She answered, “Thanks!” and turned from him to contemplate the passing scene. Their carriage flew along a sandy lane between walled gardens of the suburbs, with here and there a mansion closely shuttered towards the street. The road was covered with the long procession of the fellahin returning outward to their villages⁠—men straddled over donkeys between empty paniers; women stalked erect and queenlike in their graceful drapery; here and there a camel sauntered, led by some bare-legged boy⁠—the whole, obscured by clouds of dust, illumined warmly by the rays of the declining sun, or steeped in the deep shadow of mud walls. Foot-farers, forced aside to let the carriage pass, stared at its inmates with contemptuous eyes. The garb of Europe was a blot upon the peaceful scene. Her heart went out to all those people, plodding, contented, in the sunlit dust. Henceforth she would be nothing strange to them, she swore it.

“Here we are!” The Consul’s voice disturbed her reverie. He shouted to the driver and the carriage stopped. The harem carriage drew up close behind it. A door in a high wall was opened by a smiling negro. A minute later she was in a cool verandah, looking on a well-kept garden, outside a very English drawing-room.