His name is Nevill Caird, and he lives in Algiers. My
name is Stephen Knight. I've been wanting to tell you--I seemed to have
an unfair advantage, knowing yours ever since Paris."
He watched her face almost furtively, but no change came over it, no
cloud in the blueness of her candid eyes. The name meant nothing to her.
"I'm sorry. It's hardly worth while my bothering you then."
Stephen wished to be bothered. "But Nevill Caird has lived in Algiers
for eight winters or so," he said. "He knows everybody, French and
English--Arab too, very likely, if there are Arabs worth knowing."
A bright colour sprang to the girl's cheeks and turned her extreme
prettiness into brilliant beauty. It seemed to Stephen that the name of
Ray suited her: she was dazzling as sunshine. "Oh, then, I will tell
you--if you'll listen," she said.
"If I had as many ears as a spear of wheat, they'd all want to listen."
His voice sounded young and eager. "Please begin at the beginning, as
the children say."
"Shall I really? But it's a long story. It begins when I was eight."
"All the better. It will be ten years long."
"I can skip lots of things. When I was eight, and my sister Saidee not
quite eighteen, we were in Paris with my stepmother. My father had been
dead just a year, but she was out of mourning. She wasn't old--only
about thirty, and handsome. She was jealous of Saidee, though, because
Saidee was so much younger and fresher, and because Saidee was
beautiful--Oh, you can't imagine how beautiful!"
"Yes, I can," said Stephen.
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