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For it had not occurred to Hassan to extinguish the taper. The Egyptian mind is complex in its simplicity. M. Agapoulos from a gold case extracted a cigarette, and lighting it, inhaled the smoke contentedly, looking about him. The window-dresser was lost again in the bank manager who has arranged a profitable overdraft. Somewhere a bell rang.
He moved several cushions, and taking up a leopard skin which lay upon the floor he draped it over an ebony chair which was inlaid intricately with ivory. The drooping eyelids of M. Agapoulos drooped lower, as returning to the centre of the room he critically surveyed the effect of these master touches.
Presently came the tap, tap, tap of a stick and a sound of muttered conversation in some place below. Hassan reentered and went in through the curtained doorway to summon Agapoulos. Agapoulos was dressing and would not be disturbed. Hassan went back to those who waited, but ere long returned again chattering volubly to himself.
Presently she would slip out and speak to Harry Grantham. Twice she had read in his eyes that sort of interest which she knew so well how to detect. She was glad, though, that he had not gone, and she hoped that Agapoulos would not detain her long. As a matter of fact, the Greek's manner was even more cold than usual.
This portion of her toilet she had already completed and studying her own reflection she wondered, as she had always wondered, what Agapoulos could see in Safiyeh. Safiyeh was as brown as a berry; quite pretty for an Egyptian girl, as Zahara admitted scornfully, but brown brown. It was a great puzzle to Zahara.
Two of the petals fell upon the carpet, which was cream-coloured from the looms of Ispahan. Like blood spots the petals lay upon the cream surface. Zahara swung sharply about. Agapoulos, seated alone in the chair over which he had draped the leopard skin, was busily brushing his moustache and glancing sideways toward the screen which concealed Safryeh.
Safiyeh was a mere inexperienced child yet Agapoulos had brought her to the house, and Zahara, wise in woman's lore, had recognized the familiar change of manner. It was a great problem, the age-old problem which doubtless set the first silver thread among Phryne's red-gold locks and which now brought a little perplexed wrinkle between Zahara's delicately pencilled brows.
His dark face, bronzed by recent exposure to the Egyptian sun, was handsome in a saturnine fashion, and a touch of gray at the temples tended to enhance his good looks. He carried himself in that kind of nonchalant manner which is not only insular but almost insolent. M. Agapoulos bowed extravagantly.
Momentarily the window-dresser leapt into life as Agapoulos beheld one of his cunning effects destroyed, but he forced a smile when Grantham, shrugging his shoulders, replied: "If they are fools enough to play the usual 5 per cent, on the bank's takings." He paused, glancing at some ash upon the tip of his cigarette.
Zahara liked his eyes, which were dark and very bold looking. "M. Agapoulos is engaged," she said, speaking in French. "What is it you wish to know?" The man regarded her fixedly, and: "Senorita," he replied, "I will be frank with you." Save for his use of the word "senorita" he also spoke in French. Zahara drew her robe more closely about her and adopted her most stately manner.
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