Mrs. Hardcastle glanced over her shoulder reproachfully. "You really
speak as though I had looked on purpose," she said. "He seemed very
long--and not fat. I suppose, as his hair was not very dark, he must be
an Englishman."

"Oh, dear, no!" exclaimed Tamara. "Not an Englishman." Then seeing her
friend's expression of surprise, "I mean, it isn't likely an Englishman
would lie on his balcony in pyjamas--at least not the ones we see in
Cairo; they--they are too busy, aren't they?"

This miserably lame explanation seemed to satisfy Millicent. It was too
hot and too disagreeable, she felt, clinging to the donkey while it
descended the steep path, to continue the subject further, having to
turn one's head over the shoulder like that; but when they got on the
broad level she began again:

"Possibly it was a madman, Tamara, sent here with a keeper--in that
out-of-the-way place. How fortunate we had the donkey boys with us!"

Tamara laughed.

"You dear goose, Millie, he couldn't have eaten us up, you know; and he
was not doing the least harm, poor thing. We should not have gone that
way; it may have been his private path."

"Still, no one should lie about undressed," Mrs. Hardcastle protested.
"It is not at all nice. Girls might have been riding with us, and how
dreadful it would have been then."