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Updated: May 4, 2025
Their intricate carven woodwork had once adorned the palace of a Grand Wazir. Agapoulos had bought them in Cairo and had had them fitted to his house in Chinatown. A smaller brass lamp of very delicate workmanship was suspended in each of the recesses.
A ready pupil, Zahara had early acquired the art of attracting, and now at twenty-four she was a past mistress of the Great Craft, and as her mirror told her, more beautiful than she had ever been. Therefore, what did Agapoulos see in Safiyeh? It was a problem which made Zahara's head ache. She could not understand why as her power of winning men increased her power to hold them diminished.
They were smoking and drinking and seemed to be in high good humour. Safiyeh had danced and they had applauded the performance, but had complained to M. Agapoulos that they had seen scores of such dances and dancers.
We understand each other, eh?" "I understand you perfectly," drawled Grantham; "I was merely advising you to endeavour to understand me. My party will arrive at nine o'clock, Agapoulos, and I am going back to the Savoy shortly to dress. Meanwhile, if Hassan would bring me a whisky and soda I should be obliged." "Of course, of course. He shall do so at once," cried Agapoulos. "I will tell him."
Nature, indeed, had cast her in a rare mould, and from her unusual hair, which was like dull gold, to her slender ankles and tiny feet, she was one of the most perfectly fashioned human beings who ever added to the beauty of the world. Yet Agapoulos preferred Safiyeh. Zahara could hear him coming to her room even as she sat there, chin in hands, staring at her own bewitching reflection.
Evidently changing his mind, he crossed the room, opened the door and went out, leaving the house of Agapoulos by a side entrance. Crossing the little courtyard below he hurried in the direction of the main street, seeming to doubt the shadows which dusk was painting in the narrow ways.
As Hassan, having lighted the four larger lanterns, was proceeding leisurely to light the first of the smaller ones, draperies before a door at the east end of the room were parted and Agapoulos came in. Agapoulos was a short but portly Greek whom the careless observer might easily have mistaken for a Jew.
"Hallo!" he said, smiling, "I didn't hear you come in." "I walk very soft," explained Zahara, "because I am not supposed to be here." She looked at him quizzically. "I don't see you for a long time," she added, and in the tone of her voice there was a caress. "I saw you more often in Port Said than here." "No," replied Grantham, "I have been giving Agapoulos a rest.
I may know I'm a dragoman; but in future, old friend" he turned lazy eyes upon the Greek "for your guidance, don't remind me of the fact or I'll wring your neck." The drooping eyelids of M. Agapoulos flickered significantly, but it was with a flourish more grand than usual that he bowed. "Pardon, pardon," he murmured. "You speak harshly of yourself, but ah, you do not mean it.
Agapoulos swiftly produced an ashtray and received the ash on it in the manner of a churchwarden collecting half a crown from a pew-holder. "I think," continued Grantham indifferently, "that it will be the dances. Two of them are over fifty." "Ah!" said Agapoulos thoughtfully; "not, of course, the ordinary programme?" Major Grantham looked up at him with lazy insolence. "Why ask?" he inquired.
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