He protested. The thud, thud, thud of the _darabukkeh_ below kept time with the throbbing of his pulses, while the subconscious visualizing of the body-movements of the Sudanese dancers aided and abetted the woman in her designs.

"You know, dear, you are behaving very foolishly. I must never see you again if you do this sort of thing. It can only lead to terrible unhappiness for us both."

She gently kissed his fingers, pressing her teeth against his knuckles--with all her education and fashionable clothes, a creature as primitive as any tent-dweller in the desert.

"Don't say you won't see me again. I won't be foolish, I promise. But I am very lonely, you don't know how lonely, Michael."

"Poor little woman!" he said breathlessly; he was genuinely sorry for her. If her nature craved for love and affection, it was hard for her to live as she did, without it.

"It's Egypt," she said, "Egypt and the desert. I want you all alone, Michael, in the loneliest part of the loneliest desert in the world, and I want as many kisses as there are stars in the heavens--kisses that only my love and Egypt can teach you how to give!"

"I must leave you," Michael said again, "if you will speak like that."

He got up to go. Mrs. Mervill also rose from her reclining position on her long deck-chair, and sat upright.

"I do, I do!" she said, while she held up her beautiful lips to his face. "There is no one to see, there is no one to care! I want a kiss for every star there is in the heavens."

The man could bear it no longer; all Egypt was tempting him. He bent his head and kissed her lips.

From the river below came the long cries to Allah of the Moslem boatmen and the clear music of an _'ood_ or lute; the deep note of the native drums had been silenced. It had given way to the song of an Arab tenor. The music of the _'ood_, whose seven double strings, made of lamb's gut, are played with a slip of a vulture's feather, drifted through the clear air. The tenor song was an outpouring of a lover's full heart. The pa.s.sion of the night had triumphed.

At their feet lay the black rocks and the swirling waters of Egypt's Aegean and the buried city of Syene, and in the distance, yet surely affecting their senses with its tragedy and grace, was Philae, the fairy sanctuary of the Nile. In the submerged temple of Philae lies the bridal chamber of the beloved Osiris and his wife Isis.

None of all this was lost upon Michael, whose nature was ever tuned to the concert pitch of his surroundings. a.s.suan affected him as a gorgeous orchestra affects a lover of Wagner.

But the sound of the hotel band, bringing a waltz to a close, made Mrs.

Mervill leave her lounge-chair and seat herself circ.u.mspectly on a more upright one. Michael did not sit down; he wandered about, speaking to her abruptly and unhappily at brief intervals.

She was answering one of his questions when Margaret Lampton, flushed and radiant with the excitement of dancing, came upon the scene; her partner was a little behind her. Mrs. Mervill neither saw her nor heard her footsteps; Michael had both seen and heard her. Margaret, thinking that he was alone, walked quickly towards him. Suddenly she heard a hidden voice say caressingly,

"I will promise you anything you like, Michael mine, and keep it, too, if you will try to see me as often as ever you can. Remember how lonely I am, and that I shall live for your visits."

Margaret stopped. Egypt had become as cold as the Arctic. She felt lost. Her intention had been to remind Michael that it was almost supper-time. Her partner was now by her side. He knew Michael Amory and spoke to him.

Mrs. Mervill had risen from her chair and as she came forward, Margaret hated her, even while she thought that she was the fairest and most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Michael introduced the two women to each other, excellent foils as they were in their beauty and type.

As Margaret gave one of her steadfast honest looks right into the eyes of the delicately-tinted woman in front of her, she was conscious of an appalling dislike and fear of her. She was equally conscious of the woman's antagonism to herself, although her words had been charming and friendly.

"If she wasn't beautiful and tiny, I'd like to wring her neck and throw her to the crocodiles below!"

This was what might be interpreted as Margaret's true feelings as she answered Mrs. Mervill's question and succeeded in making some ba.n.a.l remarks about the view and the magnificence of the hotel. When she had said all that politeness demanded of her, she turned away, a trifle disconsolately.

"Please wait one moment, Miss Lampton," Michael said. "I think this is the supper-interval. Mrs. Mervill," he said, "can I take you back to your partner? I am engaged to Miss Lampton for supper."

"No, thanks," she said, "I didn't engage myself to anyone for supper."

Her eyes plainly expressed the fact that they had hitherto at these dances always enjoyed the supper-interval together. "Will you be very kind and send a waiter out here with a gla.s.s of champagne and some sandwiches? That is all I want."

Michael looked disturbed. "But I don't like leaving you alone."

"I prefer the company of the stars," she said, "to just anybody--really I do. I never feel that one comes to Egypt for these hotel dances."

This was meant for Margaret, to make her feel frivolous and vulgar.

Margaret refused to accept it. "My brother and I have been dancing every dance and every extra and forgetting all about Egypt. Have you?"

She turned to Mike.

"No, I have been sitting this last one out with Mrs. Mervill. She feels tired. And certainly Egypt is very much here." He pointed to the scene before them.

"Yes, quite another Egypt," Margaret said. "Egypt has so many souls."

"And I have to be a little careful," Mrs. Mervill said, "of over-fatigue."

"I am sorry," Margaret said, while she inwardly noted the woman's perfect health. The slender feminine appearance of her rival had nothing in common with ill-health; a blush-rose bud was not more softly and evenly tinted. She suggested to Margaret something good to eat--pink and white ice-creams mingled together in a crystal bowl.

Healthily devoid as Margaret was of s.e.x-consciousness, it was curious that this first close inspection of Mrs. Mervill should have told her what she never dreamed of before, or even thought about--that she loved Michael Amory. This woman was going to come between herself and Michael; that there was great intimacy between them she felt certain, also that Michael, even though he might care for the woman, was not himself under her influence. She had never seen him look as he looked now.

The partner who had brought Margaret out on to the balcony const.i.tuted himself Mrs. Mervill's cavalier. He was immensely struck by her beauty and was inwardly overjoyed when Michael Amory introduced him to her.

He had not engaged himself for supper because there had been no one with whom he cared to spend the time, except Margaret, and she was engaged to Michael. Now that he had obtained an introduction to Mrs.

Mervill, he was delighted to attend to her wants.

If Michael Amory had seen Millicent Mervill's att.i.tude towards her companion, he might have felt--and very naturally--a certain amount of vanity. Born with little or no sense of honour or morals, she was extremely fastidious. No one could have been more selective.

Ninety-nine per cent. of the men she met bored her not to tears, but to rudeness; for the hundredth she might feel an unbridled pa.s.sion.

Margaret and her companion were seated at a little supper-table in the immense dining-room of the hotel, a room which been built after the proportions and decorated in the manner of an Egyptian temple. Their table was close to a column, which was decorated from pedestal to capital with the most familiar mythological figures of ancient Egypt.

Tall lotus flowers with their green leaves decorated the lower portion of it. The whole thing certainly was an amazingly clever reproduction of one of the ancient columns of the famous hypostyle hall at Karnak.

A gayer scene could hardly be imagined, for the bright colours of the ancient decorations had been faithfully copied.

Margaret had been talking rather more than was her wont to Michael, about things which neither really interested her nor were in sympathy with their mood. Their former intimate silence had given place to a ba.n.a.l conversation, which hurt them, one as much as the other, while they kept it up.

The nicest part of the evening, for so Meg had thought that it would be, was proving a failure, a dire and pitiful failure. The only thing to do was to accept Michael under the new conditions and get what pleasure she could out of the magnificent scene. The Egyptian servants, in their long white garments and high red tarbushes, the Nubians, in their full white drawers and bright green sashes and turbans, were moving silently about, administering as only native servants can administer to the wants of the fashionably-gowned women and brightly-uniformed men who filled the magnificent hall.

"How absurd that woman looks," Margaret said, "sitting with her back to that figure of Isis." She knew now at a glance the G.o.ddess Isis as she was most familiarly represented. "I do hope I don't look quite so grotesque!"

Michael looked at the woman, whose hair was decorated with an enormous egrette's crest, in the manner of a Red Indian's head-dress. Margaret knew quite well that she herself did not in any way look grotesque; since she had been in Egypt she had conceived a horror of the eccentricities of Western fashions, therefore her speech was insincere.

"Of course you don't," Michael said absently. "You look just awfully nice." He felt shy and blushed as he spoke, for he knew that he had severed himself from Margaret by an unspeakable gulf, that he had now no right to say anything intimate to her. Earlier in the evening he could have said with frank enthusiasm how beautiful he thought her, if an occasion like the present had offered itself.

They were now at the ice-creams, wonderful concoctions with glowing lights inside them, and their futile conversation had dribbled out, but the silence which had fallen upon them was constrained; it had nothing in common with the old happy silence of mental sympathy, the silence of united minds.

Margaret had still two dances to give Michael, and she wondered how they were to get through them. The supper had proved heavy and dragging. It seemed scarcely possible that they were the two people who had stood, delighting in each other's companionship, on the high ridge of the Sahara desert two evenings ago, that it was this man to whom she had told her wonderful dream. She wondered if he had forgotten it.

As she thought of her dream, their eyes met. Michael's dropped quickly. With Mrs. Mervill's kisses still burning into his soul, he banished the thought of the divine King. The seed of evil which she had planted in the garden of his soul many weeks ago had been watered and nourished to-night. It had sprung forth like the green blades on the banks of the Nile after the inundation.

As Michael's eyes dropped, Margaret took her courage in both hands and said as brightly as she could, "We're not enjoying ourselves particularly, are we? We seem to have lost each other. Shall we cut our two dances and try to find ourselves again in the valley? I hate this sort of thing."

"If you wish it." Michael's voice was reproachful.

"Do be honest--you know I'm boring you. You have lots of friends here, and I can get partners."

"Things do seem to have taken a wrong turn," he said, "but it was not of my willing." Inwardly he cursed the hour he had ever come. She would never believe that it had been to see her in her evening-dress and to enjoy the rapture of dancing with her.