"You'll let me give you another cup of tea?--I'm allowed to do that much. Well, I had my fortune told two days ago by a man at the Pyramids. He's supposed to be very clever. He said I was going on a journey into the desert with a man I loved; he spoke of some great thing that was going to happen on the journey. He described you accurately. He was really very funny--I wish you could have heard him.

He saw great wealth for you and some misfortunes."

Michael looked into her mischievous eyes. "They talk a lot of rot."

"Then you don't believe in that sort of thing? He saw sickness and gold and love. We were in the desert. He saw gold."

"Hush," Michael said. "You must forget all that."

"It was odd, wasn't it? You know how I have urged you to go with me.

I never saw the man before, he has never seen you."

Again Michael said "Hush." Again Millicent paid no attention to him, beyond saying that it was funny that he would never allow her to talk of her love for him, when he had often told her all about his religion of love.

Again Michael said, "I refuse absolutely to be drawn into a discussion upon the subject. You are frivolous. You and I know quite well that yours is not love."

"Perhaps not your kind of love, with a big L. But call a rose by whatsoever name you will, it smells as sweet. I can't quote, but you know what I mean, and that true love without pa.s.sion and pa.s.sion without love are both worthless. Every fanatic has pa.s.sion in his or her love. That is why they enjoy it--the scourging of the flesh, the self-denial--the body enjoys this form of self-torture for the object of its adoration. There," she said, "I will behave like the dear little innocent you first thought I was if you will come and see the Pyramids at sunset." The swift transition of her thoughts was typical of her personality.

Michael's train did not leave the station for Luxor until nine-thirty.

He had nothing to do.

"If you'll come," she said, "I'll not do or say one thing to hurt you.

I'll be my very nicest--and I can be nice and good now, can't I?"

"Then come," he said. "I've not been there since the 'Great Weeping.'"

He used the old man's picturesque term for the inundation of the Nile.

Millicent Mervill was no fool. She meant to keep to her word, and did.

The evening's excursion proved a great success and restored Michael to a more normal state of mind.

CHAPTER XI

When Michael got back to the camp there was so much genuine pleasure in being one of the trio again that he felt that it had been well worth the trouble of the journey, to be received back again so warmly and to see unclouded happiness in Margaret's smile. Her character was transparently sincere.

How radiant she looked, as Freddy and she hurried to meet him! A glad picture for tired eyes.

"Things are 'piping'!" she said eagerly, when he inquired about the "dig." "Freddy has only been waiting for you to come back before he clears out the last few days' debris from the shaft. He has been tidying up the site--it looks much more important."

Tired as Michael was after his hot journey, instinctively they turned their steps to the excavation. Things had certainly advanced greatly during Michael's absence. The deep shaft was almost cleared of rubbish; the site was tidied up and in spick-and-span order.

Michael was very soon drawn into the feeling of excitement and antic.i.p.ation. Freddy, he thought, looked tired and anxious, which was, of course, only natural, for Michael knew that on his shoulders rested the entire responsibility of the "dig" and that anything might happen during the time they were waiting for the photographer and the Chief Inspector.

Michael's imagination was ever too vivid. He could see a hundred plundering hands stretched out in the darkness to seize the buried treasure. He could visualize the poisoning of the watch-dogs and the silent killing of the guards, and Freddy waking up to find that his "pet tomb" had been burgled and robbed of its ancient treasures.

A good deal of discussion ensued between Michael and Freddy which was above Margaret's head. The approximate date of the tomb and a hundred different suggestions and problems which were still beyond her knowledge were gone into by the two Egyptologists. The soothsayer's predictions were not improbable; there were evidences which suggested that the tomb was one of great importance.

"Let's get back to dinner," Freddy said. "I scarcely had any lunch--I couldn't leave the men. I'm ready for some food."

Instantly they retraced their steps. Margaret was humming softly the air of some popular song. Both she and Michael were always anxious to administer to Freddy's wishes.

"It's topping to be back," Michael said. "The smells in Cairo were pretty bad. This is glorious!"

They had almost reached the hut.

"We have only mummy smells here," Margaret said. "But they get pretty thick, as the store-room fills up with finds." She looked round.

"Freddy, if I'd a little water, I could make the desert blossom like the rose." She sighed happily. "As it is, it's 'paradise enow'--I don't think I want it other than it is."

While they were at dinner, which, compared to their usual simple fare, was of the fatted-calf order and one of Margaret's devising, Michael told them of all that he had done in Luxor and Cairo, not keeping back even his excursion to the Pyramids or his visit to el-Azhar. Freddy was greatly entertained by both episodes, the one as a strong antidote to the other.

Michael had, of course, given but few details of either experience.

The mystic's counsel was not, he felt, suited for discussion and certainly he had no wish to annoy Margaret by unnecessary remarks about Millicent Mervill.

There was something in Mike's manner which a.s.sured Freddy that the influence of the mystic had triumphed, that the beautiful Millicent had not exercised her usual powers over his friend.

During the recital of his doings, Margaret met Mike's eyes frankly.

Hers were without questions or doubts. She felt as Freddy did--that the woman whom she so much disliked had not again come between them.

After all, the promise which she had given Michael, and which she had kept, might have availed.

As Michael had never spoken one word of love to Margaret, she had, of course, no right to expect him to behave towards her as if they were engaged; and yet there was that between them which meant far more than a mere formal proposal and acceptance of marriage. Some influence had brought them together in a manner which seemed outside themselves.

They had been the closest friends from the very first. Her vision had united their interests.

Of marriage as the definite result of their close, yet indefinite intimacy, Margaret still never thought. Mike and marriage seemed qualities which separated like oil and water. All she asked of fate at present was the continuance of their unique friendship and the life which she found so absorbingly interesting. A year ago she had longed to come to Egypt, but a year ago she had never dreamed that she would become so thrilled with the excavating of a tomb which had been made for a man who probably lived before Moses. The human side of Egyptology was being revealed to her. She did not feel now as if her brother was only going to discover a fresh mummy to put away in a museum somewhere; he was going to break into the secret dwelling-house of a man who had taken his treasures with him to live for ever in the bowels of the smiling hills. There are few tombs in Egypt as the Western world thinks of tombs; there are eternal mansions, gorgeously decorated and superbly built and equipped. The abiding cities of the Egyptians were the cities of the dead.

Margaret was living on the horizon of life. Every breath of desert air was like delicious food; every dawn and sunset stored her heart with dreams; each fresh intimacy with Michael placed a new jewel in the casket of her soul; every hour with Freddy was a privilege and a reward. In her veins the dance of youth tripped a lightsome measure.

Happiness made every moment vital.

During Michael's absence she had been down the valley and up the valley and through its hidden ways; she was familiar now with the native life in the camp and with the sights and sounds of Egypt. The flight of a falcon over the Theban hills seemed as familiar to her as the bounding of a wild rabbit on the Suffolk wolds. The desolation of the valley had now become the Spirit of Peace, the Voice of Sympathy. Her jealousy was aroused at the very thought of another woman being admitted into the privacy of the camp. Being a true woman, it gave her intense satisfaction to be the only one, to be the chosen companion of her brother and of Mike.

They were always eager for her companionship. If Freddy did not want her, Mike did; if Mike had work to do which demanded perfect solitude, she felt that Freddy was not sorry. Yet they were all three such good friends that more often than not they played together delightfully childish games. It was nevertheless rather a red-letter day for either of the two men when circ.u.mstances so arranged it that Meg had to go off with one of them alone on some excursion which combined business with pleasure.

Margaret, womanlike, loved the nicest of all feelings--"being wanted."

She would have liked her life to go on for ever just as it was, her society always desired by two of the dearest men in the world and her days filled with this novel and extraordinary work.

But even in the desert, things do not stand still. If they did, temples could not have been buried and cities lost. So after dinner, when Freddy, like the dear human brother that he was, allowed Michael and Margaret to spend some considerable time alone, the high G.o.ds took in hand the affairs of these two human lives, lives which had been well content to rest on their oars and drift with the tide.

Michael had had no prearranged desire to change the conditions of their intimacy. It was beautiful. He had given no thought to himself as Margaret's lover. He had been content to be her partner in that tip-toe dance of expectation and in that state of undeclared devotion which is the life and breath of a woman's existence.

On the evening of his return to the camp he felt a new joy in Margaret's presence. Catching the sound of her voice in her coming and going about their small hut was a delicious a.s.surance of the happiness that was to be his for some days to come. She illuminated the place and vitalized his energies. Yet this deepened pleasure told him nothing--nothing, at any rate, of what the G.o.ds had up their sleeves.

They were standing, as they had often stood before, on some high ridge of the desert cliff which overlooked its desolation and immensity.

Margaret's face was star-lit; her beauty softened. As Michael gazed at her, he lost himself.

As unexpectedly to Margaret as to himself, his arms enfolded her. He told her that he loved her.

This confession of his feelings for her was so sudden, a thing so far beyond his self-control and so inevitable, that Margaret made no attempt to withstand it. The beauty of it humbled her to silence; the generosity of life and its gift to her bewildered her. Two tears rolled quickly down her cheeks. Michael saw them and loved her all the more tenderly. Absurd tears, when her heart could not contain all her happiness! Meg dived for her handkerchief. Michael captured her hands; he took his own handkerchief and dried her cheeks, while laughter, mingled with weeping, prevented her from speaking.