

He waved a hand on which an enormous ruby glittered. He could tell
her stories of it, he promised. It had been built by one of the
Mamelukes, his ancestor. Its old banqueting hall was still
untouched--the collectors would give much to rifle that, but they
would never get their sharks' noses in. Nothing had been changed,
but something added. Once the Mad Khedive had borrowed it for some
years and begun his eternal additions.

"Forty girls, they say, he kept here," smiled Hamdi Bey. "They
gulped their pleasure, in those days. It is better to sip, is it
not?"

He smiled. "But these are no stories for a bride! I only trust that
you will not find your palace dull. It is very quiet now, very much
of the old school. You may miss your pianos, your electricity, all
your pretty Parisian modernity."

She glanced at the glittering table.

"But I do not find this so--so much of the old school. Here one does
not eat rice with the fingers!"

"And I?" said the bey, leaning suddenly towards