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 ahead of her. She sighed whimsically and looked up at him. He put his finger on a black ivory piece as he spoke with a droll look in his eyes.

"It all came because of your absurd fondness for the knight!"

"I admit that I am partial to knights," she replied. "I'm always willing to exchange a bishop for one."

"I wonder why?" Astro mused. "No doubt because the knight's move is symbolical of a woman's way of thinking. She loves to jump over things in the logical path of reasoning: one move ahead and one diagonally to the right, one backward and one obliquely to the left, or anyway rather than along a straight line." He laughed a little cynically.

"And do men never think that way?" she asked demurely.

He put his chin in his fist and nodded his head, shaking his waving black hair. "That's queer, too. They do, sometimes. There are types that do, races that do; Orientals, for instance."

"And aren't you oriental?" she asked.

He walked away suddenly and picked up his little white tame lizard from its silver cage. "Oh, Egypt is hardly the Orient. Egypt is—well, it's Egypt, the eternal mystery."

He turned quickly to her. "I never believed you were Irish," he said. "I wonder what you are?"

"Pure troll!" she said nimbly.

"I have solved many mysteries," Astro replied, and now his voice was softer; "but you are the most mysterious of all. Somehow, I hate to know too much about you. Well, let's call you a troll." He picked up the mouthpiece of his narghile.