Chapter 20 - Page 2

There are Germans
in it, whose demands must be carefully weighed--not that they can by any
means be satisfied, but they serve to block other people's. There are
Russians in it, who do not very much matter at present but will be heard
from later. There are Italians and Greeks in it (both rather pleased
with themselves just now), full of the higher finance and the finer
emotions. There are Egyptian pashas in it, who come back from Paris at
intervals and ask plaintively to whom they are supposed to belong. There
is His Highness, the Khedive, in it, and _he_ must be considered not a
little, and there are women in it, up to their eyes. And there are great
English cotton and sugar interests, and angry English importers
clamouring to know why they cannot do business on rational lines or get
into the Sudan, which they hold is ripe for development if the
administration there would only see reason. Among these conflicting
interests and amusements sits and perspires the English official, whose
job is irrigating or draining or reclaiming land on behalf of a trifle
of ten million people, and he finds himself tripped up by skeins of
intrigue and bafflement which may ramify through half a dozen harems and
four consulates. All this makes for suavity, toleration, and the blessed
habit of not being surprised at anything whatever.

Or, so it seemed to me, watching a big dance at one of the hotels. Every
European race and breed, and half of the United States were
represented, but I fancied I could make out three distinct groupings.
The tourists with the steamer-trunk creases still across their dear,
excited backs; the military and the officials sure of their partners
beforehand, and saying clearly what ought to be said; and a third
contingent, lower-voiced, softer-footed, and keener-eyed than the other
two, at ease, as gipsies are on their own ground, flinging half-words in
local _argot_ over shoulders at their friends, understanding on the nod
and moved by springs common to their clan only. For example, a woman was
talking flawless English to her partner, an English officer. Just before
the next dance began, another woman beckoned to her, Eastern fashion,
all four fingers flicking downward. The first woman crossed to a potted
palm; the second moved toward it also, till the two drew, up, not
looking at each other, the plant between them. Then she who had beckoned
spoke in a strange tongue _at_ the palm. The first woman, still looking
away, answered in the same fashion with a rush of words that rattled
like buckshot through the stiff fronds. Her tone had nothing to do with
that in which she greeted her new partner, who came up as the music
began. The one was a delicious drawl; the other had been the guttural
rasp and click of