"It is almost as if we diffused a contagion, you and I," speculated Rattier as they turned to Absalaam and the horses, but Aylmer made no effort to elaborate the issue. An inexplicable instinct to make the incident a personal rather than a general one had overtaken him. As he watched Despard ride away with his companion, he felt almost as if he were being defrauded. The relations between his cousin and her sister made a tie between Miss Van Arlen and himself; surely, in spite of everything, they were sufficient foundation upon which to found something more than a mere acquaintanceship. In the name of all the other decent-minded, clean-living Aylmers, he might have been allowed to make his and their protest against being held responsible for the knaveries of the head of their house. So it was with something of dissatisfaction in his aspect that he turned to Absalaam and the wounded horse. The Moor saw it but misunderstood its purport. "Merely a flesh wound, Sidi," he hastened to assure Aylmer. "A week, perhaps ten days, of rest and he is himself again. A small price to pay for so precious a thing as that child's life." Aylmer looked at him with tolerant amusement. Absalaam ibn Said had neither harem nor wife; his career had been notoriously one of unrest and adventure. These pious opinions issued oddly from his bachelor lips. "A small price indeed," he agreed pleasantly, "but a hundred youngsters run risks little less in the Sôk of Tangier every day." The Moor made a sweeping motion of the hand, as if he suddenly dropped the subject of conversation from a higher plane to a lower. "The children of the Sôk!" he cried contemptuously. "Khabyles--Arabs--Susi--Riffs! What are they? Little more than vermin; their ranks are replenished all too quickly as it is! But this one! Here we tell a different story, do we not?" Aylmer halted in his examination of the wounded pastern and looked up. There was something arresting in the Moor's vehemence. Absalaam caught the look and shrugged his shoulders. "The Sidi has not visited Tangier for five or six weeks?" he said. Aylmer nodded. And waited. He had had a good deal of experience of the Moor and his conversational methods. He was aware that the deferring of a climax till it could be launched on a tide of tantalization was the chiefest of them. "Therefore, Sid' Aylmer," continued the Moor, "you have not heard all the tales which center round this small one's fortunes?" Aylmer smiled and prepared to give his attention again to his horse. It was left to Rattier to ruin the pyramid of stimulation. "What tales?" he demanded laconically. Absalaam's brown eyes met both question and questioner with melancholy--almost, indeed, with scorn. How could one titillate, how could one embroider, how could one work up to a brave display of interest, if bald facts were to be wrung from one at this stage of a tale? He sighed. "Tales of his wealth and importance, Sidi," he answered, in accents of subjection.