Margaret would have liked to have sat for a little time longer to collect her thoughts and to take in the beauty of the room; but that was not to be; the door opened and her hostess entered.

Of all the beautiful pictures which she had seen since she entered the inner courtyard of this mediaeval home, Hada.s.sah Ireton was the most beautiful. She had brought her baby-boy with her; he was just learning to toddle. A sob rose in Margaret's throat, as she saw the fair-haired child beside the tall young mother.

Hada.s.sah had greeted her with the conventional "How do you do?"

Margaret answered it as conventionally.

Hada.s.sah lifted her boy up and held him out to Margaret. "This is my son," she said. "I know he wants to welcome you."

The boy held up his face to be kissed. As he did so, Margaret took him in her arms and held him close to her breast. Hada.s.sah, who had brought him to administer to that very want--a woman's empty arms--went to the balcony and made a pretence of letting in some fresh air and excluding the shaft of sunlight which was coming from one of the small oriels that had been left unclosed.

When she turned to her guest, she saw something very like tears in Margaret's eyes. The child, who did not know the meaning of the word fear or shyness, was speaking to Margaret as if he had known her all his short life.

"He has taken you into his elastic heart," Hada.s.sah said. "Because, if you don't mind me saying so, I think we are rather like one another."

"Oh, no!" Margaret said impulsively, while she blushed. "I'm not like you!"

Her words were expressive of admiration. Hada.s.sah did not pretend to misunderstand them; she was well accustomed to admiration.

"The boy sees the resemblance, I'm sure."

"We have both dark heads and we are both tall," Margaret said laughingly. "But there the likeness ends." She looked at Hada.s.sah's eyes as she spoke and wished that she could believe that she was in the least like her. She had never seen such a beautiful expression in any woman's eyes before. Was she really the Syrian girl whom Michael Ireton had dared to marry?

"Let us sit down," Hada.s.sah said. "But before we begin our talk, I must send Michael to the nursery. I am really so foolish about him--I wanted you to see him." She rang the bell and a pretty Coptic girl in native dress came into the room; the boy went on with her without demur. The girl had looked at Margaret with big brown eyes; they carried her mind back to the portraits of Egyptian women painted in Roman times on the walls of tombs.

"What a good little chap!" Margaret said. "I'm sure he wanted to stay with you. How marked the Coptic type is!--they are the true descendants of the ancient Egyptians, aren't they? He looked so fair beside her."

"Dear little son! He will be perfectly happy with her. He loves everybody and everything. I sometimes wonder if it means a lack of character. He rarely cries, and he sings baby-songs to himself all day long."

"What a darling!" Margaret said. "And how fair!"

"Yes," Hada.s.sah said, "quite English." The words were spoken without malice, but they brought the colour to Margaret's cheeks. Hada.s.sah saw it, and said laughingly, "I was granted my wish--I wanted to have a boy as like my husband as possible. He wanted a girl, I think."

Margaret laid her hand on Hada.s.sah's arm. "Did you mind me writing?"

she said. "I hope you didn't think it very odd?" Her voice broke. "I wanted your advice. I knew you and your husband could help me."

"Dear Miss Lampton," Hada.s.sah said, "I'm so glad you wrote, and of course I understood. It's worth while to have suffered oneself, so as to be able to understand and help others in their suffering."

Margaret knew all that the words implied, but with her habitual reserve, she answered as though Hada.s.sah had referred to her cousin's death. The Nationalist plot in which he was implicated had added to the horror which British society in Cairo had openly expressed at Michael Ireton's marriage with a Syrian, who was a cousin of the ill-advised youth.

"Michael told me something of the tragedy," Margaret said. "You must have felt his death terribly."

Margaret's words were conventional, but Hada.s.sah did not miss the sympathy and feeling which lay underneath them.

"I did," Hada.s.sah said. "But the boy would never have been happy--he was one of the pitiful instances you meet in Egypt; of misguided idealists. Girgis had a fine character, but he was fastened upon because of his wealth by the wrong set of the Nationalist party, who misled him and then turned on him and killed him because he wouldn't go as far as they wanted him to go in their horrible outrages. It was a pitiful story, greatly distorted and misinterpreted by the press."

"His death was splendid," Margaret said. "It wiped out all the rest--it proved his real worth."

"Yes," Hada.s.sah said. "Poor Girgis died a hero's death. He was as brave as a lion. But come," she said, "let me hear your news. These things we are talking about are ancient history to everybody but myself, and I never think of them if I can help it. It is better not."

She sighed reflectively. "Dear Girgis knows that I can never forget him. He gave me all his fierce young love at a time when it was very precious."

"Ignorance was at the bottom of it all," Margaret said. She was alluding to the behaviour of the British residents in Cairo in respect to Hada.s.sah's marriage. Hada.s.sah understood.

"I have learned to know and realize that," she said. "And, after all, one must pity ignorance. I have got so far that I can actually feel sorry for such narrow minds. As for Michael, he never gave it a thought. If our characters are widened through suffering, I have gained--they have lost. Something fine always leaves our natures when we do or think unkind things--nothing is truer or surer than that."

"Michael always says the same thing," Margaret said eagerly. "He thinks unkind thoughts and uncharitable acts--want of love, in fact--the unpardonable sins."

"Both our men have the same name." Hada.s.sah's eyes smiled. "I like your man so much, if I may say so. He is worth a great deal. We can't expect big things to come to us in a small, mediocre way, can we?"

"I am so glad you like him," Margaret said. "And you believe in him?

Your husband believes in him, in his . . ." she hesitated ". . .

unpractical mind?" Hada.s.sah's understanding and gentleness made her feel childishly weak. It would have been a relief to give way to weeping. Her nerves were at the point when any rebuke would have braced her sympathy was undoing.

"Why, of course!"

"May I tell you why I came?"

"Will you have some tea first? You are tired!"

"No thanks, really. I had numerous cups of coffee on my way here."

"Then let me hear all you want to tell me. Even if I can't help you, I know how nice it is to talk over one's troubles with another woman.

You have lived very much cut off from women's society all these months.

Where is Mr. Amory? Did he go into the desert? We haven't heard of him or from him since he spoke to my husband about going off on a long journey. He had a great scheme in his head. He's an odd creature."

She laughed. "You and I both like individualities, I think."

"He went into the eastern desert soon after you saw him. I haven't heard from him since he went. His letters may have gone astray. But in the meantime a report has been spread abroad that he has taken a woman with him, a Mrs. Mervill. Have you heard of her?"

"Millicent Mervill? I know her!"

"Well, she is in love with him. You know how beautiful she is. . . ."

Margaret's voice lost its steadiness.

"Yes, and also I know how thoroughly lacking in morals. She is very well-known by this time. Last season she was the fashion; she entertained lavishly. This year she has thrown caution to the winds."

"She certainly has, for she has positively hunted Michael to earth."

"Michael Amory, of all men!" Hada.s.sah's laugh encouraged Margaret; it was so expressive of what she herself felt.

"Yes, I think she is annoyed because. . . ." Margaret paused ". . .

well, I can't express what I mean, but Michael isn't that sort. He would be her friend if she would let him, but friendship isn't enough."

"I know what you mean. He certainly isn't that sort, there can be no mistaking that."

Margaret smiled happily. "Then you believe he isn't?"

"Of course! Who doesn't?"

"My brother objects to my name being mixed up in the scandal." Margaret had evaded answering Hada.s.sah's question.