It Happened in Egypt | Page 6

blowing up of the World-Republican Building in Washington, and the wrecking of Senator Marlowe's special train after his speech against socialist interests, but the coward turned informer against his friends and associates in the secret society of which he had been a leader, and saved himself by sending them to prison. From that day until his death he lived the life of a hunted animal flying from the hounds of vengeance. Brigit stood by him in spite of threats against her life as well as his, and the life of the child. Since then, though she answered none of our letters, we had heard rumours. The girl Esm��, whom the avengers had threatened to kidnap, was supposed to be hidden in some convent-school in Europe. As for Brigit, she was said to be training for a hospital nurse: reported to have become a missionary in India, China, and one or two other countries; seen on the music-hall stage, and traced to Johannesburg, where she had married a diamond-merchant; yet here she was on board the Laconia, unchanged in looks, or nature, and the guest of a much paragraphed, much proposed to American heiress en route to Egypt.
While Brigit was telling me the real story of her last two years, as governess, companion, teacher of music, and journalist, Miss Gilder regarded us sidewise from amid her bodyguard of young men. Evidently she was dying to know who was the acquaintance her darling Biddy had picked up in mid-Mediterranean the moment her back was turned; and at last, unable to restrain herself longer, she made use of some magic trick to attach the band of youths to her aunt. Then, separating herself with almost indecent haste from the group, she marched up to us, gazing--I might say, staring--with large unfriendly eyes at the intruder.
Brigit promptly accounted for me, however, rolling her "r's" patriotically because I reminded her of Ireland. "Do let me introduce Lord Ernest Borrow," she said. "I must have told you about him in my stories, when you were a child, for he was me first love."
"It was the other way round," I objected. "She wouldn't look at me. I adored her."
Biddy glared a warning. Her eyes said, "Silly fellow, don't you know every girl wants to be the one and only love of a man's life?"
I had supposed that this old craze had gone out of fashion. But perhaps there are a few primitive things which will never go out of fashion with women.
Now that I had Miss Gilder's proud young face opposite mine, I saw that it wasn't quite so perfect as I'd fancied when she flashed by in her tall whiteness. Her nose, pure Greek in profile, seen in full was --well, just neat American: a straight, determined little twentieth-century nose. The full red mouth, not small, struck me as being determined also, rather than classic, despite the daintily drawn cupid's bow of the short upper lip. I realized too that the long-lashed, wide-open, and wide-apart eyes were of the usual bluish-gray possessed by half the girls one knows. And as for the thick wavy hair pushed crisply forward by the white hood, now it was out of the sun's glamour, there was more brown than gold in it. I said to myself, that the face with the firm cleft chin was only just pretty enough to give a great heiress or a youthful princess the reputation of a beauty; a combination desired and generally produced by journalists. Then, as I was thinking this, while Brigit explained me, Miss Gilder suddenly smiled. I was dazzled. No wonder Biddy loved her. It would be a wonder if I didn't love her myself before I knew what was happening.
And so I should instantly have done, perhaps, if it hadn't been for Biddy's eyes seeming to come between mine and Miss Gilder's: and the fact that at the moment I was in quest of another treasure than a woman's heart. My thoughts were running ahead of the ship to Alexandria, to find out from Anthony Fenton ("Antoun Effendi" the biggest boys used to nickname him at school) more about the true history of that treasure than he dared trust to paper and ink and the post office.
So I put off falling in love with Rosamond Gilder till I should have seen Anthony, and tidied up my distracted mind. A little later would do, I told myself, because (owing to the fact that my ancestral castle had figured in Biddy's tales of long ago) I was annexed as one of the prot��g��s; allowed to make a fifth at the small, flowery table under a desirable porthole in the green and white restaurant; also I was invited to go about with the ladies and show them Cairo. Just how much "going about,"