"I"ll go and see if he"s busy," Rupert volunteered.
"Thanks," droned Mr. Bindane, his mouth dropping more widely open than usual.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY-BURNING SANDS_]
"Well, you have got some nerve!" exclaimed his wife.
Rupert went out of the room, and sought the Great Man in his study.
"What is it, what is it?" Lord Blair muttered with some irritation, looking up from a ma.s.s of disordered papers.
"Oh, sorry, sir," said Rupert. "I didn"t know you were busy. There"s somebody here who wants to see you."
"I can"t see anybody-no, n.o.body," Lord Blair expostulated. "What"s he want? Who is he?"
"A Mr. Bindane. He"s in the drawing-room with Lady Muriel."
Lord Blair sat up briskly. "Benifett Bindane?" he asked, sharply.
Rupert nodded, and thereat the Great Man jumped to his feet.
"Where is he?" he exclaimed. "Show him in at once. Dear me, dear me! How fortunate! I had no idea he was in Egypt. No, I"ll come into the drawing-room."
He hurried past Rupert, and hastened across the corridor.
"How d"you do, my dear sir, how d"you do," he exclaimed, as he tripped into the room and wrung his visitor"s feeble hand.
"My wife," said Mr. Bindane, bowing towards his startled spouse.
Lord Blair took her hand in both his own. "An old friend!" he cried.
"Capital, capital! We were reading about your marriage the other day.
Splendid!" And he beamed from one to the other. Then, turning again to Mr. Bindane, "You"ve come to see for yourself, eh?" he exclaimed. "Very wise, very wise indeed."
"It"s a pleasure trip," the other replied; "our honeymoon, you know."
"Of course, yes," muttered Lord Blair. "Business and pleasure!"
"Business?" muttered Mrs. Bindane. "It"s the first I"ve heard of it.
What a dark horse you are, Benifett." And she abused him roundly in that absurd mimicry of the dialect of the slums which was habitual with her.
Muriel looked vacant. Her thoughts were racing ahead. Here was the desired accomplice, married to a rich fool who was evidently on the best of terms with her father. They had a private steamer on the Nile. Could anything be better, more secluded, more romantic? All she had to do was to find her Romeo.
CHAPTER IX-ON THE NILE
Muriel was not slow to spy out the possibilities of her friend"s steamer. Her father, she soon discovered, was glad enough that she should make herself agreeable to the Bindanes; for, as he explained to her at some length, Mr. Bindane was at that time engaged in raising an enormous sum of money for agricultural investment in the western oases of Egypt, and it was of great importance that the luxurious river-steamer and the Residency should be on intimate terms.
For years Lord Blair and his predecessors had endeavoured in vain to interest the financial world in the mineral products and rich soil of the chain of oases which spreads across the desert between Egypt and Tripoli. But n.o.body, least of all the Government, would yet trust their money in an outlying territory so recently explored and opened up. Then Benifett Bindane had wandered into the Foreign Office, when Lord Blair was on leave in England, and had remarked laconically that he would raise the necessary millions.
At first he had hardly been taken seriously, for he looked such a fool.
Later it was thought that because he looked such a fool it might be worth while to help him to part with his money; and finally it was discovered that he was not such a fool as he looked. The money he proposed to find was to be mostly other people"s, those other people being likely to be persuaded by the fact that the money would appear to be mostly his own. He had promised to send somebody out to Egypt to investigate, and now, quietly and without any apparent pretext other than that of his honeymoon, he had come himself.
Three or four days after the Bindanes" arrival a thirty hours" excursion up the river was planned, the party consisting of the bridal couple, Lady Muriel, Lady Smith-Evered, Rupert Helsingham, and Professor Hyley, the Egyptologist. The Pyramid of Meidum, some fifty miles upstream from Cairo, was the objective; and it was proposed to start at noon, to moor for the night near the village of Meidum, to ride over to the ruins on the following morning, and to make the return journey to Cairo during the afternoon and evening.
Muriel boarded the steamer when the time came with keen interest hidden under a casual exterior. For her it was to be a sort of trial run: she was going to study the romantic possibilities of the Nile. If the trip provided opportunities for Rupert Helsingham to make love to her, in which direction his recent actions had begun to point, she would try to arrange further excursions, perhaps with him, perhaps in other company.
The professor was a neat and natty little man, with prominent teeth and wistful eyes, a eunuch"s voice and pretty manners; and an hour had not pa.s.sed before it was apparent that the General"s lady had taken him to her bosom. He examined an antique scarab ring upon her finger, and told her to what dynasty it was to be dated; he showed her a somewhat similar ring upon his own finger, and said it was not so good nor so old a specimen as hers; he remarked what a fine old English soldier the General was, and he sighed to think how few were left of that breed; he poked delicate and kindly fun at the younger hostesses of Cairo, and compared their social efforts with those of the elder generation, so admirably represented by the lady to whom he was speaking. Lady Smith-Evered thought him a dear little man, a designation the first two words of which were certainly applicable.
"They just love each other, don"t they!" Rupert whispered to Muriel.
"Yes," she replied. "I think that disposes of my chaperone."
She made the remark with evident satisfaction, and Rupert glanced quickly at her. His heart was beating fast.
"You seem glad," he said.
Muriel shrugged her shoulders.
The afternoon was hot, and as the party lounged on deck the glare of the sunlight upon the mirror of the water was dazzling. Mr. Bindane put on a pair of blue spectacles, and presently gave vent to a series of hay-feverish sneezes.
"Good G.o.d!" exclaimed his wife. "Look at what I"ve married!" She seized his unresisting arm.
"Come, Benifett, let"s go and lie down in the cabin."
"A good idea," said Lady Smith-Evered, thankfully following her hostess below. "I shall go to my cabin too."
"I think forty winks for me, also," the Professor presently remarked, feeling himself to be _de trop_.
"Are you going to have a siesta?" asked Rupert, looking at Muriel with fervour in his eyes.
"Not unless I fall off to sleep in this comfy chair," she answered. "In that case, you must promise to wake me if my mouth drops open. Pull up your chair close to mine, and tell me the story of your life."
Rupert stood up, and, taking off his coat, rolled back his shirt-sleeves, revealing a pair of well-made blue-veined arms. The leather belt which held up his white flannel trousers was pulled in tightly, and Muriel did not fail to admire the slimness of his waist as he settled himself in the long deck-chair at her side.
They were screened from the sun by an Arabic awning of many colours, and their eyes looked out across the oily surface of the water to the luxuriant river bank which seemed to pa.s.s before them like an unfolding picture, now revealing the open fields, now a village basking in the sunlight, now groups of palms and cedars in the deep shadows of which the peasants rested with their flocks, and now a native villa with mysterious latticed shutters and silent walled gardens. Every hundred yards or so there was a _sakieh_, by which the water was raised from the river into the irrigation channels; and as each came into sight the creaking of the great wooden cogwheel, and the song of the half-naked boy who drove his patient ox round and round, drifted to their ears, drowsily and with plaintive monotony.
Neither Muriel nor Rupert talked much, but their sleepy proximity engendered a quiet sympathy between them more potent than any words. Her hands lay idly in her lap; and presently, with a lazy movement, he extended his arm and let it fall across hers, so that his hand rested upon her hand. She turned slightly and smiled at him, but she did not move. Their two heads, each upon its cushion, drooped closer together.
Muriel"s eyes closed, and, with a sense of gentle happiness pervading her mind, she fell asleep.
When she woke up, a quarter of an hour later, she knew that Rupert had just kissed her: she still felt the touch of his lips. She did not resent it; it was not unexpected. But somehow she felt that she was no longer carrying out an experiment. The handsome young man beside her, after these few weeks of probation, had managed, somehow, to step into the sanctuary of her heart, and had seated himself audaciously upon the throne which had stood vacant these many months.
She sat up in her chair and pa.s.sed her hands across her eyes. Then she turned, and, with a smile upon her lips, looked steadily at her companion.
"You kissed me," she said. She spoke in a tone almost of awe.