"Goodness, child, is it your face I see or the light of the moon? The battle? Oh yes, it was beautiful, but it was terrible, and thank the Lord it is over. But tell me about yourself, dear. You are desperately in love, they say, and no wonder. I’m in love with him myself, I really am, and if ... Oh, you’re there, are you? Well, I’m telling Helena I’m in love with you. Such strength, such courage—_pluck_, you call it, don’t you?" Helena had turned to answer the American lady, and Gordon, whose eyes had been on her as if waiting for her to speak, whispered to the Princess— "Isn’t she looking lovely to-day, Princess?" "Then why don’t you tell her so?" said the Princess. "Hush!" said Gordon, whereupon the Princess said— "My goodness, what ridiculous creatures men are! What cowards, too! As brave as lions before a horde of savages, but before a woman—_mon Dieu_!" "Yes," said the Judge in his slow, shrill voice, "they are fond of talking of the old book of Egypt, yet the valley of the Nile is strewn with the tombs of Egyptians who have perished under their hard taskmasters from the Pharaohs to the Pashas. Can’t they hear the murmur of the past about them? Have they no memory if they have no gratitude?" At the last words General Graves came up to the group, looking hot and excited, and he said— "Memory! Gratitude! They’re a nation of ingrates and fools." "What’s that?" asked the Princess. "Pardon me, Princess. I say the demonstration of your countrymen to-day is an example of the grossest ingratitude." "You’re quite right, General. But _Ma’aleysh_! (No matter!) The barking of dogs doesn’t hurt the clouds." "And who are the dogs in this instance, Princess?" said a thin-faced Turco-Egyptian, with a heavy moustache, who had been congratulating Colonel Lord. "Your Turco-Egyptian beauties who would set the country ablaze to light their cigarettes," said the Princess. "Children, I call them. Children, and they deserve the rod. Yes, the rod—and serve them right. Excuse the word. I know! I tell you plainly, Pasha." "And the clouds are the Consul-General, I suppose?" "Certainly, and he’s so much above them that they can’t even see he’s the sun in their sky, the stupids." Whereupon the Pasha, who was the Egyptian Prime Minister under a British Adviser, said with a shrug and a dubious smile— "Your sentiments are beautiful, but your similes are a little broken, Princess." "Not half so much broken as your treasury would have been if the English hadn’t helped it," said the Princess, and when the Pasha had gone off with a rather halting laugh, she said—