Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/290

 "Yes, monsieur."

"For instance, if ye'll permit me, one Monsieur Nicolas Kozakevitch?" he suggested.

She nodded, almost timidly. O'Rourke caught her eye and grinned outright,

"That," he said, with a snap of his fingers, "for Monsieur le Prince. But, madame, as to yourself, ye are—"

"I am the daughter of Constantine Pasha," she declared outright.

"Yes," agreed O'Rourke musingly; "and the tall, brown, young man that dances attendance upon ye—he is Prince Aziz. I might have guessed it."

His mind worked rapidly. Madame of the wondrous eyes, then, was, in reality, a mademoiselle—daughter to Constantine Pasha, that wily Turkish diplomat who had been the power behind Arabi Pasha in the rebellion of '82.

Dimly he recalled having heard some boulevard rumor in Paris concering [sic] the wonderful, exotic beauty of this girl, daughter of the Turk by an Italian wife. He had heard, too, of her devotion to her father's memory, her outspoken declaration that she would carry on the work that his death had left unfinished. And he remembered having read in some newspaper a short paragraph announcing mademoiselle's betrothal to young Prince Aziz of the Khedival succession.

"Two and two," thought the Irishman, "make four. 'Tis four years since Arabi Pasha returned from exile in Ceylon. I've been told that he was living quietly here in Egypt; and 'tis surely so. A conspirator is always living quietly, for obvious reasons. Well, then, 'tis simple enough. Arabi is back; Viazma is here to represent Russia; mam'selle to honor her father's memory in oceans of English gore; Aziz playing