The sky had that clear pale blue of dawn, when day first realizes that, though born of night, it is no longer night. Casseopeia's Chair and Orion were being tossed about the burning heavens like golden furniture out of a house on fire; and one great star-jewel had fallen on the apex of cruel Khufu's Pyramid. I should have liked to believe it was Sirius, the "lucky" star sacred to Isis and Hathor; but Monny's schoolgirl knowledge of astronomy bereft me of that innocent pleasure. No wonder that the ancient Egyptians, with such jewels in their blue treasure-house, were famous astrologers and astronomers before the days when Rameses' daughter found Moses in the bulrushes of Roda Island!

The stars spoke to us as we walked, soft-footed, through the sand; and the pure wind of the desert spoke other words of the same language, the language of the Universe and of Nature. Here and there yellow lights in a distant camp flashed out like fireflies; far away across the billowing sands, rocks bleached like bone gave an effect of surf on an unseen shore; now and then a silent, swift-moving Arab stealing out of shadow, might have been the White Woman who haunts the Sphinx, hurrying to a fatal tryst: and the Great Pyramid seemed to float between desert sand and cloudless sky like the golden palace of Aladdin being transported through air by the Geni of the Lamp. There never was such gold as this gold of sand and pyramids, under the moon! We said that it was like condensed sun rays, so vivid, so bright, that the moon could not steal its colour. Cloudlike white figures were running up Khufu's geometric mountain; Arabs expecting money when they should come leaping down, whole or in pieces. And the khaki uniforms of British soldiers mounting or descending for their own stolid amusement, made the Pyramid itself seem to be writhing, so like was the colour of the cloth to that of the stone. No use being angry because the monument was crawling with Tommies! The Pyramids were as much theirs as ours. And probably Napoleon's soldiers spent their moonlit evenings in the same way; a thought which somehow made the thing seem less intolerable.

We climbed to the vast platform of the Ghizeh Pyramids, and then plunged into the billows of the desert, in quest of the Sphinx. Sir Marcus was entitled to call himself the pioneer, but we needed no one to show us the way. It was but too clearly indicated by the bands of pilgrims, going or returning. And among the latter were those whom Monny callously referred to as "poor Lord Ernest's crowd." Miss Hassett-Bean and the Biddell girls made us linger, with sand trickling over the tops of our shoes, while they poured into our ears their impressions of the Sphinx. Miss H. B. thought that She (with a capital S) was a combination of Goddess, Prophetess, and Mystery. Enid thought she was like an Irish washerwoman making a face; and Elaine said she was the image of their bulldog at home. Monny (after a sandy introduction) listened to these verbal vandalisms in horrified silence. I could see that she was exerting herself, for my sake, to be civil to my charges (who were more interested in her than they had been in the Sphinx), and that, if she could have done so without hurting their feelings, she would have struck them dead. But my fears that their mental suggestions might obsess her were baseless. She did not speak when the golden billows parted to give us a first vision of the great Mystery of the Desert. I had led Monny by a roundabout way, and instead of seeing the Sphinx from the back, we came upon her face to face, as she gazed with her wonderful, all-knowing eyes, straight into that world beyond knowledge which lies somewhere east of the moon. Veiled by the night in silver and blue, with a proud lift of the head, she faced past and future, which were one for her, and the present, nothing. The moon gave back for a few hours all her lost loveliness, of which men had robbed her, seeming miraculously to restore the broken features, whole and beautiful as they had been in her youth before history began. It was as if in the moon's rays were silver hands, mending the marred majesty, giving life to the eyes and to the haunting, secret smile. I thought of the story of King Harmachis: how he dreamed that the Sphinx came to him, saying that the sand pressed upon her, and she could not breathe. Nobody since his day had for long left her buried!

"What does it mean to you?" I broke the silence to ask.

"I don't know," Monny said. "All I know is that she's more wonderful than I expected, and as beautiful as the loveliest marble Venus of Italy, though a thousand times greater—if one perfect thing can be greater than another. She's so great that I don't think she can be meant to be a woman—or even a man. She is like a soul carved in stone."

"All in a moment you have guessed the riddle!" I exclaimed, liking and understanding the girl better than I had liked or understood her yet. "I believe that's the secret of the Sphinx. The king who had this stupendous idea, and caused it to be carried out, said to some inspired sculptor, 'Make for me from the rock of the desert, a portrait, not of me as I am seen by men, in my mortal part or Khat, for that can be placed elsewhere; but an image of my real self, my soul or Ka, looking past the small things of this world into eternity, which lies beyond this desert and all deserts.' Then the sculptor made the Sphinx, and gave it such grandeur, such mystery of countenance that instinctively the souls of people recognized the soul look. You have a soul, and it told you the secret. Only those who have no souls find the Sphinx heavy or hideous, or utterly beyond their comprehension."

"Have I a soul?" Monny asked, dreamily. "Men I've known have told me I haven't. Yet sometimes I've thought I felt it fluttering. And if I have a soul, I shall find it in Egypt. Oh, I shall! Something—yes, the Sphinx herself!—tells me that."

I was tempted to ask "What about a heart?" And then—in a violent hurry, before anybody came—to mention my own, into which the moon seemed pouring a little of the honey it had brought for the Sphinx. I did feel that some one owed a moonlight proposal under the Sphinx's nose (or the place where its nose had been) to such a girl as Monny. Her Egyptian experience could never be perfect and complete unless she were proposed to on the night of the full moon, with the Sphinx's blessing; and as no better man was here to do it, I could not be thought conceited if I took the duty upon myself. Besides, Brigit would so thoroughly approve!

"Look here, Biddy, I mean Monny," I began hastily, "there's something I want to tell you, something very important you ought to know, because matters can't go on much longer as they are—"

"Is it something about 'Antoun'?" she broke in, with a little gasp, as I paused for breath and courage. "If it is, maybe I know it already!"

Extraordinary, the relief I felt! I ought to have suffered a shock of disappointment, because I couldn't possibly finish a proposal after such an interruption. But instead, my spirits went up with a bound. Probably, however, that was because her hint was a whip to my curiosity. "What do you know about 'Antoun'?" I asked.

Perhaps I forgot to lower my voice; or perhaps voices carry far across desert-spaces, as across water. Anyhow the clear tones of Cleopatra answered like an echo. "Antoun—Antoun! I hear Lord Ernest calling."

Biddy—dear little matchmaking Biddy—had managed Sir Marcus, Bill Bailey and Rachel, as a circus rider manages three spirited white horses at one time. The desert was her ring, and she had reined her steeds to her will, keeping them out of my way and Monny's at all costs, no matter whether they saw the Sphinx in back view or noseless profile. But Mrs. East's principal occupation in life was not to get me engaged to the Gilded Rose. And either she lost her presence of mind, or else she was not so much enjoying her moonlight tete-a-tete with Fenton, that it was worth while to hide from us behind a sand dune.

The two emerged from a gulf of shadow, Anthony very splendid under the moon, a true man of the desert. I thought I heard Monny draw in a little sharp breath as she saw that noble incarnation of Egypt (so he must have seemed, unless she knew the British reality of him) walking beside Cleopatra.

Then up came the others, Sir Marcus impossible to restrain; and we all talked together as people are expected to talk when they have come thousands of miles to see these monuments of Egypt. Yes, yes! Wonderful—incredible! Which do you find more impressive, the Sphinx or the Pyramids? Isn't it a pity they let the temple between the paws remain buried? And aren't the Pyramids just like Titanic, golden beehives? And can't you simply see the swarming builders, like bees themselves, working for twenty years?

Thus we jabbered; and others, many others, appeared to dispute the scene with us, to break the magic of the moonlight, and to puncture the vast silence of the desert with their cooings and gurglings and chatterings in German, English, Arabic, and every other language known since the Tower of Babel. Arab guides lit up the Sphinx with flaring magnesium, an impertinence that should have made hideous with hate the insulted features, but instead turned them for a thrilling instant of suspense into marble. Indeed, none of our petty vulgarities could jar or even fret the majestic calm of the desert and the stone Mystery among its billows. The Sphinx gazed above and past us all. She was like some royal captive surrounded by a rabble mob, yet as undisturbed in soul as though her puny, hooting tormentors had no existence. It was not so much that she scorned us, as that she did not know we were there.

When we sorted ourselves out, to escape Sir Marcus, Cleopatra deigned to make use of me, having first observed (with burning interest) that Monny and Rachel were with Bailey, and that "Antoun" was pointing things out to Brigit O'Brien, as it is Man's metier (in pictures and advertisements) to point things out to Woman.

"It's been a wonderful evening," Mrs. East said. "It has made up for everything I suffered last night. We brought dinner out into the desert, in that smallest tea-basket, you know, and ate it together, he and I—Antony and I. There! I may as well confess that's what I call him to myself, for I've guessed your secret—and his. But don't be afraid. I won't tell a soul. It's too romantic and fascinating for words—or to put into words. He let me have my fortune told by an Arab sand diviner, who came while we were at dinner. I can't repeat to you what the fortune-teller said. But I feel as if I were living in a book. Oh, if only I were writing it myself and could make everything happen just as I want it to happen! Do you know one thing I would put into the story?"

"No, I can't think," I said, rather anxiously.

"I would have you propose to Monny."

"Oh—by Jove, Mrs. East!"

"Why—don't you admire her?"

"But of course. She's irresistible. Only she's so horribly rich. And besides, she doesn't think of me in that way."

"You can't be sure. Now, Lord Ernest, I'm going to whisper you a secret. I believe—I really do—that Monny would be glad if you'd propose. If I were in your place, if I liked her, I would do so as soon as possible. It might save her from humiliation—from a great trouble."

Being a duffer, I could only say once again, "By Jove!"



CHAPTER XIII

AN UNDERGROUND PROPOSAL

I didn't sleep much that night, for thinking of Monny; and when I did sleep, I dreamed of her; tangled dreams, in which she was Monny Gilder with Brigit O'Brien's eyes. Could it be possible that she liked me? Mrs. East ought to know. I made up my mind that to-morrow I would begin by feeling my way, but when to-morrow came I had no time to feel anything which concerned my private affairs.

It seemed, or so I was told "for my own good" by Miss Hassett-Bean, that the Candace people thought it "snobby" for me to have indulged in a private dinner-party, and to have hustled them off in a drove to the Sphinx while I went leisurely with my smart friends. They knew all about the feast on the roof, and were of opinion that they ought to have been there. Did I consider my American heiress better than they, better even than the family of an ex-Lord Mayor? If I wished to make up lost ground, I must devote myself to duty, and be nicer than ever to everybody.

This was one of the moments when I was tempted to throw over my job; but I remembered the reward, and set myself once more to the earning of it. For the next few days I scarcely saw Monny or Brigit, or even heard what was happening to them—for they had "done" the principal sights of Cairo, and I (at the head of the Candace crowd) was "doing" them. As if in a game of "Follow my Leader," I led the band from mosque to mosque; not indeed visiting the whole two hundred and sixty-four, but calling on the best ones. To begin with, I collected the Set on the height of the Citadel, which commands all Cairo, the platform of the Pyramids (not only the Ghizeh Pyramids but the sixty odd others, which newcomers don't talk about): the tawny Mokattam Hills, and the silver-blue serpent of the Nile. From this vantage place I pointed out the things we had to see in the city spread out below us, so that on the vaguest minds the picture might be painted in its entirety, before they began to absorb details on that mosaic map which was Cairo. The tombs of the Mamelukes, strangely shaped monuments, vague and white as squatting ghosts; the graves of the Caliphs; the historic gates of el-Kahira; and the many ancient mosques, whose minarets soared against the blue like tall-stemmed flowers in a palace garden.

Mentally fortified by this bird's-eye view from the Citadel (of course, I had to trot them up again for the sunset), my charges let themselves be led from mosque to mosque, from tomb to tomb. Some, possessed with a demoniac desire to get their money's worth of Egypt, were unable to enjoy any sight, in their nervous dread of missing some other spectacle, which people at home might ask them about. These strained their wearied intelligences to see more than they possibly could at any one moment, unless they had eyes all round their heads; and others, of an even more irritating type, never lifted the few eyes they had from the pages of guide-books. I liked better those who, like Monny, frankly said that they didn't wish to have their minds tidied up, and be told a string of things about Egypt. They just wanted to feel the things, and let them slowly soak in. And the nice, lazy, Southern Americans, who said they were "tomb shy," and loitered about, betting from one to six scarabs on the speed of fleas, or donkeys, while I whipped forth for their tired companions a dull drove of facts fattened for their benefit.

Mosques and churches and tombs had to be visited, but did not appeal to all tastes. The Bazaars did. So did the Zoo, more fascinating than any other zoo, because each animal has its trick, or pet, or plaything.

As an excuse to see Monny and the rest of my friends, I got up a moonlight digging expedition at Fustat, those great mounds of rubbish and buried treasure near Egyptian Babylon where a city was burnt lest it should fall into the hands of the Crusaders. Monny and her party were invited to join us, and accepted the invitation, piloted by "Antoun." And concerning this entertainment, I had an idea. Those who choose to dig among these desert-like sandhills, between the Coptic churches of Babylon and the tombs of the Mamelukes, may chance on something of value, especially after a windstorm or a landslip: bits of Persian pottery, fragments of iridescent glass, broken bracelets of enamel, opaline beads, or tiny gods and goddesses. Why should I not (thought I) apportion off to each member of the band his or her own digging patch? This would save squabbling, and would provide an opportunity for me to propose in a unique way to Monny.

Regarding the idea as an inspiration, I carried it out scientifically. Helped by Anthony, after the sun had set and the mounds were deserted, I staked out the most promising "claims," and marked each space with the name of the "miner" for whom I intended it. In Monny's patch, near the surface where she could not possibly miss it, I buried a letter wrapped round a cow-eared head of Hathor which I had bought at the Egyptian Museum-shop. Now, in justice to myself, I must tell you that this letter was no common letter, such as any Tom, Dick, or Harry may write to the Mary Jane Smith of the moment. It was a missive which cost me midnight electricity and brain-strain; for not only must I appeal to my lady, I must also suit an environment.

Monny had taken up the study of hieroglyphics, in order to appreciate intelligently the tombs and temples of the Nile. She had bought books, and was learning with the energy of a stenographer, to write and read. She wrote out exercises, and submitted them for correction to "Antoun" who, as an Egyptian, was to be considered an authority. "Of course," she explained to me, "one comes here thinking that all Egyptians nowadays, even Copts, are Arabs. But he says that Egyptians are as Egyptian as they ever were, because Arab invasion has left little more trace in their blood than the Romans left in the blood of the English. It interests me much more to feel when I'm in Egypt that I'm among real Egyptians."

With this in my mind, I was convinced that a love letter in hieroglyphics, unearthed by moonlight in the mounds of Fustat, would please Monny.

The difficulty was that, though I could speak Arabic fairly well, I hardly knew the difference between hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic forms; but the limited symbols I was able to employ were so strong in themselves that a few would go a long way: and if they were not as correct as the sentiments they expressed, Monny was not herself a mistress of hieroglyphic style. I could find no hieroglyphic suit in which to clothe the name Ernest; but since I had become keeper of men, mice, and morals in Sir Marcus Lark's floating zoo, Monny's craze for Egyptianizing everything had suggested the nickname of Men-Kheper-Ra. She sometimes called me Ra for short, therefore I now ventured to divert to my own uses a sign and cartouche once the property of a "son of the Sun," and King of Egypt:



Translation: Beautiful Queen, Star (of) My Heart (and) Soul. Give Me (your) Love. Become My Wife (and) Goddess (for) Eternity.

Men-Kheper-(Ka) Ra.

I patted myself on the back, put the letter in the ground; and the digging party was a wild success; but time passed on, and I had no answer. What I expected was a reply in kind, an hieratic acceptance or a demotic refusal; either one would be good practice for Monny. But not a hieroglyph of any description came. I had to go on as if nothing had happened. To be ignored was less tolerable than being refused. Monny's silence began to get upon my nerves; and to make matters worse, there was that desert trip hanging over my head. I knew even less about organizing a desert trip than I knew about hieroglyphics; yet it had to be done. As Sir Marcus said it was "up to me" to do it so well that Cook would look sick. Anthony was absorbed in secret official duties and open, unofficial duties. His was a great "thinking" part, and our occupations kept us apart rather than brought us together. On the one occasion when we were alone, he devoted four out of five minutes to telling me what he had learned of the night disturbance in front of the House of the Crocodile. "A Britisher of sorts" had come into the street, guided by an Arab. There had been some dispute about payment, and the Britisher had slapped the dragoman's face. This had been followed, as he might have known it would, with a stab; a crowd had assembled, and scattered before the police; the stabbed one had gone to hospital, the stabber to prison. Altogether it was not surprising that Mansoor, the suspicious caretaker, had feared a trap, and closed his doors. Bedr el Gemaly, now one of the great unemployed, had been seen near the hospital where the injured man lay; but he had taken the alarm and departed without inquiring for the invalid's health; or else his being in that neighbourhood was a coincidence. The name of the man knifed was Burke, and London was given as his address. He was between thirty-five and forty, and according to the arrested dragoman was "not a gentleman, but a tourist." His hurt was not severe: and as the Arab had been exasperated by a blow, the punishment would not be excessive.

When at length I had seized the last remaining minute to put the question, "Do you think Miss Gilder has found out who you really are?" Fenton seemed astonished.

"I hadn't thought of it at all," he answered simply. "She's giving me too many other things to think of."

"What kind of things?" I stealthily inquired.

"Oh,"—with an evasive air—"I don't know what to make of her yet. But I haven't given up my silly scheme."

"What silly scheme?"

"Antoun" looked almost sulky. "Well, if you've forgotten, I won't remind you. It's absurd; it's even brutal; and I'm ashamed of it. But I stick to it."



CHAPTER XIV

THE DESERT DIARY BEGUN

I found out why Monny paid no attention to my buried letter. But the way in which I found it out (and several other things at the same time) is part of the desert trip.

I am not a man whose soul turns to diaries for consolation; but I did keep up a bowing acquaintance with a notebook in Egypt—it helped me with my lectures—and in the desert it relieved my feelings. Looking over the desert pages, I'm tempted to give them as they stand:

Black Friday: Morning. The start's for Monday, and nothing done! Could I develop symptoms of creeping paralysis, and throw the responsibility on Anthony? But too late for that now; and he may have to stay on in Cairo for a day or two. Why did I leave my peaceful home? It's the lure of the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid. Last night before I went to bed, read over my copy of Ferlini's letters, to gain courage. Gained it for a little; but when I think of that desert I'm supposed to turn into a happy playground for trippers, and not a tent hired or a prune bought, or an egg laid, for all I know, I wish Anthony and I had let Lark stick to our mountain.

This is Lark's fault anyhow. He sprang the thing on me. Said it would be easy as falling off a log. Said Cairo was full of Arabs whose mission in life was supplying tents and utensils for desert tours. People would be charmed with simple life, and me as universal provider. All I had to do was to supply cheap editions of "The Garden of Allah," and plenty of dates; and hint that it was considered vulgar in the Best Circles to put on Peche Melba airs in the desert. With a few quotations, I should make them content with a loaf of bread, a cup of wine, and Thing-um-Bob. Why, they'd be falling in love with each other under the desert stars, and my principal occupation would be saying, "Bless you, my children!"

Sounded neat; and I remembered that, according to Brigit, Monny wanted the "desert to take her." Thought it might be useful if I were on in that act. Abyssmal beast of a dragoman who lurks round Mena House buoyed me up with false hopes. Said he had a fine outfit which he let, and threw himself in as guide. Plenty of everything (including cheek) for fifteen people, the exact number who have put down their names to go. (Some girls and parents are staying for a ball at the Semiramis, where I've tearfully persuaded the only soft-hearted officers I know to dance with them—otherwise the lot would have been on my hands in the desert.) Had so much to do yesterday taking the crowd to Matariyeh, where the Holy Family hid in a hollow tree, that I had no time to look at the Arab's outfit. Was inclined to save trouble and trust him, but saw Anthony a minute last night; he urged me to inspect everything. Did so early this morning. Rotten outfit: tents like old patchwork quilts, pots and pans, etc., probably bought job lot from Noah when the Ark was docked. Those keenest on desert "taking" them, will be mad as hatters if it takes them in. Suppose I'll have to interview half the Arabs in Cairo to-day. Wish I had a Ka or Ba or whatever you get for an astral body in Egypt, and I could say to it, "Here, my dear chap, I trust you to do this job while I stay in Cairo and rest my features." Then he'd get the blame, and I'd disappear, never to be seen again. Or if he were a Ka with Cook accomplishments, maybe he'd bring the thing off all right, in which case I could turn up and take the credit and marry Monny. Happy thought! Cook! Why shouldn't I sneak to Cook, and inquire in a careless way if they publish any pamphlet on "How to Do a Desert Tour."

Later: Have been to Cook. No pamphlet, but a friend in need. Talk of casting bread on the waters! In Rome I cast a crust which I didn't want, and it's come back in Cairo with butter and sugar on it.

Must have been two years ago in Rome when a young chap wrote to me to the Embassy. Said he'd been disappointed in getting work he'd come abroad for, had seen my name, recognized it, was from my county; and could I use him as a stenographer or anything? I couldn't; but I found him some one who could; and forgot him till I saw him this morning a fully fledged clerk at Cook's. Checking the impulse to fall on his neatly striped blue and white bosom, I invited him to lunch; and as a reward for what he calls "past and present favours," he had given me new life. What I mean to say is, he's promised to provide me not only with tents, but camels and camel-boys and a camp chef, and waiters and washbowls and a desert dragoman, and thousands of things I'd never thought of. It seems practically certain that since Napoleon no such genius has been born as Slaney. Cleopatra would say that S. is the reincarnation of Napoleon; but neither Cleopatra nor any one else —above all, Sir Marcus Lark—is to know of his existence. Such is the disinterested self-sacrifice of this buttered-and-sugared Crust, that it will do everything for me, while keeping itself and the Organization which controls it, completely in the background. The Organization is too great to mind; and the Crust, alias T. Slaney, thinks itself too small.

Lark, Ltd., considers himself a budding rival of the firm of Cook; but a deadly bud. If, however, Sir M. should come to hear that I had flown for succour to the enemy's camp, I fear it would be all over with the bargain for which Anthony and I are selling our souls. T. Slaney says he never shall know. He guarantees that Cook labels and other telltale marks shall be removed from everything, though time is short and there is much to do. He will be the power behind the tents, and I will be in them, absorbing all the credit.

Saturday: All couleur de Rose, thanks to Slaney. Should like to get him canonized. Many less worthy men, now deceased, have been given the right to put Saint before their names. He has handed me a list, something less than a mile long, of articles which Biddy and I, as children, used to call eaties and drinkies. He has told me where the things can be bought, and has written a letter of introduction which secures me "highest consideration and lowest prices." Also he has suggested a medicine-chest, packs of cards, the newest games, cigarettes suited to European and Arab tastes, picture post-cards of desert scenes; ink, pens, and writing paper. "People forget everything they want on these trips, but you mustn't," said he. I have acted on all his suggestions, and feel as proud as if I had originated them myself.

Sunday: My precious friend Slaney has made a large collection of Arabs, camels, tents, etc., and ordered everything, animate and inanimate, to assemble in the neighbourhood of Mena House this afternoon, in order to be inspected by me, and to be ready for a start early to-morrow morning. We are to have a sandcart with a desert horse for Cleopatra, who has tried a camel and found it wanting. I fancy she thinks a sandcart the best modern substitute for a chariot; and at worst, it ought to be as comfortable. Slaney has promised a yellow one —cart, not horse. The horse, by request, is to be white. The other ladies are having camels. I daren't think of Miss Hassett-Bean at the end of the week. The men, also, will camel. There is, indeed, no alternative between camelling and sandcarting—sandcarting not recommended by the faculty but insisted upon by Cleopatra. Hope it will work out all right; and am inclined to be optimistic. A week in the desert and the flowery oasis of the Fayum, with the two most charming women in Egypt! There will be others, but there's a man each, and more. I shall have to look after Monny and Brigit, as Anthony is having his hands full with Cleopatra lately, and, besides, he can't start with us. Something keeps him in Cairo for two days more, and he will have to join us near Tomieh.

Sunday Evening: Back from Great Pyramid, where I went to inspect the assembling army. Magnificent is the only word! The camels fine animals, but Anthony has provided the three best, borrowing these aristocrats of the camel world from Major Gunter of the Coast Guard. They have chased hasheesh smugglers, and have seen desert fighting. Were snarling horribly when I was introduced, but a snarl as superior to the common snarls of baggage-camels as their legs are superior in shape. Biddy, Monny, Mrs. East, and Rachel Guest were there with Sir M. and "Antoun," having been inside the pyramid and up to the top. Monny on her high horse because "Antoun" says it will be better for the ladies to ride the baggage-camels. The others take his word, meekly, but she persists, and Anthony agrees to give her the camel he had meant to ride, the one supposed to be the most spirited. When he joins us, he will have the animal intended for her. When this bargain was struck between them I thought his eyes looked dangerous, but she didn't notice or didn't care. Fenton tells me he has dreamed again of the red-faced man with the purple moustache. I laughed at his bugbear and flung Colonel Corkran in his teeth. By the way, nothing has been heard of C. by any of us since the day he handed in his resignation. Suppose he has gone back to England in the sulks.

Monday Night: I am writing in my tent, which is to be shared with Anthony when he arrives. I feel years older than when we started this morning. Middle age seems to have overtaken me. If I keep on at this rate, shall be a centenarian by the time we get back to Cairo.

We made a splendid caravan at the start. Besides the train of camels ridden by my party from the Candace and Monny Gilder with her satellites (it goes against the grain, though, to call a bright particular star like Biddy a satellite), there were over thirty gigantic beasts laden with our numerous bedroom, kitchen, luncheon, and dinner-tents, tent-pegs, cooking-stove, food for humans, fodder for animals, casks of water, mattresses, folding-beds, other tent furniture, tourists' luggage, and so on. I was happy till after the baggage-train had got away, each camel with its head roped to the tail of the one ahead, all trailing off toward the distant Pyramids of Sakkhara well in advance of us. Each camel looked like a house-moving. On top of the kitchen-camel's load was perched the chef, a singularly withered old gentleman with black and blue complexion, clad in a vague, flying blanket. (Has been Turkish-coffee man in Paris hotels.) Many other negroid persons in white with large turbans; a few cafe au lait Arabs; these all counted beforehand by Slaney, for me, and identified as assistant-cooks, waiters, bed-makers, and camel-men, enough apparently to stock a village. But we had one surprise at the moment of starting in the form of a bright black child, clad in white, with a white skull cap and a flat profile evidently copied from the Sphinx. I don't know yet why this Baby Sphinx has come or who he is; but he rode on the kitchen-camel's tail, hanging on by the bread (our bread!) which was in a bag.

When this cavalcade had wound away, the camels making blue heart-shaped tracks in the yellow sand, it was our turn to start. Not one of us would have changed places with any old Egyptian king or queen, and we did not feel vulgar for doing this trip in luxury, because ancient royalties had done the same, and so do the great sheikhs of the desert even now. As I put Cleopatra into the sandcart with its broad, iron-rimmed wheels, she was recalling the days when she travelled with a train of asses in order to have milk for her bath. I suggested a modern condensed substitute, but the offer was not received in the spirit with which it was made. Now to get the ladies on their camels, after which we men would vault upon our animals, and wind away among billowing dunes full of shadowy ripples and high lights, like cream-coloured velvet!

But just here arose the first small cloud in the blue. It was bigger than a man's hand, for it was the exact size and shape of Miss Hassett-Bean's hat. It was a largish hat of imitation Panama trimmed with green veiling, just the hat for a post-card desert all pink sunset and no wind. As she was about to mount the squatting camel, a breeze blew the flap over her eyes. This prevented Miss H.B. from seeing that the camel had turned its neck to look at her; and so, as she reached the saddle and the hat blew up, lady and camel met face to face. It was a moment of suspense, for neither liked the other at first sight. The camel began to gurgle its throat in a threatening manner, and at the same time to rise. Miss Hassett-Bean, staring into two quivering nostrils shaped like badly made purses, shrieked, forgot whether she must first bend forward or bend back, bent in the way she ought not to have bent, and fell upon the sand. I don't quite see why I was to blame for this result, but she saw, and said I ought to have warned her what a vile creature a camel was. Nothing would induce her to try again. She would go to any extreme rather than ride a beast with a snake for a neck, and a nasty unsympathetic face full of green juice which it spit out at you. She was used to being liked. She simply couldn't go about on a thing which would never love her, and she wouldn't want it to if it did. She would go home or else she would have a sandcart. All the neighbouring sandcarts were engaged; but fortunately "Antoun Effendi" appeared at that instant (he'd taxied out to see us off), and he persuaded Cleopatra to let Miss Hassett-Bean drive with her. The desert horse, feeling this extra weight, looked round almost as unsympathetically as the camel had; but nobody paid the slightest attention except his attendant, who was to lead him: a type of negro "Nut," who had a snobbish habit of reddening his nails with henna.

By this time a crowd had assembled, kept in check by the tall, blue-robed sheikh of the Pyramids. It consisted mostly of Arabs determined to take our photographs or sell us scarabs—which Miss Hassett-Bean refused on the ground that she disliked things off dead people. But on the fringe lurked a few Europeans, amused to see so large a caravan setting forth; and the men of our party, hitherto proud of their curtained helmets and desert get-up, became self-conscious under a fire of snapshots.

"Hello, my Boy Scout!" I was hailed by Sir Marcus, arriving three minutes behind Anthony, and on the same errand. This blow to my self-esteem fell as I was leading Monny to the white camel which was hers and should have been Anthony's. She laughed—I suppose she couldn't help it. I couldn't myself, if it had been Harry Snell or Bill Bailey; but as it was, my pride of khaki helmet, knickers, and puttees collapsed like a burst balloon. I seemed to feel the calves of my legs wither. It was in this mood that I had to put Monny on that coastguard camel, while "Antoun" stood looking on. He did not offer to help the girl, as their talk yesterday on the subject of baggage-camels versus running camels had not conduced to officiousness.

Monny was in white: broad white helmet such as women wear, white suede shoes, white silk stockings, and a lot of lacy, garden-party things that showed frills when she flew, birdlike, onto the cushioned saddle. "That's the way to do it!" I heard her cry, exultantly—and what happened next I can't say, for the white camel knocked me over as it bounded up, jerking its nose rope from the leader's hand, and the next thing I knew it was making for the horizon. I hadn't been on a camel since I was four, if then, so it was useless to follow. But while I stood spitting out sand, Anthony flung himself onto one of the swift coastguard beasts, and was after her like a streak of four-legged lightning. None of us had the nerve to continue our operations until, a quarter of an hour later, they appeared from behind the Great Pyramid, coming at a walk, "Antoun" holding the bridle of Monny's camel.

I saw by Fenton's face that he intended to make no suggestions, and I guessed that he was practising his chosen method. If Miss Gilder wished for anything she must ask for it, and ask for it humbly if she expected to get it.

Her face, too, was a study. She was pale and even piteous. I thought there were tears in the blue-gray eyes; and if I had been Anthony I could not have hardened my heart. Pride or no pride, I should have begged her to abandon this praiseworthy adventure, and deign to mount the baggage brute. Not so Anthony. He led back the camel, with Monny limply sitting on it, and when it had calmed down at sight of its friends he retired into the background.

"How wonderful that you kept on, darling!" exclaimed Biddy.

"I didn't," said Monny. Then she turned to "Antoun," who remained on his beast, in case of another emergency, or because he did not wish to be looked down upon by her. He was rather glorious enthroned on his camel, the only one of our party who was truly "in" the desert picture. I didn't blame him for stopping up there on his sheepskin, eye to eye with the girl.

For a moment Monny did not speak. She was evidently hesitating what to do, but common sense and natural sweetness got the better of false pride. "Antoun, you were right, and I was wrong," she admitted. "I said yesterday that you were selfish, keeping the coastguard camels for yourself and Lord Ernest and General Harlow, and giving us women the baggage ones. Now I'm sorry. I was silly and hateful. I wouldn't ride another fifty yards on this demon for fifty thousand dollars. He's nearly broken my back, and if it hadn't been for you, he would quite have done it. Please help me off, and put me on any old baggage thing that nobody else wants."

Anthony's eyes lit for an instant, from satisfaction as a man, or from Christian joy in her moral improvement. He sprang off his sky-scraping camel, brought Monny's animal to its knees, helped her off, and motioned to the Arab attendant of the Ugly Duckling of all the other creatures. It gave the effect of being a cross between a camel and an ostrich, and had been chosen by "Antoun" as his own mount, when he surrendered the aristocrat to Monny.

"Oh, dearest, I can't have you ride that grasshopper!" cried Biddy. "'Antoun' took it for himself very kindly because it's the worst. And I don't care any more than he did. Give the thing to me, and take my one, that dear creature with the blue bead necklace."

But Anthony answered for Monny. "Mademoiselle Gilder made a bargain with me yesterday," he said. "If she failed in what she wanted to do, she was to do what I wanted her to do. I think she will wish to keep her bargain."

"I'm sure I wish to," added Monny.

With a chastened, not to say shattered air, she curled herself up on the sheepskin-covered cushion which was the ugly Duckling's saddle. This time it was "Antoun" who settled her into place, with her feet meekly crossed; and the caricature of a camel rose like a sofa at a spiritualistic seance. Strange to say, however, when all were ready to start, Monny appeared more comfortably lodged than any of the camel-riding ladies; and the thought entered my mind that perhaps Anthony had, with extreme subtlety, taken this roundabout way of benefitting Miss Gilder.

After this we got off with only a few minor mishaps. The one remaining incident of note was the arrival on the scene, as we left it, of another caravan—a small caravan consisting of two Europeans—a few laden camels, and camel-boys marshalled by one dragoman. The dragoman was Bedr el Gemaly, and he smiled at us as affectionately as though we had not driven him from us in disgrace.

"How forgiving Arabs are, even when they're not converted!" remarked Rachel Guest, by whose side I happened to be riding.

"He isn't an Arab," said I. "He's an Armenian. And both are supposed to be the reverse of forgiving. But he's found another job quickly, so he can afford to let bygones be bygones."

"Oh, he would anyway!" Miss Guest exclaimed, warmly. "Poor fellow, you've all done him a great injustice, but I'm thankful he's not going to suffer for it. I wonder if he and his people are bound the same way we are?"

I feared that this was likely to be the case, as we were going the conventional round, sticking—as one might say—to suburban desert, on our way to the Fayum. But, as Monny observed the other night, we couldn't engage the desert like a private sitting-room. I would, however, have preferred sharing it with most people rather than Bedr and his clients, though the two latter looked singularly harmless, almost Germanic.

We went on more or less happily, though I noticed that whenever a camel changed its walk for a trot, each one of the ladies reached back a desperate hand to clutch the saddle and save her spine from the bruising bump! bump! which smote the bone with every step. As for me, that feeling of middle age began to creep on while my coast-guard camel and I were getting acquainted. I tried to distract my thoughts from the end of my spine, by concentrating them in admiration upon the scene. There was the Sphinx welcoming us with an immense smile of benevolence, as suitable to the sunshine as had been her mysterious solemnity to the moonlight. There, far away to the left, the spire-crowned Citadel floated in translucent azure. Its domes and minarets, and the long serrated line of the Mokattam Hills were carved against the sky in the yellow-rose of pink topaz. Shafts of light gave to jagged shapes and terraces of rock on the low mountains an appearance of temples and palaces, very noble and splendid, as must have been the first glimpse of Ancient Egypt to desert-worn fugitives from famine in Palestine. Between us and the Nile, hiding the sparkling water as we rode, went a dark line of palms, purple, with glints of peacock-feather green, in the distance. Hundreds of tiny birds flew up into the burning blue like a black spray, and the sand was patterned by their feet, in designs intricate as lace. Wherever lay a patch of white and yellow flowers or of rough grass no bigger than a prayer rug, a lark soared from its nest singing its jewel-song; and here and there a gentle hoopoo reared the crown which rewarded it for guiding lost King Solomon and his starving army to safety.

All this was beautiful; but I wondered painfully if Monny could be happy in spite of the bumps, now that the desert was taking her. Strange, how a disagreeable sensation constantly repeated at the end of a mere bone can change a man's outlook on life! If Monny had come to my camel-side and whispered, "I found your buried letter, oh, Men-Kheper-Ra. Behold that bird now flying toward you. It is my Ba—my Heart or Soul-bird carrying the gift of my love:" I should with difficulty have prevented myself from snapping out, "Thanks very much; but, my good girl, I'm in no mood to talk tommy-rot."

It was sympathy, kind, friendly sympathy I yearned for, not spoken in words, but given from soft, sweet eyes, as little Biddy had given it when I tore my hands and barked my shins birds'-nesting on the rocks a hundred years ago.

I think we should have liked the excuse to stop and gaze at the ruinous Pyramids of Abusir; but the dragoman-guide supplied by Slaney urged us on to the great plateau of the Pyramids and Necropolis of Sakkara. There, on the terrace of Marriette's House, we saw a crowd of Cook's tourists from Bedrachen, and I had some moments of guilty fear lest my Secret should leak out, as their dragoman rushed down and warmly greeted ours. But in the throes of rolling off their camels for the first time, the ever-wakeful suspicions of the Set were submerged under physical emotions. It's an ill camel that bumps no one any good!

I was only too glad to lure my charges away from danger-zone; and luckily it was so early that the influential ones who never lunched until two "at home," gave the word, "Tombs before food." Girding up its aching loins, the procession allowed itself to be led by me and my dragoman down inclined planes into dark, mysteriously warm passages where our lights were wandering red stars. Now and then a face would start suddenly out of the gloom, haloed with candle-light: and in this way, Biddy's flashed upon me, starry-eyed. "Oh, I'm glad to see you!" she whispered. Bedr and his two tourists are here. I'm afraid!"

"My dear child," I said soothingly, but not as soothingly as if I hadn't had toothache in the spine, "you may be afraid of Bedr, but hardly of two stout Germans in check suits."

"Not if they are Germans. But are they? Just now one of their candles almost collided with mine, and his eyes stared so! Then they looked over my head at Monny, who was behind me. And where she is now, heaven knows!"

"Nothing can happen to either of you here," I assured her. "And probably our fuss about Bedr is much ado about nothing. We have no evidence—"

"The man who stared at me over his candle has a scar on his forehead," said Biddy. "Maybe he got it in that row in front of the House of the Crocodile. Maybe he is Burke, and has just come out of the hospital."

"Most likely he is Schmidt, and adorned himself with the wound in a student duel," said I.

"It's too fresh-looking. He must be over thirty," she objected, but at that moment Miss Hassett-Bean loomed into sight; and in the stuffy atmosphere of the tomb felt the need of my arm to keep her from fainting.

We "did" the Pyramid of Unas, dilapidated without, secretively beautiful within. We went from tomb to tomb, lingering long in the labyrinthine Mansion of Mereruka who, ruddy and large as life, stepped hospitably down in statue-form from his stela recess, to welcome us in the name of himself and wife. Almost he seemed to wave his hands and say, "Look at these nice pictures of me and my family and our ways of life, painted on the walls—our servants, our dwarfs, our mountebanks and acrobats, our flocks and herds. Sorry there's no refreshment at present on my alabaster mastaba, or table of offerings, but you see I didn't prepare for visitors outside my own immediate circle of Ka's and Ba's. Still, as you have come, make yourselves at home, and take pot luck. I think when you've examined everything, you'll admit that you haven't a Soul-House in Europe to touch mine which, if I do say it, is the best thing this side of Thebes."

Next came the Tomb of Thi; but by this time, mural representations of fish, flesh, and fruit began to be aggravating. It would be past two before we could reach our luncheon-tent; and somehow it seemed less desirable to feed after than before that sacred hour, though the custom be sanctioned by royalty. "Another tomb to see before lunch?" groaned Sir John Biddell, when the dragoman firmly insisted on the Apis Mausoleum. "Oh, darn! Need we? What? Where they buried Bulls? I'd as soon see a slaughter house, on an empty stomach. Lady Biddell and I will go sit in the shadow of our camels."

And they did; nor would they believe the twins' assertions that the dark Mausoleum, with its cavernous rock chambers and granite vaults, was the most impressive thing they had seen in Egypt. "You say that to be aggravating, because we weren't there," I heard Lady Biddell snap, over the grumbling of the camels.

The sky blazed down and the sand blazed up. The desert was white-hot, with a silver whiteness hotter than gold, and the foreshortened shadows were turquoise blue. It was heaven to arrive at a miniature oasis, and see the open-fronted, awninged luncheon-tent reflected with its green frame of palms, in a clear lagoon, thoughtfully left by the receding Nile. At sight of this picture, my popularity went up with a bound. It really was a lovely vision: the big tent lined with Egyptian applique work in many colors, the porchlike roof extension supported by poles, and in its shadow a white table loaded with good things and guarded by Arab waiters waving beaded fly-whisks. As we lingered over our chicken-salad, fruit, and cool drinks, and lazily watched our camels munching bersim, all our first enthusiasm for these interesting beasts streamed back. The ladies called them poor dears, and sweet things; and the men marvelled at their calm endurance, or the number of their leg-joints.

Monny was gay and charming, and looked at me so kindly that I thought she must mean to give a favorable answer to the buried letter. I blessed Cleopatra for the "tip" she had given, though I wondered what was the "humiliation" from which I could save her niece. "After all," said I, "the desert trip's going to pan out a success." But it must have been about this time that the wind rose. It blew Miss Hassett-Bean's hat up instead of down, and other hats off, when we had started again—and it blew into our eyes grains of sand as large as able bodied paving-stones. Also, as we passed through a picturesque mud-village which ought to have pleased everybody, it blew into our noses smells which Lady Biddell knew would give us plague. As if this were not enough, the sandcart nearly turned over in a rut, and Miss Hassett-Bean said that she must go home or be left to die in the desert. I had to lead the little stallion before she would consent to go on, and realized when I had ploughed through fifty yards of sand, that the manicured snob of a leader was a thin brown hero. By the time I had had a mile or two of this, the dark Pyramids of Dahshur were visible, and I knew that our camp was to be pitched not far beyond. My first emotion was pleasure; my second, panic.

What if Slaney had forgotten his promise to remove the Cook labels?

Since remounting Farag (only the coastguard camels had names; the baggage-beasts smelt as sweet without) Monny and I had been bumping along side by side, and she had just said, "If I tell you something, you'll never breathe it to a soul, will you?" when I saw those Pyramids, and was smitten with the fear of Cook.

"Never!" I vowed, torn between the desire to hear her secret, and to dash ahead of the caravan into camp.

"It's about 'Antoun,'" Monny went on. "You know I said to you the other night, that perhaps I knew something about him?"

"Yes—er—oh, yes!"

We were within a few hundred yards of the Pyramids now. At any instant the camp might burst into sight.

"You don't look interested!"

"But I am, awfully!"

"You're sure you won't tell?"

"Dead sure."

(Was that a flag fluttering on the horizon?)

"Well, then—it isn't my business, of course. But one can't help being interested in him, he's such a—such a romantic sort of figure, as you said yourself. And there's something so high and noble about him—I mean, about his looks and manners—that one hates to be disappointed."

"You would have him with us, you know!"

"I know. And—and I'm glad I—we—have got him. It's a—it's an experience. I suppose he's rather wonderful. But don't you think he ought to remember that he isn't exactly a prince? He isn't even called Bey. And if he were, its not the same as being a prince of Ancient Egypt."

"In what way has he presumed on his—er—near—princehood?"

"I believe he has—fallen in love with Biddy!"

"By Jove! Let the flag flutter!"

"What flag?"

"Oh—er—that was only an expression. They use it where I live. Why shouldn't he fall in love with Biddy, when you come to think of it?"

"He's of a darker race. Though—he does seem so like us. Of course she couldn't marry him. It wouldn't do. Would it?"

"I don't know. I must think it over. Is that all you were going to tell me?"

"No. I suppose it's natural he should fall in love with Biddy. She's so attractive! But the worst part about it is that he has proposed to Aunt Clara."

"Not possible!"

"Yes. He has. I saw part of the letter—the first part. She's the only one of us who thinks it would be right to marry a man of Egyptian blood, because you know she believes she's Egyptian herself—and she's always talking about reincarnations. I don't see that It's such a wonderful coincidence his name being 'Antoun.' It wouldn't be so bad if he were in love with her; but it's Biddy who is always right in everything she says and does, according to him—just as I am always wrong. Aunt Clara is richer than Biddy. I can't bear to fancy that's why he has proposed; it would take away all the romance"

"Don't strip him of his romance yet," said I, again torn between interest in Monny's incredible statement, and excitement which grew with the growing in size of those flags on the horizon. "You may wrong him. If you saw only the first part of the letter—"

"There could be no mistake. It was in hieroglyphics, and who but 'Antoun' would have written such a letter to Aunt Clara? She asked me to translate it, the night she dug it up at Fustat—"

"Dug—"

"And when I'd read as far as, 'Beautiful Queen, Star of my Heart, be my wife,' she snatched the paper away, and put it inside her dress, saying she'd look up the rest in one of my books."

"Good heavens! You must have changed places at Fustat. That letter couldn't have been for her!"

"It couldn't have been for any one else. 'Beautiful Queen' meant Queen Cleopatra. She said so herself. I don't know what she's going to do about it."

"Do about it?" I echoed desperately. "Why—" and just then my straining eyes saw that on the middle flag in the fluttering row were four large red letters on a white ground. Slaney had betrayed me! Everything depended on getting that flag down before those letters declared themselves to other eyes. "Excuse me," I finished my sentence with a gasp.

Monny must have gasped also, as she saw me suddenly dash away from her at full speed of one-camel power. But I had no time to think about what she might think. I suppose I must have done something to the steering-gear of that camel, which coastguard camels do not permit. Whatever it was, it got me into the midst of camp before I could draw breath; but I have a dim recollection of being caught by Arab arms, and seeing suppressed Arab grins, as mechanically I felt to see how far the end of my spine stuck out at the top of my head.

"That flag! Pull it down!" was my first gasp, pointing convulsively to the banner which shrieked, "Cook!" "Quick—before they come!"

Dazed by my vehemence, several Arabs scuttled to obey the order, but there were too many of them. Each hindered his neighbour, and as I danced about, making matters worse, out pounced our withered chef from the kitchen-tent.

"It was he brought that flag, wrapped round something," explained one of the men, in Arabic. "When he saw we had other flags, but none of Cook, he gave it to us to put over the biggest tent, because he thought it shameful to have no flag of the master's."

"Cook isn't the master. I'm it," I burbled, with a leap to catch the tell-tale square of white as it reluctantly came down. But I was too late. Sir John Biddell and Harry Snell, the newspaper man, came gallumping up on their camels before I could stuff the flag into my pocket.

"What's the matter?" they asked, as their animals squatted to let them down. "Were you run away with? What are you so mad about? Hullo! What flag's that—C-O-O-K!"

"It should be over the kitchen-tent," I heard myself explaining. "Don't you see? C-O-O-K! It's the cook's special flag. He brought it himself, but these chaps went and flew it over the dining-tent in place of the Union Jack. That's why he and I are mad."

And I thanked all the stars on Monny's tent flag that none of the Set understood Arabic.

After this, how could I hope to explain to Monny that the hieroglyphic proposal was mine, and that she, not Cleopatra, ought to have dug it up? She isn't a girl used to having men run away from her, on camelback or anything else—so naturally she thought me a rude beast, and showed it. Besides, even if I'd dared, I should have had no chance to straighten matters out; for though the flag-episode was after all no fault of Slaney's, there were a few little things which had escaped even his Napoleonic memory; and it was only by combining the feats of an acrobat with those of a juggler that I saved my reputation during the next half hour.

No sight could have been more beautiful in our eyes than that village of white tents in the waste of yellow sand. Our wildest imaginings could have pictured nothing more perfect, more peaceful.

Tea was ready, in the huge dining-tent, where folding chairs were grouped round a white-covered table. The floor of sand was hidden with thick, bright-coloured rugs, and it was finding "T. C. and Son" on the wrong side of one which Miss Hassett-Bean's foot turned up, that filled me with renewed alarms. Hastily I laid the rug straight, placed a chair upon it, and persuaded everybody to have tea before inspecting their bedroom tents. While they drank draughts and dabbed jam on an Egyptian conception of scones, I hurried like a haggard ghost from tent to tent, seeking the forbidden thing. Cook on the backs of the little mirrors hanging from the pole hooks!... Will it wash off?... No! Cut it out with a penknife! Down on your knees and tear off the label from the wrong side of another carpet! (Memo: Must do the one in the dining-tent when the people are asleep for the night.) Cram three Cook towels into my pockets. Hastily pin a handkerchief over the name on a white bit of a tent wall. Must have it cut out, and patched with something, later. Shall have to pay damages when I settle up with Slaney. Lady Macbeth wasn't in it with me! All she needed was a little water. I have to have pins and penknives and pockets all over the place.

I didn't get any tea. But that was a detail. And everybody was so delighted with everything that my spirits rose, despite a snub or two from Monny—for which Biddy tried to make up. People took desert strolls, or sat on dunes, and gazed into the sunset which couldn't have been better if I had turned it on myself. Along the western horizon ran a pale flame of green blending with rose, rose blending with amethyst, and in the distance the Pyramids of Dahshur burned with the red of pigeon-blood rubies.

The wind had died among the desert dunes, and it was not till after dinner that any one realized the arctic fall of temperature. It was too cold to enjoy playing bridge or any of the games I had brought; and the only hope of comfort was in bed. People said good night to each other in the comparatively warm dining-tent, and then gave surprised shrieks or grunts (according to sex) at the piercing cold. Several of the elder ladies fell over ten-tropes, despite the large lanterns illuminating the desert, and had to be escorted to their bedroom tents, and soothed. After this, silence reigned for a few minutes, and I had stealthily begun to work on the biggest rug-label, when arose a clamour of voices and presently appeared the dragoman lent by Slaney.

"Eight ladies wishing hot-water bottles," he explained.

But there were no hot-water bottles. We had thought of everything, it seemed, except hot-water bottles.

"I tell them very sorry but can't have?" Yusef suggested, looking pleased.

"Let me think!" I groaned. "What about the mineral water bottles we emptied at lunch and dinner? Let the cook boil water, and we'll supply the bottles."

This was done; and I was proud of the inspiration, with the pride that comes before a fall. When I began to write, in my bedroom tent, wrapped in all the blankets of the bed that should be Anthony's, I had the place to myself. But about midnight a head was unexpectedly thrust through the door-flap. It looked ghostly in the haze of colour made by the gorgeous applique work of high roof and octagon walls, which gave an effect of sitting at the bottom of a giant kaleidoscope.

"Who's that?" I hissed, in a whisper meant to be discreet, but which roused a camel or two in the ring outside the tents.

"Biddell—Sir John Biddell," replied the head. "I saw your light, and remembered you had your tent to yourself to-night. Those hot-water bottles have been leaking. There's one at least gone wrong in most of the ladies' tents. The married men have given their beds to girls who are drowned out. 'Twas your idea about those bottles, wasn't it? I expect you'll hear from it in the morning! Three of us want to come and camp in here with you."

"All right," I sighed, with a sinking heart. "I like sitting up, and you can toss for the cots."

* * * * *

At this moment Sir John Biddell reposes in one of them, General Harlow in the other. These gentlemen were so affected with the cold that they went to bed in their clothes, then got up to put on their overcoats, then got up again and put on their hats. On the floor lies a certain Mills of Manchester, rolled in all the rugs, except one which I have on, after surrendering my blankets. He has his head in a basket, to keep off the icy draught; and in the ruggy region of his spine, as he rests on his side, are the letters C-O-O-K. I wonder if I could rip them off without waking him up?



CHAPTER XV

THE DESERT DIARY TO ITS BITTER END

Tuesday: The principal water-cask has leaked; consequently not enough water to go round. Chef said it was a question of baths, or soup. Considering the cold, most of the people voted for soup. Some washed in Apollinaris. Others douched with soda siphons. We can get more water to-night. Can't think why the north wind doesn't stop and warm itself while traversing the Mediterranean or the hot sands! It seems to be in too fierce a hurry and consequently cuts across the desert, like a frozen scythe, the moment its rival the sun has gone to sleep. I hear that Miss Hassett-Bean cried with cold as she dressed, and put on two of everything; but she is luckier than the younger women. Monny and Mrs. East, though warned that nights would be chill, have come clothed in silk and gossamer, and have brought low-necked nightgowns of nainsook trimmed with lace. This was confided to me soon after sunrise by a blue-nosed Biddy, hovering over the kitchen fire and —incidentally—ingratiating herself with the cook. It wouldn't be Biddy if she weren't ingratiating herself with some one!

Nobody yearned to get up early (I speak for others, as I passed my night in the attitude of a suspension bridge between two folding chairs); but in camp where sleep is concerned, men may propose, camels dispose.

Their nights they spend in a ring of camelhood, huddled together for warmth; and if they do not have nightmare or bite each other in their sleep, mere humans in neighbouring tents may hope for comparative silence in the desert, if not near a village full of pi-dogs. At sunrise, however, a change comes o'er their spirit. They are given food, and made as happy and contented as it is their nature to be, which apparently is not saying much. Judging by the strange, inarticulate oaths they constantly mutter, they are equally accursed in their sitting down and their getting up. It is only when they are actually "on the move," floating and swaying through the air—legs, tail, neck, jaws—that they have nothing disagreeable to say. Immediately after dawn this morning, our camels began to imitate every animal they could have met since the days of the Ark, when one had to know everybody. They mewed like cats, hissed like snakes, bleated like sheep, roared like toy lions, grunted like pigs, barked like dogs, squawked like geese, and bellowed like baby bulls. Also they gargled their throats like elderly invalids. It was useless trying to sleep; and when I had accomplished such bathing as the chef permitted, I went out to see what was the matter. Nothing was the matter, except that the creatures had the sunrise in their eyes, and could see the camel-boys preparing their loads; but I was glad I had come out, because Biddy was there and the scene was beautiful. Shivering, we chuckled over the morning toilet of the camels, who turned their faces disconcertingly upon us, sneering with long yellow teeth, and bubbling as if their mouths were full of pink soapsuds, when they realized that we were laughing at them.

Incidentally we learned why the Baby Sphinx accompanied our caravan uninvited. His name is Salih; and he came because there's a very important camel (the property of his father) who refuses to eat or stir without him. It is a most original and elaborate camel. It has a neat way of turning its ears with their backs to the wind, in order to make them sand-proof. If any person other than Salih touches it, an incredible quantity of green cud is instantly let loose over their turbans; but at the approach of Salih it emits a purring noise, preens its head for the nose-strap ornamented with a bunch of palmlike plumes, and playfully pretends not to want the bersim which the little black Sphinx thrusts down its throat in handfuls. This, it seems, is good camel table-manners. And it is to the tail of this animal that Salih clings on the march. If he is not there, the animal looks round, stops, or turns to charge at any Arab who jestingly misuses its idol.

Yesterday the miniature Sphinx was in a white robe. To-day he is in black. All the Arabs have changed their clothes, although they have brought no visible luggage except vague pieces of sacking. The dragoman is exquisitely arrayed, galabeah and kaftan gray-blue, with a pink petticoat, and a white one under that. I suspect that he sleeps beneath the dining-table—and the other Arabs among the kitchen pots—yet they are smarter than any of us Europeans, all of whom have a frayed air. This, I suppose, would not be so in desert-fiction. Nothing would be said about hot-water bottles leaking, or beetles beetling (one doesn't come to Egypt to see live scarabs), or draughts raging, or camels gobbling, or flags flapping all night. (Memo: Abolish flags, even at expense of patriotism.)

Despite every desert drawback, however, Biddy and I agreed that the sunrise alone was worth the journey, and the pure air of dawn which, though cold, seemed perfumed by mysterious rose-fields. Just at sun-up the desert was lily pale—then, as the horizon flamed, a dazzling flood of gold poured over the dunes. The sun was a fantastic brooch of beaten copper, caught in a veil of ruby gauze, while here and there a belated star was a dull, flawed emerald sewn into the veil's fringe. Shadows swept westward across the desert like blue water, showing a glitter of drowned jewels underneath; and though last night it had seemed that we were alone in a vast wilderness, now there were signs that a village lay not far off. A group of children in red and blue, staring avidly at the camp, were like a bunch of ragged poppies in the sand. Their mangy pi-dogs had ventured nearer, to smell sadly at the meat-safes hanging outside our kitchen-tent. A gypsy-woman with splendid eyes and a blue tattooed chin, breakfasted on an adjacent dune with her husband. Men like living hencoops passed in the distance. Patriarchal persons blew by, in that graceful way in which people do blow in Egypt, driving a flock of sheep, with a black lamb "for luck." These men were dressed as their ancestors had dressed in the time of Abraham, and Biddy and I envied them. How nice, said she, to wear the same clothes for a hundred years if you happened to live, and never be out of fashion. If a few of your things dropped off by degrees, you were still all right, and nobody would be rude enough to notice!

Our faded family revived after breakfast, and even those who vowed they hadn't closed an eye all night enjoyed the scene of striking camp. The big white tents fell to the ground like pricked soap-bubbles; whereupon their remains were deftly rolled up and tied on to the backs of bitterly protesting camels. Beds, mattresses, tables, chairs ceased to be what they had been and became something else. Camels made faces and noises. Arabs tore this way and that, doing as little work as possible. The cook fluttered about in his blanket, brandishing a saucepan. Yusef the dragoman made noble gestures of command, and our little desert city ceased to exist except on camels' backs. It was shaved off the surface of the earth, and went churning and swaying along toward the next stand; the procession rising and falling among swelling dunes, under a sky which seemed to trail like a heavy blue curtain, where at the horizon it met the gold.

We travelled over pebbly plateaus, scattered with jewel-like stones. Sand-pyramids rose out of the glistening plain. Here and there were rocks like partly hewn sphinxes pushing out of the sand to breathe; other rocks like monstrous toads; and still others dark and dreadful in the distance as ogres' houses. Altogether the desert gave us a truly Libyan effect, which made the Set feel that after all they were getting what they had paid for, with an introduction to a beauty and heiress thrown in. But apropos of this latter boon, it is dawning upon me that Rachel Guest is receiving more attention than Monny. This strikes me as inexplicable. There are more men than women in our party, all young except Sir John Biddell, General Harlow, and Mills of Manchester, a soft, fat sort of fellow whose first name you can never remember. It occurred to me on starting, that the desire of so many unattached young men to spend a week in the desert and the Fayoum, might not be unconnected with Miss Gilder's intention to join the party. Not being jealous, I expected to see a little fun, and laugh over it with Biddy, who is a heavenly person with whom to share a joke. But if there is a joke, I haven't seen the point yet, nor has she. There's no disputing the fact that Miss Guest, the poor, brave school teacher on holiday, is the belle of the desert.

Of course, if Monny had stopped in Cairo, Rachel's success with our men wouldn't be astonishing. As Brigit and Monny warned me in their letters to the Candace, she grows better looking every day; but though she is distinctly of Monny's type, despite those slanting eyes, she will never be a real beauty, or a Complete Fascinator, like our Gilded Girl. Besides, Monny has millions, and Rachel hasn't a cent. Yet there it is! Miss Guest is having the "time of her life" in spite of leaky water bottles and bumping camels, while Miss Gilder might be an old married woman, for all the attention she gets from any man on this trip except me. What can be the explanation? Even those two exaggerately German-looking men with Bedr stared at Rachel from their respectful distance. It turns out that they camped not far from us last night. Yusef heard this from one of our camel-boys. But they kept to themselves, and didn't come within a mile of us, so there's nothing to complain of. Every one except Sir John delighted with to-day's desert. He can't see anything beautiful in yellow lumps that keep you sawing up and down, though he has no doubt the desert is full of other fools doing what we're doing; and we could all see each other doing it if it weren't for those darn dunes.

Later: Adventure for sandcart on one of the biggest plateaus. Looked all right from the top; but a shriek from Mrs. East put me to the dire necessity of sliding off Farag and running to the rescue. The plateau was broken off in front and became a precipice which, Cleopatra seemed to think, would not have existed had "Antoun" arrived in tune to arrange it.

Great wind came roaring up again about noon. Feared to learn that it had been impossible to get luncheon-tent in position. But when the time came to find it, there it was with its back to the blast, and its shady open front, of tile-patterned applique, offering the hoped-for picture of white table and smiling brown waiters.

While we lunched, the fierce gusts striking the back canvas wall were like the frightened flappings of giant wings, and the beating of a great bird's heart. Otherwise we might have forgotten the elements as we ate, save for a slight powdering of sand on our food. But even that wasn't bad, if we selected only the port side of our bread and chicken, leaving windward bits to the Arabs.

Our night camp was in shelter of the two vast dunes which hide the ancient city of Bacchias, now called Um-el-Atl, where we found "Antoun" awaiting us. He had started from Cairo in the morning on a coastguard camel, coming quickly along the camel route between Bedrashen and Tomieh, and the extra few miles to our encampment. Before we arrived he had sent the camel back with the mounted Arab who accompanied him; and somehow the camp seemed all the smarter and more ship-shape for the presence of the handsome Hadji, in his green turban. The Set are all extremely interested in him; and on hearing my version of his history, sketchily told, have taken to calling him "the prince." Enid and Elaine almost fawn upon him, in their admiration of so romantic and splendid an addition to our party: a real, live Egyptian gentleman, with enough European blood in his veins to justify nice-minded maidens in cherishing a hopeless love for him, when he has safely vanished out of their lives.

Mrs. East made Anthony pick up pre-historic oyster shells in the desert, between flaming sunset and twilight, when the sky became a vast blue tent hung with a million lamps. And at dinner she was not nice to Enid and Elaine who admired her hero too frankly. She has developed an embarrassing clearness of vision as to other people's former incarnations, especially their disagreeable or shocking ones. "Ah, it has just come to me!" she exclaimed, her elbows on the table, looking dreamily into Elaine Biddell's face. "You were Xantippe. I knew I'd seen you somewhere."

As for Enid, it seems that she was Charmian or Iris, Cleopatra can't be sure which; but the girl has come to me saying that, if Mrs. East doesn't stop calling her "My dear handmaiden," one or the other of them will have to give up starting on the Nile trip next week.

Wednesday: We had lobster a la Newburgh for dinner, in mid-Libyan desert, and drank the chef's health in champagne. I don't know which was to blame, or whether it was the combination; but in the windy middle of the night when tent flaps stirred like a nestful of young birds, there were demands for ginger and for peppermint. Now, ginger and peppermint happened to be the only two medicaments in the whole pharmacopoeia left out of the medicine chest. But nothing else would do. The more the things weren't there, the more they were wanted; and all the people who had made notes to remember me in their wills, scratched me out again. Then, to pile Ossa on Pelion, the dogs of Tomieh arrived to pay a visit. They barked, of course; but they barked so much that the noise was like a silence, and nobody minded after the first half hour. The worst was, that they did not confine their demonstrations to barking. In order to signify their disapproval of our stingy ways, they took the boots we had confided to the sand in front of our tents to be cleaned, and worried them at a considerable distance. Some of the boots were past wearing when found, and some were not found. Judging from cold glances directed at me by those obliged to resort to pumps or bedroom slippers, one would imagine me the trainer of this canine menagerie. It has been hinted, too, that a conductor worth his salt would have filled up interstices of the medicine chest with toothbrushes. Several members of the party forgot to pack theirs in moving camp and they are now the property of jackals. A stock of toothbrushes is the one other thing besides peppermint and ginger and hot-water bottles that Slaney and I left out of our calculations; still, I do think bygones ought to be bygones. Anthony is the hero now, because it occurred to him to buy in Cairo flannelette nightwear, male and female, of the thickest and most hideously pink description. Had these horrors been suggested at the start, they would have been rejected with fury, in favour of lace and nainsook; but the contribution has made a success fou, at a crisis when vanity has been forgotten, and the girls are employing their prettiest frocks as bed covering.

Another Day: Have now forgotten which, or how many we've had. This is Anthony's hour—but he may take such advantage of it as he chooses—I'm indifferent. On top of my troubles I've contracted Desert Snivels. Whether the habit of using sand for snuff has produced the malady, or whether I've caught something (despite the tonic air) from nomads or oasis-dwellers, all of whom emit a storm of coughs and sneezes, I do not know. All desire to use this grand opportunity of taking Cleopatra's advice and winning Monny's love while for once she's neglected by others, has died within me. My one wish is to keep away from her and the rest, except perhaps Biddy, and suffer alone, like a cat. Biddy has got Desert Snivels, too. It makes another link between us, like the memories of our childhood. We swop stories of symptoms. Both feel that sense of terrible resignation which desert babies have when their eyes are full of flies and no one takes them out.

The sky lowers. Big black birds flap over our heads like pirate flags that have blown away. They are the vultures which used to be sacred to Egyptians, and seem to labour under the delusion that they are sacred still. The sand blows into our back hair, and the Arabs make scarves and veils of their turbans. Apparently these Moslems never say any prayers, and the Candace people feel they've been cheated of a promised sensation of desert life. The only religious thing the men do is to bawl "Allah!" when they lift the heavy, rolled up tents onto the camels.

People are beginning to grumble about their meals, which at first seemed to them miracles of culinary art. "Same old desert things we've been eating ever since Moses," I heard Harry Snell mutter. And Sir John Biddell is sick of h. b. eggs. I suppose he means hard-boiled. I should like to feed him on soft-shell scarabs!

Tea is the only incident in the desert which has palled on no one yet. Very jolly, having finished the day's exertion, and sitting on folding chairs inside tent door, teacup in hand, watching the winged shadows sweep across the dunes! One feels like Jacob or Rebecca or some one. There may be a fine saint's tomb standing up, marble-white, against the rose-garden of a sunset sky, but one doesn't bother to walk out and examine it at close quarters. There's nothing like sitting still after a windy day on camel back.

We lack interest in history ancient and modern, although Egypt is the country which ought to make one want to know all other history. There may be a European war or an earthquake. We don't care what happens to any one but ourselves. It is all we can do to keep track of our own affairs. As for ancient history, we content ourselves with wondering if Anthony and Cleopatra, when picnicking in the desert, dropped orange peel and cake to feed the living scarabs of their day.

We seem to be lost to the world, yet now and then we're reminded that we have neighbours in the desert. We've had glimpses of a distant caravan which must be Bedr's; and when we came in sight of our own camp last evening, we were just in time to catch a party of Germans being photographed in front of it, with our things for an unpaid background. Ever beauteous picture, by the by, your own encampment! White tents blossoming like snowy flowers in a wilderness; a dense black cloud, massed near by on the golden sand, which might in the distance be a plantation of young palms, but is in reality a congested mass of camels. You sing at the top of your voice "From the desert I come to thee, on a stallion shod with fire!" hoping to thrill the girls. But they are thinking about their tea. Girls in the desert, I find, are always thinking about their tea, or their dinner, or their beds. You would like (when your Desert Snivels improve) to walk with a maiden under the stars; but no, she is sleepy! She wants to get to bed early. Even the camels are most particular about their bed hours. It would be irritating, if you didn't secretly feel the same yourself. But what a waste of stars!

Some old Day or Other: Interesting but dusty dyke road into the Fayoum oasis. Every one enraged with Robert Hichens because "Bella Donna's" Nigel recommended The Fayoum. "No wonder she poisoned him!" snarled Mrs. Harlow. Our Arabs riding ahead look magnificent, seeming to wade through a flood of gold, the feet and legs of their camels floating in a rose-pink mist. But alas, the flood of gold and the rose-pink mist are composed of dust—that reddish dust in which presumably the boasted Fayoum roses grow; and it blows into our noses. This upsets our tempers, and prevents our enjoying the pictures we see in the sudden transition from desert to oasis. Biblical patriarchs on white asses, disputing the high, narrow "gisr" or dyke road; women with huge gold nose rings; running processions of girls, in blowing coral and copper robes, large ornamental jars on their veiled heads, thin trailing black scarves and slim figures dark against a sky of gold. Blue-eyed water-buffaloes—gamoushas—and exaggerated brown-gray calves, with wide-open, boxlike ears in which you feel you ought to post something. Canals stretching away through emerald fields to distant palm groves; here and there a miniature cataract; children playing in the water, imps whose red and amber rags ring out high notes of colour like the clash of cymbals; now and then a jerboa or a mongoose waddling across the path; travelling families on trotting donkeys or swinging camels who pass us with difficulty. Camels everywhere, indeed, on dyke or in meadow; even the clouds are shaped like camels who have gone to heaven and turned to mother o' pearl. There are horses, too; not little sand stallions like ours, but ordinary, plodding animals whose hoofs know only Fayoum dust or mud. Our desert creature, however, does not spurn them. On the contrary, though he pretends not to notice camels, cows, or buffaloes, he whinnies and prances with delight when he meets anything of his own shape, and assumes hobby-horse attitudes, much to the alarm of Cleopatra and Miss Hassett-Bean. Also, just to remind everybody that sand is his element, he shies at water, and almost swoons at sight of the Fayoum light railway.

Much wind again. But thank goodness out of Fayoum dust, and in desert sand for lunch! Prop up tent with our backs, leaning against the blast. However, we have now a special clothes-brush for the bread, and a moderately clean bandanna for the fruit. Plates, we blow upon without a qualm. Scarabei gambolling in the sand around our feet we pass unnoticed. This is the simple desert life!

But ah, what an encampment for the night! It makes up for everything, and a sudden realization of abounding health is tingling in our veins. We adore the desert. We want to spend our lives in it. Thank goodness we have two nights here, on the golden shore of the blue Birket Karun, all that's left of Lake Moeris of which Strabo and Herodotus raved. From the dune-sheltered plateau where our white tents cluster, the glitter of water in the desert is like a mirage: a mysterious, melancholy sheet of steel and silver turning to ruby in the sunset, with dark birds skimming over the clear surface.

Suddenly the Bible seems as exciting as some wonderful novel. Not far from here ran Joseph's river, making the desert to blossom like the rose. In tents like ours, perhaps, Abraham rested with Sarah, planning how to save himself by giving her to the Egyptian king. To see this lake is like seeing a bright, living eye suddenly open in the face of a mummy, dead for six thousand years!

Our best sunset; romance but slightly damaged by an Arab waiter wrapping up his head in a towel with which he had just dried our teacups and no doubt will again.

Another Day: (Merely slavish to look it out in the calendar, and besides there is none.) All I know is, we've had two on the shore of Birket Kurun (I spell it a different way now, because no books ever spell anything in Egypt twice alike), "The Lake of the Horns"; and we've been on the water in some very old boats, in order to see things which may have existed once, but don't now; and at present we're encamped near Medinet-el-Fayoum, a kind of lesser Cairo: originally named Medinet-el Faris, City of the Horseman, because of a Roman equestrian statue found in the neighbouring mounds of "Crocodilopolis." We have just arrived, hot and dusty, with more dust of more Fayoum than we had before Lake Moeris. "Fayoum" means Country of the Lake it seems; and it really is a great emerald cup sunk below the level of the Nile —as if to dip up water for its roses.

However, the Set is happy despite the state of its clothes and its hair. None of us quite realized what the Fallahcen were really like before, or that the word Fellal meant "ploughman." This has been market-day, and we met an endless stream of riding men, and walking women with black trailing garments. They had bought sheep, and goats, and rabbits, and quantities of rustling, pale green sugar cane, which they carried on their shoulders.

There were wild adventures for the sandcart, and watery spaces across which Cleopatra was carried (at her own urgent request) by Anthony; Miss Hassett-Bean by me and the strongest Arab. There were the wonderfully picturesque squalid mud towns of Senoures and two or three others, honey-yellow in a green mist of palms, against an indigo sky with streaks of sunshine like bright bayonets of Djinns. And then Medinet, through which our caravan had to pass en route to camp, much to the ribald joy of smart, silk-robed Egyptian "undergrads" who strolled hand in hand along the broad streets near the University. They were big, fantastic houses to suit modern Oriental taste, painted pink and green, and set in shady gardens. And between high brick embankments we saw the river Joseph made—swiftly running, deep golden yellow like the Nile, with ancient water-wheels pouring crystal jets into enormous troughs.

This was our most fatiguing day, and we wanted our last encampment to be the best. We found the worst: a suburban meadow inhabited by goats and buffaloes. "Can't we move somewhere else?" Cleopatra besought Anthony, to whom she appeals when he's within appealing distance. "Isn't this tour for our pleasure, and can't we do what we like?"

Anthony absolved the camp-makers, explaining that we must be near the town in order to get carriages and see the sights we had come to see. Also our water supply had given out, and we must beg some from the "government people." He hinted that it would be well to make the best of things; but Cleopatra, with her royal memories, is not good at making the best of what she doesn't like. She wants what she wants, especially in her own Egypt, where things ought to know that they once belonged to her. Miss Hassett-Bean is quite as exigeante, in a different way, more Biblical, less pagan. Her criticism on the encampment was that it, and all her oasis experiences, are destroying her faith in hymns. "By cool Siloam's Shady Rill," for instance, used to be her favourite, but she doesn't believe now that Siloam ever had a rill.

Later: 11 p. m. Fallahcen and Fellahah (doesn't sound female, but is) pretended to have things to do on the frontier of their field and ours, as we were settling in, and stared unblinkingly at us, whenever we stuck a nose outside a tent. Also they laughed. Also they brought their dogs. But they couldn't spoil the sunset, and Medinet was a colourful picture of the Orient, towering against the crimson west. I took Monny and Biddy into the town to see the bridge and dilapidated Mosque of Kait Bey, with its pillars stolen from Arsinoe. Anthony took Cleopatra, and most of the other unmarried men took Rachel Guest. When Brigit remarked rather sharply upon the ex-school teacher's popularity, Monny laughed an odd, understanding little laugh. "I believe you think you know why they're all so mad about that girl!" exclaimed Biddy.

"Perhaps I do," smiled Miss Gilder.

"What is her fascination?"

"Bedr could have told you," Monny cryptically replied. "He told several people."

"What do you mean, child? I'm eating my heart out to know!"

"Don't eat it, dearest. You can't eat your heart and have it, too. And it's your most important possession."

"I wish you wouldn't tease me when I'm tired. Is it part of the secret you and Rachel were always giggling over, when we first got to Cairo?"

"Yes, dear, it is, if you must know. But I don't want to tell even you what the secret is, please! You might think it your duty to spoil Rachel's fun, and she and I are both enjoying it so much."

"Can you guess what she means, Duffer?" Biddy appealed to me. "You know I wrote you that Monny and Miss Guest had a secret. I thought afterward it might have been only their plan to see the hasheesh den; but since then I've realized it was something else."