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Shelek Pasha smiled a greasy smile, and held the bottle of champagne over the glass set for friend David. Never in his life had David the Quaker tasted champagne. In his eyes, in the eyes of Framley, it had been the brew especially prepared by Sheitan to tempt to ruin the feeble ones of the earth.
Shelek Pasha was disturbed, as he proved by replying in French he had spent years of his youth in France: "Par la force morale, toujours, madame by moral force, always," he hastened to add in English. Then, casting down his eyes with truly Armenian modesty, he continued in Arabic: "By the word of peace, oh woman of the clear eyes to whom God give length of days!"
For the rage of the Khedive was great when he heard what David and Abdul Huseyn told him of the murderous riot Shelek Pasha had planned. David, being an honest Quaker for now again he wore his shovel hat did not realise that the Khedive had only hungered for this chance to confiscate the goods of Shelek Pasha.
Shelek Pasha had awaited this with Oriental patience, for he was sure that if David gave way in one thing he would give way in all and with a rush, some day. Now, at last, he had got David and Hope to dine with him; he had his meshes of deceit around them. When they came to dinner Shelek Pasha saw the turquoise ring upon the finger of friend Hope, and this startled him and pleased him.
He saw for the first time the turquoise ring; he saw the eyes of Shelek Pasha on Hope with a look prophesying several kinds of triumph, none palatable to him; and he stopped short on that road easy of gradient, which Shelek Pasha was macadamising for him. He put his hand up as though to pull his hat down over his eyes, as was his fashion when troubled or when he was setting his mind to a task.
Shelek Pasha, being a Christian after the Armenian fashion then desired to learn of this strange religion, that his own nature might be bettered, for, alas! snares for the soul are many in the Orient. For this Hope had quietly but firmly referred him to David.
She realised what a prodigious liar Shelek Pasha was; for, talking benignly of equitable administration as he did, she recalled the dark stories she had heard of rapine and cruel imprisonment in this same mudirieh.
As hard as he worked to destroy the Quaker in David, she worked against him; and she did not fear the end, for she believed in David Hyam of Framley. It was Shelek Pasha's influence, persistently and adroitly used for two years, which made friend David at last put aside for this one day his Quaker hat.
Against all Quaker principles David's sinful arm was lifted to strike, but Hope's hand prevented him, and Shelek Pasha motioned back the Abyssinian slaves who had sprung forward menacingly from behind a screen. Hope led the outraged David, hatless, into the street.
Suddenly Shelek Pasha saw the dark-blue eyes fastened upon his face with a curious intentness, a strange questioning; and the blue of the turquoise on the hand folded over the other in the grey lap did not quite reassure him. He stopped talking, and spoke in a low voice to his kavass, who presently brought a bottle of champagne a final proof that Shelek Pasha was not an ascetic or a Turk.
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