se. When did you come, Lord Selden?... Won't you
sit down?"

That high green terrace of Cumberland, the mist on Skaw Fell, the sun
out over the sea, they were in her eyes. So much water had gone under
the bridges since!

"I was such a young girl then--in short frocks--it was a long time
ago, I fear," she added, as if in continuation of the thought flashing
through her mind. "Let me see," she went on fearlessly; "I am thirty;
that was thirteen years ago."

"I am thirty-seven, and still it is thirteen years ago."

"You look older, when you don't smile," she added, and glanced at his
grey hair.

He laughed now. She was far, far franker than she was those many years
ago, and it was very agreeable and refreshing. "Donovan, there, reproved
me last night for frivolity," he said.

"If Donovan Pasha has become grave, then there is hope for Egypt," she
said, turning to Dicky with a new brightness.

"When there's hope for Egypt, I'll have lost my situation, and there'll
be reason for drawing a long face," said Dicky, and got the two at such
an angle that he could watch them to advantage. "I thrive while it's
opera boufe. Give us the legitimate drama, and I go with Ismail."

The lady shrank a little. "If it weren't you, Donovan Pasha, I should
say that, associated with Ismail, as you are, you are as criminal as
he."

"What is crime in one country, is virtue in another," answered Dicky. "I
clamp the wheel sometimes to keep it from spinning too fast. That's my
only duty. I am neither Don Quixote nor Alexander Imperator."

She thought he was referring obliquely to the corvee and the other
thing in which her life-work was involved. She became severe. "It is
compromising with evil," she said.

"No. It's getting a breakfast-roll instead of the whole bakery," he
answered.

"What do you think?" she exclaimed, turning to Kingsley.

"I think there's one man in Egypt who keeps the boiler from bursting,"
he answered.

"Oh, don't think I undervalue his Excellency here," she said with a
little laugh. "It is because he is strong, because he matters so much,
that one feels he could do more. Ismail thinks there is no one like him
in the world."

"Except Gordon," interrupted Kingsley.

"Except Gordon, of course; only Gordon isn't in Egypt. And he would do
no good in Egypt. The officials would block his way. It is only in the
Soudan that he could have a free hand, be of real use. There, a man,
a real man, like Gordon, could show