THEFRIJVGB OF 
 
 yn^aWi 
 
 ^ JsroVBL BY 
 
 is \*
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIYERGITV GF CALIFORNIA 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 THE 
 
 FRINGE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE 
 
 DESERT
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 SEED OF FIRE 
 SPINNERS IN SILENCE 
 ETC., ETC.
 
 THE FRINGE OF 
 THE " DESERT 
 
 A 
 
 NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 RACHEL SWETE MACNAMARA 
 
 'AND THE WISE MAN SAID 'THOSE WHO LOVE 
 WITH PASSION STAND UPON THE FRINGE 
 OF THE DESERT,' AND THEY WHO HEARD 
 LAUGHED AND PASSED ON THEIR WAY" 
 
 HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED 
 ARUNDEL PLACE, HAYMARKET 
 LONDON, S.W. ^ <S MCMXIII
 
 fcOHDOM AMB NORWICH pBESS, LIMITED, LONDON ANO NORWICH
 
 TO 
 
 T. E. M. 
 
 BECAUSE SHE LIKED IT AND 
 BELIEVED IN IT, AND BECAUSE 
 OF A CERTAIN GREY NOVEMBER 
 MORNING, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 PART I 
 
 
 I. 
 
 THE MOTHER 
 " Unknown, Unkissed " . 
 
 FXGB 
 II 
 
 II. 
 
 " Reeds become Darts " . 
 
 27 
 
 III. 
 
 "No Offence Meant" . 
 
 40 
 
 IV. 
 
 On the Shocking of Oysters . 
 
 51 
 
 V. 
 
 " SuMLESs Treasures " 
 
 66 
 
 VI. 
 
 Beginnings and Endings 
 
 76 
 
 VII. 
 
 May Dew .... 
 
 87 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Tennis Party . 
 
 99 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Cage of Dreams 
 
 113 
 
 X. 
 
 Wild Fruit 
 
 121 
 
 XI. 
 
 Ghosts 
 
 137 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 PART II 
 THE FATHER 
 
 The Wishing Cap 
 
 The Keyhole of Egypt . 
 
 The Past can never Die 
 
 The Nile-Song from Afar 
 
 Life's Wheel . 
 
 The Lucky Day 
 
 151 
 163 
 177 
 189 
 200 
 
 211
 
 VUl 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 fAcn 
 
 VII. "To-day is Sweet". . . .228 
 
 VIII. Belhasard 240 
 
 IX. Drifting 249 
 
 X. Temples 260 
 
 XI. Ivors Finds the Love-Colour. . 276 
 
 XII. " He who is not a Fool sometimes is 
 
 A Fool always " . . . 292 
 
 XIII. The Toll 299 
 
 PART III 
 
 THE LOVERS 
 
 I. " There is no Armour against Fate ' 
 
 II. " Where is your To-morrow ? " 
 
 III. The Fringe of the Desert 
 
 IV. The Magic Circle 
 V. Geziret-el-Saada 
 
 VI. The Golden Ball 
 
 VII. A Voice Crying in 
 
 VIII. To-morrow 
 
 IX. Many Waters . 
 
 X. Another Aspect of 
 
 XI. The Solution . 
 
 XIL Love Triumphant 
 
 the Wilderness 
 
 the Problem 
 
 309 
 
 318 
 
 327 
 
 337 
 
 347 
 360 
 
 370 
 386 
 
 397 
 407 
 
 419 
 
 428
 
 PART 1 
 THE MOTHER
 
 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " UNKNOWN, UNKISSED " 
 
 HILDRED IVORS leaned back against the 
 cushion of the railway carriage, and 
 looked through the window with unseeing 
 eyes. 
 In vain for her Spring ht the green fires of April 
 in hedge and woodland, or woke the orchards to a 
 blush of rose half-hidden in the virginal veil of pear 
 or cherry-bloom : in vain the shepherd wind drove 
 flocks of cloud-sheep across a field of blue as vivid in 
 colour as the grass of the daisied meadows beneath, 
 where here and there some ancient smock-frocked 
 Lubin guarded woolly mothers and frolicsome lambs, 
 whose caprices brought a faint echo of the footsteps 
 of long ago Aprils dancing through the cobwebbed corri- 
 dors of his memory — an echo which evoked a vision 
 of a curly head, perhaps, or a plump pink cheek, the 
 flash of an eye or the roundness of a trim waist, to be 
 dismissed with a shake of a grizzled head and a " Dust 
 to dust ! " — together with an entire forgetfulness of 
 the fact that out of the dust of dead yesterdays are 
 born the young Aprils of to-day. 
 
 II
 
 12 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 In vain Spring tried to show the girl how she had 
 come to the towns ; how she had touched the murky 
 trees and wakened the dingy back-gardens to a burgeon- 
 ing of yellow, and purple, and white ; how here the 
 wind played the piper as he set the quaint shapes on 
 the clothes-hnes dancing with a careless abandon which 
 was only restrained from full flight by the capturing 
 clothes-pins ; how he hummed and sang among the 
 telegraph wires which rose and fell by the side of 
 the rushing train, burnished as gossamer threads in the 
 sunshine. The swaying and interlacing of the glistening 
 wires caught and held Hildred's attention, for an 
 instant vaguely piercing through the cloud of thought 
 which enwrapped her, but only for an instant. Nature, 
 Spring, the sweet influences of her own youth were 
 swept aside by the obsession of her thoughts, of her 
 new responsibihties, of her recently acquired know- 
 ledge. 
 
 She had, of course, always known that her parents 
 did not live together. It was an accepted fact of her 
 childhood, unquestioned if occasionally wondered at. 
 
 Her father, Ingram Ivors, the celebrated painter of 
 Eastern life, whose subtle harmonious pictures were 
 always boldly signed " Ego ! " wintered in Egypt and 
 summered in various blue and sunfiUed places, as his 
 chest was delicate. The dry air of the East, so she 
 had been led to believe, did not suit her mother, who 
 had a cottage at Burnaby ; and the responsibihties 
 of parenthood apparently agreed with neither. 
 
 Money, the great non-essential, had not been 
 lacking ; Hildred had never known material want. 
 Affection, too, had warmed her young life, for the two
 
 "UNKNOWN, UNKISSED" 13 
 
 elderly cousins with whom she had lived since she was 
 five years old, had done their best to fill the pitiful 
 gaps of which the child was unaware. The Misses 
 Dering, mutual cousins of her father and mother, while 
 disapproving of the conduct of the Ivors, had tried, 
 in their gentle conventional way, to create in Hil- 
 dred's mind an atmosphere of tenderness through 
 which their figures should loom mellow and devoid of 
 disfiguring angles ; but unless such an atmosphere be 
 sun-illumined it is prone to thicken into fog. The fog 
 had always obscured her mother, save for a stilted 
 letter at Christmas-time in which a cheque was the 
 medium of remembrance between her and hers sincerely 
 — H. D. Ivors. The slip of paper crackled aggressively 
 in Hildred's ears : it whispered of an irksome duty 
 well fulfilled if only the amount despatched were 
 sufficiently large. 
 
 There had been a lifting once which had revealed her 
 father, a figure of some personal charm, who had taken 
 her to the Zoo and the National Gallery, feasted her 
 on chocolates and ice-cream, lavished expensive trifles 
 on her, and parted from her with an ill-concealed air 
 of relief. 
 
 " My mother sends me cheques which hiss at me, 
 and my father gives me money which clinks like a bite," 
 thought the child Hildred. " What did I ever do to 
 make them dislike me so much ? " 
 
 She had asked Cousin Antoinette the question, but 
 Miss Dering had the old-fashioned belief that what is 
 ignored is invisible, and therefore by a circuitous 
 process of reasoning becomes non-existent : besides 
 she was loyal to those who had reposed the trust of
 
 14 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 the child in her, so she made some vaguely non- 
 committal answer. 
 
 " I suppose it is because I was born at all," Hildred 
 had pursued, unsatisfied. " I suppose some people 
 don't like children to be born." 
 
 " Hildred, it is God who sends the children," said 
 Miss Antoinette. 
 
 " I wonder why on earth He sent me," returned 
 Hildred, and had to learn a very long collect for 
 irreverence. 
 
 The fog closed round her father again ; Hildred 
 felt that it would have lifted occasionally if she had 
 been beautiful or even pretty. She came to this 
 conclusion without rancour, accepting it rather as a 
 natural fact than a tangible source of grievance, for 
 young as she had been at their meeting, she reahsed 
 that in her father's eyes the supreme duty of woman 
 was to be beautiful : his other requirements of the sex, 
 as a sex, she had yet to discover. 
 
 The Misses Bering carefully superintended her 
 education ; morally, mentally, and physically her 
 development had progressed as far as their hmitations 
 allowed. She had had a year in Germany, a year in 
 Italy, and a year in France, and she had returned to her 
 cousins' house in Essex, prepared to settle down, for a 
 summer at least, to the ordinary holiday life of the 
 ordinary English girl. For the winter she had the 
 germ of plans which were yet to mature. 
 
 And lo ! on her twentieth birthday a bombshell ! 
 Her placid, delightfully-ordered existence was over, 
 and she came into contact with hitherto hidden 
 principalities and powers.
 
 "UNKNOWN, UNKISSED" 15 
 
 The bombshell took the innocent, if unexpected, form 
 of a letter from her mother. It was undated, as it 
 had been enclosed in one sent to Miss Bering the 
 previous Christmas, with a request that she would 
 give it to Hildred on her twentieth birthday — •" which is 
 some time in April, I believe." Strange irony that the 
 Festival of the Christ Child, the season of peace and 
 goodwill, should be the only date on which Mrs. Ivors 
 remembered the existence of her own rejected off- 
 spring ! The letter ran — 
 
 " Whitecot, Burnaby. 
 " Dear Hildred, 
 
 " Your father and I, though we differed on 
 many points, agreed on one thing, the subject of your 
 education. You have had every chance of develop- 
 ment ; you have seen a good deal of the world, and 
 you ought by this time to be fitted to have the ordering 
 
 of your own hfe. We " (the conjunction seemed 
 
 incredible to Hildred), " have made no claims upon 
 you hitherto, but we decided years ago that when you 
 attained the age of twenty you were to divide between 
 us the last year of your dependent life. You will, 
 therefore, come to me for six months as soon as you 
 conveniently can. In the autumn you are to go to 
 your father for six months, at the end of which period 
 you will be free to choose for yourself. You will be 
 at hberty to live with either of us, if you wish, or to 
 follow some individual career of your own choosing. 
 An adequate provision will be made for you in either 
 case. 
 " Let me know what day and hour you mU arrive.
 
 i6 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 There is a good train which reaches Bumaby at about 
 five. Don't forget to change at Ledwych. 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 " H. D. Ivors." 
 
 Phrases from this curious letter set themselves to 
 the recurrent beat of the wheel-music, as the train bore 
 Hildred to her destination. The days since its arrival 
 seemed dreamlike, unreal. Her known world had 
 tumbled in chaos about her : what strange Phoenix 
 was to rise from the ashes of her dreams ? 
 
 There was no possibihty of appeal ; she had not been 
 asked, she had been ordered to go. It was not as if 
 the reproachful ghosts of the unclaimed years had 
 stirred remorse or regret in either parent. No, there 
 was no savour of sweetness in this command. It was 
 the result of long laid-aside concurrence : Fate had 
 had her in a net throughout these happy careless- 
 seeming years — a vast invisible net, of which she 
 suddenly felt the mesh, 
 
 A dull resentment burned in the girl's heart as she 
 looked at the flying landscape with unseeing eyes. 
 What did she owe of the duty and affection inculcated 
 by Cousin Antoinette to either parent ? 
 
 " We decided "— " You will therefore come "— " We 
 decided " — " You will therefore come," The puppet 
 words beat again and again upon her brain. They 
 pulled the strings, first her mother and then her father, 
 and she must dance as they wished, WeU, they should 
 see what sort of a tune she would dance to ! She set 
 her lips in a hard line : then her mood melted a little. 
 After all, nothing had been asked of her. If they had
 
 "UNKNOWN, UNKISSED" 17 
 
 not given throughout these past years, which now 
 loomed magical through a glow of rose, neither had 
 they demanded anything. It should not be too difficult 
 to be a polite and considerate guest for a time in the 
 house of this stranger-woman, supposing that both 
 ignored reahties and claimed no more or no less than 
 mutual courtesy. 
 
 She had that happy faculty, which belongs but to 
 youth and the grasshopper-natured, of living absolutely 
 in the present and curtaining the doors of the future 
 so that neither sight nor sound could penetrate to 
 disturb. 
 
 As for her father, his — " She has not even a feature I " 
 still rang in her ears with so loud a clangour as to drown 
 any memory of his subsequent charm. He still was 
 behind the curtain. So be it. 
 
 Yet there were undeniable charms in the face, which 
 at its fledgling worst " had not even a feature." There 
 was much to attract in the steadfast look of the thickly- 
 lashed grey eyes, in the soft fair hair, in the clear pure 
 skin. If the nose were blunt rather than Grecian it 
 was not ill formed, and if the mouth were not curved 
 enough for beauty no meannesses lurked in its firm 
 lines. Hildred's face was square rather than oval, and 
 the contour of the cheek and chin showed sense and 
 determination. If a compensating softness lay in her 
 eyes the fringe of brown lashes made the discovery 
 difficult. Long ago she had learnt to keep her fancies 
 and feelings to herself : an unchildlike reticence had 
 been superimposed upon a frank and fearless nature, 
 and the years, in thus disciplining her, had taught her 
 self-reliance also. Hildred's eyes and lips kept her 
 B :
 
 i8 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 vague girl-secrets well. The Misses Bering never 
 guessed at the insurgent soul behind the barrier of calm 
 words and ways. 
 
 They considered dear Hildred placid and reliable, 
 adaptable and affectionate, one to be led by the lightest 
 whisper of those in authority — a classification to which 
 Hildred's firm lips and somewhat obstinate chin gave 
 an emphatic denial. 
 
 She thought over the phrasing of her mother's letter 
 as she leaned her head back against the fawn-coloured 
 cushions : the unsoftened bluntness, the terse com- 
 mand, the clear decision of every word. Immutable as 
 Fate, drained of the faintest essence of personal desire 
 or emotion, it seemed to Hildred that the only individual 
 note in the whole letter was struck by the three business- 
 like sentences at its end. The curt directions as to 
 train-times and changes premised at least a human 
 being, not an aloof spinner of the threads of destiny. 
 
 The train whistled, slackened, stopped at Ledwych 
 Junction. 
 
 Hildred rose with reluctance, her supposed freedom 
 shackled by another link in the unseen chain. 
 
 The train for Burnaby stood waiting at a distant 
 platform, puffing with a fussy importance, though ten 
 minutes should elapse before its departure. Hildred 
 chose an empty carriage and her favoured corner, 
 opened a magazine and glanced at its pages : then let 
 it fall listlessly upon her lap, her thoughts too busy 
 with the tide of her own affairs to take even a passing 
 interest in any romance of fiction. 
 
 Presently she looked at her watch to see how much 
 sohtude yet remained to her.
 
 "UNKNOWN, UNKISSED" 19 
 
 " The train is due to start," she thought. " Evi- 
 dently they are not particular as to time on these small 
 branch hnes. I have half an hour left still, thank 
 goodness." 
 
 At the moment there was a bustle on the platform, 
 a stirring of the waters of peace which had engulfed 
 the station with the departure of the London Express ; 
 and to Hildred's annoyance two people were ushered 
 into her compartment by an officious porter. At 
 least she now considered him officious, although in his 
 attendance on her she had thought him both civil and 
 obliging. So much for the point of view. 
 
 She glanced at the newcomers with some interest. 
 Her years in foreign countries had cured her of the 
 average English person's detestation of the society 
 of his unknown fellow-beings either at home or abroad. 
 Her present resentment at the invasion of her solitude 
 was more for the occasion than the event. As people 
 they interested her : as intruders she could have dis- 
 pensed with them. 
 
 " Unmistakably ' county,' " was her rapid mental 
 summing-up. " No one but an EngHsh county lady 
 would dare to wear those boots and those rough tweeds 
 on a day like this. There is the courage of centuries 
 behind that hairdressing, too — that calm conviction of 
 being of the salt of the earth which makes one rise 
 superior to such follies as fashion. The man is evi- 
 dently her husband. His clothes and air spell turnips. 
 Probably he never reads anything but the Times and 
 a sporting paper. Yet they look nice somehow, and 
 wholesome and open-air. I wonder if my mother is 
 anything like that."
 
 20 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 She had never even seen a photograph of Mrs. 
 Ivors. Early questioning had only elicited from Miss 
 Bering the facts that she had been as " straight as a 
 rush," and had had " a fresh complexion." The same 
 description could easily be applied to the woman 
 opposite, whose face had a somewhat hard, weather- 
 beaten look which added several years to her toll of 
 thirty-two. 
 
 Presently she began to talk to her husband, at first 
 in low tones, then, with a careless disregard of the 
 unknown auditor, a little louder, with a crispness of 
 enunciation which made non-hearing impossible. The 
 husband answered and laughed, in what Hildred called 
 to herself " a tur nippy way " ! The subject of their 
 conversation was somebody named " Harry," whose 
 doings they discussed with considerable freedom, 
 ignoring the possibility of Hildred's having any 
 acquaintance with the said Harry with the assured 
 contempt of the said salt for those deemed in any way 
 below it, or rather not of it. Hildred was not of it, 
 decidedly. Even a cursory glance revealed an un- 
 county-hke smartness about her hat, hair and shoes. 
 She looked " French," the lady had decided. That 
 was enough. No one whom she knew could possibly 
 be going to have a French-looking visitor. It was not 
 even the season for changing governesses, she reflected, 
 so with a complacent sense of security she continued 
 to discuss the absent Harry's peculiarities. 
 
 Hildred only caught a word or two at first. 
 
 " Harry's latest — captaining a hockey-team at 
 Mudford. Wouldn't play goal, if you please, too dull 
 — should rush into the fray if the ball came near."
 
 "UNKNOWN, UNKISSED" 21 
 
 " Ball," murmured the husband. " Anythin' in the 
 shape of a ball is in old Harry's line, except the sort 
 you dance at." He chuckled, amused at his own 
 joke. " That sort of ball isn't much in Harry's hne, 
 is it, old girl ? " 
 
 They both laughed, and with the cosmopolitan 
 detachment of one who has spent three years among 
 the capitals of Europe, and the hasty^judgment of youth, 
 Hildred decided that the average Enghsh person was 
 ready to be amused by the veriest trifle in a way which 
 showed a deplorable lack of a true sense of humour. 
 
 " Every kind of ball except the one," pursued the 
 man. " Each in its season, hockey, tennis, croquet, 
 golf, and what's the name of the thing that had such a 
 run about ten years ago ? " 
 
 " Diabolo," suggested the wife. 
 
 " Diabolo isn't a ball, you goose ! No ; what was 
 it ? Tiddley-winks — no, ping-pong. That's it." 
 
 The wife brightened. She sat up straighter in her 
 corner, and laughed again as if at some reminiscence. 
 
 " Yes. I remember the ping-pong craze. It was 
 before we were married. Harry was cracked about it 
 and ransacked the parish to get people to play. First 
 thing after breakfast and last thing at night Harry was 
 at it if a partner was to be had. I, though I wasn't 
 much good, was once commandeered. I remember the 
 mannish look of the room, the cigarettes, the tantalus 
 and siphons on the sideboard, the racquets and things 
 all about the place. I remember I felt quite embar- 
 rassed, almost as if I was in a bachelor's rooms. It 
 was very funny." 
 
 They both laughed, and Hildred wondered a Uttle.
 
 22 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 If Harry were not a bachelor, he must be either a 
 married man or a widower. What was the point of 
 the joke ? 
 
 " Poor old Harry ! " said the man. " Jack of all 
 trades and master of none. It's the same at every 
 game, so far and no farther. A bit of a failure, but a 
 good old sporting sort all the same." 
 
 The train slackened at a small wayside station, and 
 the two got out. Hildred saw them mount into a 
 four-wheeled dog-cart which awaited them on the 
 road outside, but the train moved on again before 
 their departure, as the man was making determined 
 enquiries of a rather agitated station-master. 
 
 " Some precious parcel that's missing." Hildred 
 supposed with a slight curl of her lip. The episode of 
 her travelling companions and the triviality of their 
 conversation had served to divert the current of her 
 thoughts for a time, and, as she looked at her watch 
 and consulted the Bradshaw with which Miss Bering 
 had presented her, she realised with a start that Burnaby 
 was the next station, and that her train was due to 
 arrive there in, to be precise, exactly two minutes. 
 
 She rose, put her magazine and Bradshaw back into 
 her travelling-bag, took down her coat and umbrella 
 from the rack, and waited in that painful readiness 
 which every traveller knows. In Hildred's case the 
 lagging moments were tinctured with the balm of 
 reprieve. Her hands felt cold : her heart beat in 
 absurd irregular throbs : a mist of nervousness blurred 
 the green landscape through which she was being borne 
 to her fate. 
 
 " We decided — You will therefore come." Once
 
 "UNKNOWN. UNKISSED" 23 
 
 again the wheels in their turning beat out that refrain 
 of command, in time, it seemed, to the beating of her 
 heart. The train whistled and began to slow down. 
 
 " What's the use of being nervous ? " she chid her- 
 self. " It's inevitable, and in a moment I shall know." 
 
 The train stopped. With an effort the girl looked out 
 of the window. With the exception of a few rustics 
 the only person visible was a spare, dark-clad form at 
 the far end of the platform. 
 
 Hildred got out and gave her bag to a porter. " Yes, 
 there are two trunks in the van and a hat-box," she 
 said. " Is there any one to meet me ? I am Miss 
 Ivors." 
 
 " Here's Mrs. Ivors, miss," answered the porter. 
 " Am I to fetch your boxes up to Whitecot presently ? " 
 
 " Wait a moment." 
 
 Hildred turned to meet her mother, who had come 
 near during the interlude. 
 
 " You are Hildred, I suppose ? " said Mrs. Ivors, 
 holding out her hand. " How do you do ? " 
 
 " Yes, I am Hildred," replied the girl, taking it. 
 " I am very well, thank you." 
 
 The same grey eyes, clear as rain, looked at each 
 other from the opposing faces. It was a moment which 
 should have been compact of emotion, the meeting of 
 unknown mother with unknown daughter, but the 
 air was charged with an electricity of conflict rather 
 than communion, and there was a flash, as of steel, 
 from glance to glance. 
 
 " Straight as a rush " — and as spare. Yes, that 
 description still applied. The fresh complexion had 
 become fixed in a dull red mesh, and the colourless
 
 24 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 hair, once a soft brown, was cropped close aa a man's, 
 and surmounted by a man's straw hat with a black 
 ribbon band. Mrs. Ivors was dressed in a dark grey 
 coat and skirt, severely cut, a white shirt with a stiff 
 collar fastened by a small black bow, which was pinned 
 crooked, and black brogued shoes. 
 
 " I've told Johnny to bring up your boxes presently," 
 she said. " We'll walk up to Whitecot. It's only a 
 stone's throw. I hope you are a good walker." 
 
 She spoke with the air of one to whom social ameni- 
 ties came with difficulty, as she flashed a quick glance 
 at Hildred's shoes. 
 
 The girl caught the glance, apprehending disparage- 
 ment. 
 
 " I can do eight or ten miles a day," she returned, 
 " and I have two pairs of strong boots in my 
 box." 
 
 " Are you a golfer, by any chance ? " asked Mrs. 
 Ivors, with a glimmer of interest. 
 
 " No, I have never even seen it played." 
 
 " Ah. There are good links not far from Burnaby." 
 
 " Perhaps I could learn." 
 
 "It is always ' perhaps ' as regards golf," said Mrs. 
 Ivors, dubiously. " Even I, enthusiastic as I am, find 
 it as disheartening as it is fascinating. Do you mind 
 coming along this lane ? It is a short cut to White- 
 cot, and I don't want to go through the village." 
 
 " I love short cuts," answered Hildred, feehng for the 
 first time a faint spark of sympathy with her mother. 
 She could well understand why she did not wish to go 
 through the village with a hitherto unheard-of daughter 
 in her train.
 
 "UNKNOWN, UNKISSED" 25 
 
 As they turned into the lane Mrs. Ivors pulled off 
 her coat, and Hildred noticed that the stud had fallen 
 out of the back of her collar, leaving a line of tanned 
 neck exposed ; also that the end of the safety-pin which 
 connected skirt and shirt protruded from beneath her 
 black leather belt. It was a white safety-pin, too. 
 
 Conversation languished. There seemed nothing 
 to say. The round world seemed suddenly empty 
 of anything that could provoke remark. In silence 
 they came to a gate, which Mrs. Ivors opened. 
 
 " Here we are," she said, with a sigh of unmistakable 
 relief. 
 
 They entered an untidy place, shaggy of grass and 
 overgrown of shrub, divided by a path once gravelled, 
 but now beaten bare down the centre while the gravel 
 lay in ridges on either side. Whitecot itself loomed 
 in front of them, as coldly white-washed, as repellently 
 bare as any wind-swept coastguard station. 
 
 The hall door stood open. There was no sign of life 
 about the place. Hildred, sensitive to impressions, 
 felt as if this was unusual. The round patches on the 
 grass and near the shrubs looked as if animals habitually 
 rested there, but otherwise there was no hint of their 
 presence. 
 
 " I told Katharine to lock up the dogs," said Mrs. 
 Ivors, oddly answering her thoughts. " Oh, no, 
 not on account of you, but because of Johnny the por- 
 ter. They hate him and he is terrified of them. I 
 am always afraid that they'll bite him." 
 
 " And that you'll be obliged to have them destroyed." 
 
 Mrs. Ivors nodded. " If they bit Johnny it would 
 disagree with them in some way or other." She
 
 26 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 opened a door leading off the hall. " WiU you go in 
 there for a minute, please, while I just look in at the 
 dogs to see that they're all right ? " 
 
 She was gone before Hildred could answer. The 
 girl stopped on the threshold, and looked about the 
 room with a sense of surprise. It seemed oddly famiUar 
 and yet it was quite unlike any room she had ever 
 seen, with its plain bare furniture, its shabby leather- 
 covered armchairs, a pair of rusty foils on the waU, a 
 case of golf-clubs, so brilliantly polished that like 
 Blake's tiger they seemed " burning bright," a dusty 
 tennis racquet in a press, a rubber-handled croquet 
 mallet of peculiar shape, cigarette-boxes on the table, 
 an ash-tray or two, newly-painted golf-balls drying 
 on the window-ledge, a tantalus and soda-water 
 siphons on the sideboard. Where had she seen it all 
 before ? Where read of it ? Where heard of it ? 
 Swift on the thought flashed the clue, and she remem- 
 bered the lady in the train. 
 
 This was the room she had laughingly sketched for 
 her husband, and her mother — yes, her mother — must 
 be the Harry at whom they had mocked. 
 
 H. D. Ivors. Harriet Dering Ivors — Harry. The 
 transition was absurdly easy. Hildred's face burned 
 suddenly, but her lips trembled.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 " REEDS BECOME DARTS " 
 
 HILDRED stood still for a moment, a riot of 
 sensations linked about her preventing 
 motion. A chasm seemed to separate her 
 from the ordered security, the eventless 
 calm of the past. What had she, with her studies of 
 the culture of larger Europe, her cosmopolitan expe- 
 riences, to do with this futile devotee of bat and ball ? 
 If she had led the life of the average English hockey- 
 playing girl, she thought bitterly, she would have had 
 more in common with her mother. She was tired and 
 pricked with disappointment. The reahty differed 
 sharply even from her vaguest expectations. 
 
 She looked again at the dusty tennis-racquet, the 
 gleaming golf-clubs, and the sight unchained her. 
 She moved towards the empty fireplace and sank down 
 into one of the shabby chairs. The leather was rubbed 
 into holes in places, through which sprouted tufts of 
 black horsehair ; the spring of the seat was broken 
 and sank into a canvas bag underneath, but the chair 
 was comfortable and adapted itself consoHngly to the 
 human frame in a lounging posture, a condition of 
 things more often to be noted in the chair of a man 
 than of a woman. An ashtray stood on a carved stool 
 beside it, and an instant vision of feet on the chimney- 
 
 27
 
 28 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 piece seen through a haze of cigarette-smoke flashed 
 vividly across Hildred's mind. 
 
 The door swung ajar behind her. Through it the 
 evening air struck a httle chill. Hildred would have 
 been glad of a fire — the flame that so often warms 
 mentally as well as physically. 
 
 From the hall outside came the introductory sound 
 of heavy footsteps and murmuring voices, leading up 
 to a fugue of bumps and thumps, which was chorused 
 by the faint far barking of dogs. 
 
 "My trunks," thought the girl. "Evidently the 
 dogs hear, and hunger for the blood of Johnny, the 
 porter. I suppose some one is with him, and that I 
 needn't worry about the things." 
 
 Some one was with him. In a moment a woman 
 stalked into the room — a veritable Grenadier in petti- 
 coats, raw-boned, and weather-beaten — and demanded 
 a shilUng. 
 
 " For what ? " asked Hildred. 
 
 " For Johnny the porter, miss. He's just brought 
 up your boxes, the whole lot of them." Her tone 
 suggested a waggon-load, rather than the three which 
 Hildred considered quite a modest allowance. 
 
 " Is a shilling enough ? " she enquired. 
 
 " 'Tis what he asked, miss. Pay him no more." 
 she took the shilling and strode out of the room, the 
 strings of her cap fluttering absurdly as she went. 
 
 A butterfly on a block of granite had more congruity 
 and less contrast in its placing than that ridiculous 
 white bow on Katherine Saunders' head. It was a 
 concession to convention demanded by herself, and 
 she was fortunately unaware of its ludicrous effect.
 
 " REEDS BECOME DARTS " 29 
 
 Tired and depressed as she was Hildred could not 
 help smihng when Katherine came in again, this time 
 bearing a tea-tray with a cup and saucer, a dumpy 
 brown tea-pot and some slices of bread and butter on 
 a plate patterned with rose-buds. 
 
 The smile woke a flicker in Katherine's gaunt face 
 as she removed the ash-tray and set the other on the 
 stool beside the girl. 
 
 " There ! You'll want your tea. My duty to you, 
 miss. I suppose you don't remember Katherine." 
 
 The tone was dry, drained of expectation or emotion, 
 yet Hildred found herself wishing that she could rake 
 up some lost memory from the forgotten past to which 
 Katherine evidently belonged. 
 
 " I'm afraid I don't. I was very little when " 
 
 she stopped abruptly and flushed. " Were you my 
 nurse long ago ? " 
 
 " No, miss. I was your grandmamma's housemaid. 
 When she died I came to live with your mamma. 
 This is the little plate you used to have when you came 
 to Hurst, miss. ' Baby 'osy p'ate,' you used to 
 caU it." 
 
 The sound of baby words from those thin lips had no 
 incongruity for Hildred. Here was some one who 
 remembered, who perhaps had loved her in her lost 
 childhood. A rush of tears flooded her eyes. She 
 shut the thick fringe of her lashes upon them, but one 
 or two clear drops forced their way through, trembling 
 before they fell silently, and rolled, uncommented 
 upon, down her cheeks. When she opened her eyes 
 Katherine had poured her out a cup of tea with blobs 
 of cream on the top.
 
 30 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " I didn't put in any sugar. Some people don't 
 like it." 
 
 " I like a little," Hildred answered. " What 
 delicious tea ! I never tasted anything so good, I 
 believe it's because 'twas made in a brown teapot. It 
 never tastes so nice out of any other kind." 
 
 "Now eat up that bread and butter, every bit of 
 it," commanded Katharine, " or I'll cut you a slice 
 less next time. You should have had the silver tea- 
 pot only 3^our mamma could not remember where she 
 had put the key of the plate-chest." 
 
 " I'd much rather have the brown one, I'm sure 
 it was out of a brown teapot Mother Elder came." 
 Hildred spoke simply and naturally as to an old friend, 
 not realising any oddity in the situation. 
 
 Katharine stood beside her, looking down at her 
 with a face devoid of any expression but a truculent 
 friendliness. 
 
 " There you go with your whimsies just as when 
 you were a baby child ! You'd pretend to pick the 
 roses off that plate and smell them, and give some to 
 me and say, ' one for Kat'in,' " 
 
 " Were you fond of me then, Katharine ? " 
 
 Katharine shied at emotion. " Fond ? What fond ? 
 I've no time for nonsense," she said, picking up the 
 tea-tray, " I'd better tell your mamma that Johnny 
 has gone and that she can let out them dogs. I'll put 
 a can of hot water in your room, for you'll be glad of 
 a wash after your journey, miss. Will you come with 
 me, or perhaps your mamma would hke to take you 
 up herself." 
 
 "I'll wait for her, thank you, Katherine," said
 
 "REEDS BECOME DARTS" 31 
 
 Hildred, warmed more by the first touch of humanity 
 she had encountered than by the material comfort 
 of the tea. 
 
 As Katherine marched away her cap-strings seemed 
 to the girl like the vanishing flutter of a flag of truce. 
 There was nothing really rude about her brusquerie : 
 it merely marked the uncompromising attitude towards 
 hfe of a strong personaHty. Hildred felt that she 
 had found a friend : that whatever hidden chord of 
 feehng her baby hands had touched was ready to 
 vibrate again at her need. 
 
 A distant barking and yelping was followed by what 
 seemed to the girl a veritable tornado of dogs, a cyclone 
 of leaping, barking, excited creatures of which she was 
 the centre. Yet, when the whirlwind subsided and 
 resolved itself into its panting elements she saw that 
 there were but four, a fox-terrier, an Irish terrier, a 
 retriever, and a queer mongrel, black, shaggy and 
 fierce-looking, which Mrs, Ivors had once rescued from 
 drowning, and which had been ever since her slave 
 and shadow. 
 
 " These are Nip, Pat and Como," she named them ; 
 then her eyes softened a little as she gently hit the 
 mongrel's head, " and this is Tartar, the best watch- 
 dog in the world. I saved his life and he's never for- 
 gotten it. I believe it was Johnny the porter who tried 
 to drown him, and that's why they all have a grudge 
 against him. This fellow shows every white tooth in his 
 head when he sees him, eh, don't you, you old savage ? 
 Go over and make friends with Miss Ivors," 
 
 The big beast rose and went slowly over to Hildred, 
 smelled her hand and sniffed at her skirt, and then
 
 32 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 returned to liis mistress. The other dogs had already 
 responded to her advances. Indeed, Nip, the fox- 
 terrier, had calmly curled himself up against her foot, 
 prepared for slumber. 
 
 " You've a way \vith dogs, I see," said Mrs. Ivors, in 
 her curt fashion. 
 
 " I am fond of animals." 
 
 " I distrust anyone who isn't. There must be some 
 black spot in them. Most women spoil dogs horribly. 
 I don't." 
 
 " What do you mean by spoiHng ? " 
 
 " Pampering, over-feeding, under-exercising, making 
 puppets of them and not treating them as the rational 
 beings they are. These fellows only get one meal a 
 day, with an odd bone now and again. Look at their 
 condition ! You can feel their ribs. They hav€ none 
 of the wheezy puffiness of women's dogs. They're 
 not the soft fat beasts that lie about on cushions. 
 They're as keen as mustard on sport and exercise. 
 People here borrow them for rat-hunts, but a rat-hunt 
 is a thing I bar." She flung her hat aside, as a man 
 would on entering a room, looked for matches and lit 
 a cigarette, then sat down in the chair opposite 
 Hildred. "No, I bar the taking of life," Mrs. Ivors 
 continued, drawing in the smoke with evident 
 enjoyment. " Life, such as it is, is given to every 
 created thing, and no one has any right to take 
 it wantonly." 
 
 " What about fishing ? " asked Hildred. 
 
 " That's not taking it wantonly. The fish are killed 
 to be eaten — a very different matter. * Live and let 
 live ' is one of my mottoes. Apropos of which, that's
 
 "REEDS BECOME DARTS" 33 
 
 my favourite chair 3^ou are sitting in, and I never feel 
 really comfortable in any other." 
 
 Hildred rose, flushed and uncomfortable. 
 
 " I am very sorry. I could not possibly know— — " 
 
 " No, how could you ? " said Mrs. Ivors, with a 
 sudden odd Httle chuckle. " No, don't get red and 
 offended. ' No offence meant, none taken,' is another 
 of my mottoes, and if you're not looking out for other 
 people's corns you are far less likely to tread on 'em. 
 We'll have a straight talk this evening, you and I, and 
 then we'll start fair to-morrow." 
 
 " I should like to go to my room now and unpack, 
 if you don't mind." 
 
 " Why should I mind ? Off with you. There is 
 no standing on ceremony at Whitecot, as you'll soon 
 find out." 
 
 Mrs. Ivors rose and ensconced herself in the vacated 
 chair, while Hildred, who thought she was following 
 her, moved towards the door. On the threshold she 
 turned to see her fleeting vision crystallised into reality. 
 Through a blue haze of cigarette-smoke she saw her 
 mother reclining in the depths of the chair, her feet, 
 if not exactly on the chimney-piece, resting on the top 
 ledge of the grate, Tartar's black head against her knee, 
 her whole attitude instinct with lazy content. It was 
 a pose so contradictory to the declaration of energy 
 made by the clubs and racquets that Hildred felt for 
 the first time how much she had still to learn of her 
 own sex, dubbed by the caustic Foote " a microcosm." 
 She regretted the vague impulse which had led her to 
 refuse Katherine's offer in order to wait for her mother, 
 who was not even looking in her direction, but seemed 
 c
 
 34 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 intent upon the symmetry of the smoke-rings she was 
 blowing into the air. The aloof absorption of the pose 
 chilled the girl afresh. She had opened her lips for an 
 enquiry, but closed the gates of speech with a mental 
 clang as she turned away. 
 
 There were no architectural complexities at White- 
 cot : the hall narrowed at the stairway into a passage 
 which led directly into the kitchen, where a cheery 
 clattering and clanking premised the presence of 
 Katherine. 
 
 Hildred stood at the door and looked in. It was a 
 pleasant concentration of comfort and cleanhness, 
 with its cream walls and red hearthplace, its tiled floor 
 inviting entry, its brasses and coppers winking welcome, 
 and a canary in the sunny window trilling fioriiure with 
 a delicious ease which a Tetrazzini might have envied 
 but never hoped to equal. 
 
 Katherine was chopping spinach at the table facing 
 the door, and looked up when she saw Hildred. The 
 girl smiled instinctively, though there was no apparent 
 provocative or response in the hard gaunt face. It was 
 rather an intuitive perception of a deeply-hidden ten- 
 derness, an unconscious illogical sympathy which some 
 mysterious inexpressible radiation from Katherine 
 evoked, than any outward reahsation of attraction. 
 
 " You haven't taken off your things yet, miss," 
 Katherine asserted gruffly, with a perfect grasp of the 
 situation, " Come along up with me this minute and 
 give me your keys and I'll take out some of your traps 
 for you." 
 
 " Will that thing spoil by being left ? " asked Hildred 
 pointing to the spinach.
 
 "REEDS BECOME DARTS" 35 
 
 " That thing indeed ! It's easily seen you're not 
 country-bred to call my beautiful spinach that 
 thing ! " 
 
 " Is that spinach ? " The girl delicately touched 
 one long green leaf. " I never saw it in that stage 
 before." 
 
 " You \viU again, miss, before you're much older. I 
 grow it out in the garden beyond." 
 
 " Oh, is there a garden ? I love a garden." 
 
 " Only a kitchen-garden, miss. I grow my own 
 pot-herbs and as many vegetables as I can manage." 
 
 " Does — my mother ? " 
 
 " Bless you, no, miss. Your mamma has no head 
 for gardening, nor no hands either. As likely as not 
 she'd stick things root uppermost. I found her planting 
 some primroses upside-down once, but she said it was 
 because she wanted them to come up pink ! " 
 
 " What an extraordinary idea ? " cried the girl, who 
 thought it the conception of a lunatic. 
 
 " Folks about here say it's true, but these ones had 
 never a chance, for them dogs scratched 'em all up 
 again." 
 
 " Perhaps you'll let me help you with the garden 
 sometimes." 
 
 " Perhaps I would," returned Katherine, " but this 
 won't unpack your boxes, and I'm a busy woman." 
 
 She stalked out of the kitchen, sniffing disapprov- 
 ingly as she passed the dining-room door. Hildred felt 
 a mischievous inclination to probe for her opinions of 
 smoking, but knew that in the circumstances the 
 impulse was unseemly. Her restraint was rewarded 
 by one emphatic utterance from Katherine, addressed
 
 36 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 apparently to the top of the stairs, for she looked 
 neither to right nor to left as she mounted rigidly 
 upwards. 
 
 " I don't hold with women copying men's habits. 
 They've enough messy ways of their own without 
 picking up theirs. This is your room, miss." She 
 threw open a door on the landing. 
 
 It led into a narrow slip of a room which ran the 
 length of the house and had a window at either end, 
 one of which looked into a neat kitchen-garden, the 
 other on the untidy, overgrown front. Its walls were 
 papered in white with a trellis pattern of rose-buds, 
 and the short casement-curtains were of a soft pink 
 through which the sunshine at the western window 
 filtered in a rosy glow. There were rosebuds on the 
 bedspread, and a rose-chintz covered the basket-chair. 
 It was all fresh, fragrantly symbolic of the opening 
 rose of womanhood for whom it had been planned. 
 
 Katherine stood on the threshold and looked about 
 her with grirti pride. Hildred's quick glance scanned 
 the room from end to end. She was surprised, charmed, 
 and oddly touched. Here, surely, were mother-thought, 
 mother-care, subtly, unobtrusively expressed. She 
 drew a long breath, realising, as she saw the pretty, 
 dainty room, that she was tired, and that here in this 
 strange house was a haven, an oasis, a well-spring of 
 rest. In imagination she saw one or two of her favour- 
 ite pictures on the waU, some of her best-beloved books 
 on the Httle bow-legged table. 
 
 Katherine' s voice broke harshly upon her pleasant 
 musings. 
 
 " I suppose it's nothing like as grand as you're
 
 "REEDS BECOME DARTS" 37 
 
 accustomed to, but it's the best we can do here for 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, Katherine, it's lovely ! " cried the girl in 
 warm repentance for her abstraction. " It's perfectly 
 charming. No one could desire a prettier room." 
 
 " H'm. You took long enough to say so, miss." 
 
 " I was day-dreaming — a silly habit of mine." 
 
 " There's not much to encourage day-dreams at 
 Whitecot," Katherine returned. " Give me your 
 keys." 
 
 Hildred handed them over, and sat down in the 
 chair near the west window. Over the low garden- 
 wall she saw a green iield starred with daisies and 
 sheltered with trees just bursting into greenest film of 
 leaf. Through the thin brown branches she caught a 
 glimpse of dim blue hills, a gracious roUing outhne 
 towards which the sun was slowly sinking. The fruit- 
 trees in the httle garden beneath were breaking into a 
 mist of bloom, though the rosy buds of the gnarled 
 apple-tree beneath her had not yet unfolded their 
 incense-filled cups to the sun. On its topmost branch 
 a thrush fluted, answering one in the distant elms 
 whose roulades were thinned to the elfin silver of an 
 echo. 
 
 Hildred listened, chin on hand, while the balm of 
 evening stole softly into her heart. 
 
 " Dinner's at half-past seven," said Katherine, 
 rising from her knees. " I've taken out all you'll 
 want for the present, and if you'll leave the rest I'll 
 do them after dinner. We don't dress," she added as 
 an afterthought. 
 
 " Don't we ? Thank you very much, Katherine,
 
 38 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 but please don't bother about the rest. I am quite 
 used to looking after myself." 
 
 " So much the better," said Katherine gruffly. 
 
 She went to the washstand to put away Hildred's 
 spongebag : then she fidgetted a little with the girl's 
 silver and ivory toilet-set ; then she laid a pink 
 dressing-gown in readiness on the end of the bed, a 
 Japanese crepe with a design of storks in flight. 
 
 " You'd think you got this to match the room," she 
 said, hngering unaccountably. " It's a funny pattern 
 — all them birds." 
 
 " Yes," answered Hildi-ed softly. " I love a pink 
 and white bedroom. How did my mother know, I 
 wonder ? " 
 
 " Your mamma ? " Katherine paused on the threshold 
 in an attitude of arrested expectancy. " She takes 
 no account of them things, bless her ! " 
 
 " Who chose it all, then ? " 
 
 " Well, miss," mumbled Katherine, as embarrassed 
 at the desired question as if she had been taxed with 
 some misdemeanour, " it was myself." 
 
 " You, Katherine ? How — how very clever of you ! " 
 
 " What clever ? " sniffed Katherine. " Your mam- 
 ma give me a good cheque, and said to do the best 
 I could with it, as she knew nothing about them things. 
 So I got one of them " Hints on House-Decoration " 
 books, and a nice wall-paper recommended in " Room 
 for a Young Lady," and did the rest myself." 
 
 " What ? Not the papering and painting ? " 
 
 " Every dash of it." 
 
 " You're wonderful, Katherine." 
 
 " Oh, no, miss, there was nothing wonderful about
 
 "REEDS BECOME DARTS" 39 
 
 it. You see, my poor father was a sailor, so I was born 
 handy so to speak. Don't look too close at them little 
 curtains, for the stitches aren't as small as I'd wish." 
 " But how did you guess my taste so exactly ? " 
 Katherine fumbled with the door handle, and gave 
 a contemptuous Httle grunt. 
 
 " It's fair ridiculous the way trifles will stick in a 
 person's mind." She was half-way out of the room 
 as she spoke. 
 
 " You see, miss, I — I remembered the rosy plate." 
 She shut the door behind her with a bang.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " NO OFFENCE MEANT " 
 
 HILDRED'S mind was in a whirl as she went 
 downstairs to dinner. She had changed 
 her coat and skirt for a simple frock of 
 palest grey, whose turned-back collar of 
 lace was fastened with a knot of deep rose. A 
 ribbon to match was twisted through her soft masses 
 of hair. Her cheeks were lit by an inner excitement, 
 and her throat rose round and white above the <:obweb 
 lace. She looked, as far as external appearance went, 
 a daughter of whom any mother might well feel proud. 
 
 She had been since her arrival the pendulum of her 
 own emotions, whose alternations made her feel a 
 mental dizziness. A sensation of warmth stole about 
 her heart when she thought of the crusty Katherine, 
 and a barrier of chill aloofness loomed forbiddingly 
 when her fancy strayed towards her mother. 
 
 The sunny kitchen and the Mother Elder teapot 
 seemed to typify the one feehng, the cheerless sitting- 
 room with its smoke-obscured occupant the other. She 
 felt an unwonted nervousness as she turned the handle 
 of the door and went in, to meet with yet another 
 contradiction of expectancy. 
 
 A fire crackled invitingly in the grate : the curtains 
 were drawn : the table, sparkhng with glass and silver, 
 
 40
 
 " NO OFFENCE MEANT " 41 
 
 was lit by scarlet-shaded candles in branching candel- 
 abra. Comfort, hitherto absent from the room, now 
 radiated an invitation to enter. 
 
 Mrs. Ivors stood on the hearthrug, her back to the 
 fire, her hands clasped behind her. Her concession 
 to the social code consisted of a black brocade skirt of 
 antique cut, and a white silk shirt adorned at the neck 
 with a cream lace tie whose ends were caught together 
 with a gold brooch in a design of crossed golf-clubs. 
 No pin fastened the tie to the shirt at the neck, where 
 an angle of silk neck-band had already worked its way 
 out from beneath it ; the patent-leather belt which 
 incongruously connected bodice and skirt was much 
 tighter than the waistband of the latter, which was 
 visible all the way round. 
 
 " You look very smart," she said to Hildred, with her 
 odd httle chuckle. " Very smart and very feminine." 
 
 An obvious retort trembled upon the girl's lips, but 
 she restrained it, and answered quietly : 
 
 " I am glad you like my frock. Cousin Antoinette 
 liked it best of all my new ones." 
 
 " Oh, I didn't say I hked it. I only said it looked 
 smart." 
 
 " Well, that's what one generally aims at in dress, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 " Is it ? I'm sure I don't know. I never trouble 
 my head about such things. To be decently and 
 comfortably clothed is all that is necessary to my mind." 
 
 " Mere decency isn't enough surely," Hildred began, 
 every feminine instinct afire. 
 
 " No, it's too much for the present taste," put in 
 Mrs. Ivors, with her diy chuckle. " Here's Katherine
 
 42 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 with the soup, thank goodness. I'm as hungry as a 
 hawk." 
 
 " She sat down without waiting for Hildred, as 
 Katherine placed the silver soup-tureen on the table. 
 
 " Clear soup ? You know I don't like clear soup, 
 Katherine." 
 
 " I thought young miss might," said Katherine. 
 
 " And you want to please the visitor, eh ? You 
 ought to feel flattered, Hildred." 
 
 " We may as well try to, any way," retorted Kather- 
 ine, as she whisked a soup plate in front of Hildred. 
 
 " I like any kind of soup," began the girl, " from 
 bouillon to " 
 
 " Please talk English," Mrs. Ivors interrupted. 
 " I don't understand any language but my own, and 
 not all of that either." 
 
 " Wliat part ? " asked Hildred, interested at the 
 unexpected ending of the sentence. 
 
 " The artistic jargon and cult-of-beauty piffle," she 
 returned with a frown. " I suppose you are full of it 
 after your three years abroad." 
 
 " I enjoyed the picture-galleries, certainly," replied 
 Hildred quietly, though a flush stole over her face. The 
 words jarred the ivory doors of some inner shrine. 
 
 " No need to get red because a person's tastes don't 
 coincide with yours. How narrow people's minds 
 would become if they only talked to those who agreed 
 with every word they said ! Argument is the spice of 
 life." 
 
 " And contradiction the pepper." 
 
 Mrs. Ivors chuckled. " I like that. Yes, the more 
 the hotter of course. I believe we shall get on, after
 
 "NO OFFENCE MEANT" 43 
 
 all, if you are not too soft to creep out of your shell of 
 convention." 
 
 Katherine strode in with a dish of lamb. 
 
 " Young miss likes her room," she said, dumping it 
 in front of her mistress. 
 
 " Does she ? That's right. For myself I don't care 
 about that sort of thing. Rooms to me are places to 
 eat and sleep in when they belong to myself, to be 
 fiendishly bored in when they belong to other people. 
 Tea-parties, for instance, where you are expected to sit 
 up and wag your tail." 
 
 Hildred laughed. It was a long time since so youthful 
 a sound had echoed through that room. It was as if 
 a breath of Spring had suddenly materiahsed. 
 
 " I cannot imagine you either begging or wagging 
 your tail." 
 
 " No, can you ? Neither I nor my dogs are puppets." 
 
 " Where are the dogs, by the way ? " 
 
 " Tartar is here at my feet. The others are out 
 adventuring." 
 
 " Like the Three Musketeers," said Hildred, her face 
 lit by the spark of her fancy. 
 
 " Who are they ? " 
 
 " Oh — people in a book," returned the girl lamely. 
 " A book of Dumas' " 
 
 " Another of your foreigners, I suppose. Well, I 
 hardly ever read books. I don't beheve in 'em. 
 They say it is a bad bird that fouls its own nest, but 
 one of those writing fellows did so — chap named 
 Spencer, I think. He said that book-knowledge was 
 knowledge at second-hand. Decent people have no 
 use for second-hand goods. I don't know what else
 
 44 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 the fellow wrote, but if he wrote the greatest rot in the 
 world he also wrote one of the most sensible things a 
 man ever said. Get your knowledge, as you must get 
 your experience, at first-hand, or not at all." 
 
 " But when one has not the opportunity " 
 
 " You can always make the opportunity for what- 
 ever you want." 
 
 " But in the whole range of hterature and 
 science " 
 
 " What good do literature and science do if you 
 come across a dog with a broken leg ? " asked Mrs. 
 Ivors triumphantly. Like many people she only 
 enjoyed an argument when it marched victoriously 
 along one side of a subject, and that her own. When 
 the banners fluttered in the other direction the vaunted 
 " spice of hfe " lost its savour. 
 
 Dimly Hildred reahsed this, and determined to pursue 
 the topic no farther. 
 
 " We must compromise," she said, with determined 
 hghtness, " or else agree to differ." 
 
 " We'll agree to differ, then," returned Mrs. Ivors. 
 " I'll have nothing to do with compromises. No," 
 she added, drawing her brows together, " I've done 
 with compromise for ever." 
 
 Some memory seemed to darken her thoughts. She 
 frowned heavily as she ate the crisp lettuce-leaves 
 which stood near her in a cut-glass bowl. At last 
 she looked up and met the clear young gaze of eyes so 
 like her own that she might have been looking into a 
 mirror. 
 
 " Your name was a compromise," she said suddenly. 
 "I wanted to call you Helena after my mother;
 
 "NO OFFENCE MEANT" 45 
 
 your father wished to call you Mildred after his. He 
 said we would compromise, so you were christened 
 Hildred ! You see how much I got by the compro- 
 mise ! " She gave a hard little laugh. 
 
 Hildred was silent. The abrupt lifting of the veil 
 of the past was poignant to the point of speechlessness. 
 It was as if she were suddenly poised upon a peak of 
 judgment with an abyss yawning upon either side. 
 
 " One little letter," continued Mrs. Ivors, with a 
 concentrated bitterness. " That is about all I have 
 ever got by compromise." 
 
 Looking downwards from Hildred's peak she saw 
 that mists obscured the depths, and realised in a flash 
 that without clarity of vision there could be no just 
 perception of reality. Whether the mists were of 
 prejudice or ignorance none but those clear-sighted 
 enough to penetrate them dare presume to judge. 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Ivors. " You don't say any- 
 thing ? " 
 
 " I have nothing to say." 
 
 " It's a charity to find a modern girl who has sense 
 enough to remain silent in such a case instead of 
 rushing into speech with unconsidered drivel." 
 
 Though the words premised a vague commendation 
 Hildred could not feel sure that approval really rang 
 in her mother's tone : a vague vibration of disappoint- 
 ment seemed to sound through the rough sentences. It 
 was a rehef when Mrs. Ivors rose, and taking a handful 
 of nuts from a green dish plunged towards her favourite 
 chair. 
 
 " Have some, too," she said to the girl. " Bring 
 'em along to the fire and eat 'em here,"
 
 46 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Hildred put a few on a plate and did as she was 
 requested, first handing her mother the nutcrackers. 
 
 Mrs. Ivors indignantly waved them away. 
 
 " What do I want them for while my teeth are sound 
 and strong ? " she asked cracking a nut as she spoke. 
 
 " They won't remain so long if you continue to do 
 that." 
 
 " They'll last out my time, or as long as I want 'em 
 to." She cracked another and threw the shells into 
 the fire. 
 
 Hildred sliivered. It was a slight but irrepressible 
 movement. 
 
 Mrs. Ivors stared fixedly at her, a nut poised midway 
 between lap and mouth for a tense second : then it 
 fell upon the silk skirt \\dth a tiny dull noise. 
 
 " Good God, how like your father you are when you 
 do that ! " she whispered. 
 
 Hildred was startled. The w^ords of reminiscence 
 cut ; there was no softening balm of memory to heal 
 the wounds they made. 
 
 " When I do what ? " she asked dully, 
 
 " Shiver hke that. Heavens, that little shiver and 
 the eyebrows almost disappearing into his hair. How 
 you bring it all back ! " Mrs. Ivors stared into the fire for 
 a moment, her lips drawn into a thin hard line. Then 
 she rose, shook the nutshells into the grate, got a 
 cigarette, fit it, and put her feet upon the ledge. 
 
 " It's not your fault, child," she said at last, with 
 an evident desire to be absolutely fair. " You can't 
 help it. We'll change the subject. I'm not in the 
 humour for spirit-raising to-night." 
 
 " I must say one thing before we change the subject,"
 
 "NO OFFENCE MEANT" 47 
 
 Hildred answered. She looked very fair and young 
 in her grey gown as she leaned against the chimney- 
 piece looking down at the sleek cropped head of her 
 mother, haloed, unsaintly, by the cigarette-smoke's 
 hazy blue. 
 
 " And that is ? " Mrs. Ivors made a ring with 
 elaborate care. 
 
 " That is that it cannot be such a surprise to you to 
 find that I am like my father." Hildred's voice trembled 
 a little ; she paused for a second to steady it. " There is 
 nothing startling in the fact that a child should resemble 
 one or other of its parents, even parents whom it has 
 never seen." 
 
 " Sound, if slightly inaccurate," Mrs. Ivors returned, 
 with a careful air of detachment. " Trite, if true ; 
 but sarcasm is unbecoming to you, my dear Hildred." 
 
 " I had no intention of being sarcastic." 
 
 " No need to get red over it. Perhaps you hadn't. 
 I'm nothing if not fair. You'll find me just to deal 
 with, Hildred, if nothing more. I'm always honest, 
 I say what I mean and mean what I say. The naked 
 truth is good enough for me. I don't want trimmings 
 or fripperies." 
 
 " The naked truth may be very indecent. There is 
 perhaps a necessary garment of reticence." 
 
 " I don't know that I admit that." 
 
 " You won't leave her a rag, then ? " Hildred felt 
 again that tingle of amusement which her mother's 
 former argfument had provoked, despite the sensation 
 of hurt annoyance which pricked her. 
 
 " She oughtn't to need one." 
 
 " Then it's sheer curiosity on your part," cried
 
 48 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Hildred with spirit. "Poor Truth ! No wonder she 
 dives to the bottom of a well ! " 
 
 " You're a good sort after all ! " said Mrs. Ivors, 
 pulling the other chair near. " Sit down there and be 
 sociable. I don't care what you do or say so long as 
 you don't shiver disapproval at me. That I cannot 
 stand. By the way I forgot to ask you if you 
 smoked ? " 
 
 Hildred shook her head as she sank into the chair, a 
 well-stuffed, stiff, scarcely-used repUca of its disreput- 
 able but comfortable fellow. She felt suddenly tired 
 and lonely, with a sense of having been cut adrift in 
 the dark. 
 
 " No ? It's the one bad habit I learned from your 
 father. He taught me first, and then when I had got 
 to look upon it more as a necessity than a luxury he 
 — but I said I didn't want spirit-raising to-night, 
 didn't I ? " 
 
 She leaned forward and poked the fire so vigorously 
 that the grey ashes and embers rained through the 
 bars, leaving but a fragment of fire which fell apart in 
 disconsolate fading brightnesses. 
 
 With the poker still in her hand she bent towards 
 Hildred, spilling cigarette ashes on the rubbed brocade 
 of her skirt. " Be honest with me. That's all I ask. 
 No pretence, no embroideries. ' No offence meant, 
 none taken.' No looking out for slights, no huffiness, 
 no sarcasm. ' Give and take,' is my motto, but don't 
 do one if you're not prepared to do the other. All 
 giving is very nearly as bad as all taking." She paused 
 abruptly. " Now, wouldn't you like to go to bed ? 
 You're looking tired, though I don't approve of young
 
 " NO OFFENCE MEANT " 49 
 
 people being tired. I was never tired when I was 
 young." 
 
 " Were you ever young ? " asked Hildred quietly. 
 She knew that the question savoured of impertinence, 
 but she was filled with a numb resentment against Fate 
 in general, and beside that cold sense as of nothing 
 mattering she was faintly and mahciously desirous of 
 testing Mrs. Ivor's remarkable theories. 
 
 The dull fixed red of her mother's complexion became 
 suddenly transformed to a glow, and she looked up with 
 eyes that were lit by the quick fire of youth itself. 
 
 Hildred had an instant vision of alert vivacious 
 twenty peeping from behind the hard mask of two 
 score years and ten. 
 
 " ' No offence meant, none taken,' I hope," she quoted 
 softly, with an odd flash of sympathy, inexplicable, 
 almost undesired. 
 
 ^Irs. Ivors laughed. The glow faded : the vision 
 vanished. Sweet and Twenty was dead : slain long 
 ago by the inexorable years, her epitaph engraved in 
 ever-deepening lines by the hieroglyphic hand of Time. 
 She hesitated for a moment. 
 
 " None taken," she repeated. " Off with you, 
 Hildred. Breakfast at half-past eight. Good-night. 
 Would you like a dog to sleep with you ? " she added 
 in hospitable after-thought. 
 
 " No, thank you," the girl answered, her indecision 
 as regarded leave-taking crystallised to the omission 
 of ceremonial by her mother's curt dismissal. " Good- 
 night." 
 
 The hall-door was open : she stood there for a 
 moment di'awing in deep breaths of the cold, sweet 
 
 D
 
 50 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 night air. The sky was a vast blue darkness pricked 
 with trembhng stars, a far aloof immensity. She 
 turned away with a little shiver and mounted the stairs 
 wearily to her own room. A thread of light gleamed 
 from beneath the door, widening into a welcome glow 
 as she pushed it open and entered, to find the rosy cur- 
 tains drawn, a little lamp burning brightly and — oh, 
 feminine luxury ! — a warm hot-water bottle nestling 
 between the cool slipperiness of lavender-scented linen 
 sheets. The outer world was shut out. Here was 
 sanctuary, warmed and scented, and sacred from the 
 intrusion of anything save winged thoughts that would 
 not be debarred.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ON THE SHOCKING OF OYSTERS 
 
 HILDRED woke at dawn, lapped, forgetfully, 
 in all the soft observances of custom. 
 She turned drowsily upon the other side, 
 thinking, as far as her sleepy conscious- 
 ness permitted, that presently she would hear Cousin 
 Antoinette's cuckoo-clock send forth five or six 
 sweet hollow calls to wakefulness, that she would 
 have another delicious hour or two of drowsiness before 
 Mary brought up her early tea and prepared her bath, 
 that — Her thoughts merged towards slumber again, 
 while the outside world held its breath in the dewy 
 silence of that one still mystic moment which comes 
 before its awakening. The grey dawn crept in a tide 
 of pale Ught farther and farther up the sky, and the 
 sigh of awaking day breathed imperceptibly from 
 horizon to meadow, through dew-drenched lanes and 
 perfumed orchards, faintly stirred the curtains of 
 Hildred's casement, and stole across her face like a 
 spirit-breath. 
 
 She moved ; she awoke — to full consciousness this 
 time ; to the reahsation of her vanished past and un- 
 famihar present ; awoke with a dull ache of unrecog- 
 nising wonder, of half-conscious, half-checked resent- 
 ment, and lay there in her straight white bed, gazing 
 
 51
 
 52 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 round the dimly-seen pretty room, as yet unimpressed 
 by the personahty of its occupant. It was a grey 
 moment unlit by any shaft of sunlight. 
 
 Then, sudden and beautiful as when the first morn- 
 ing-stars sang of the first morning mysteries, a black- 
 bird's song, " richest carol of all the singing throats," 
 clove the silence with a golden spear of sound. It fell 
 apart, shattered in an exquisite " mosaic of the air," 
 bird-music that rang from leaf-filmed tree to flowering 
 bushes heavy with dew, while an undercurrent of pipe 
 and twitter shrilled faintly from packed hedge and 
 eave and garden. 
 
 The rose of dawn unfolded in the sky to the lyric 
 rapture of herald larks, and on the cottage roof the 
 first swallows preened themselves and sang their soft 
 love-songs that sound so like twittering bird-kisses. 
 
 Hildred's room was suffused with a rose-light, day 
 gleaming through the drawn curtains. Her heart 
 lifted, swelled, thrilled, to the music that owned an 
 ecstasy unknown to the songs of fuller day. Her 
 world had not turned topsy-turvy after all : it was 
 only circumstances which had changed — vagrant cir- 
 cumstances which had no real power to bind or chill. 
 The rose-red citadel of her imagination was left unbe- 
 leaguered : she leaned from its ramparts and caught a 
 faint vision, tempered to mortal eyes as the wonder of 
 stars in a pool, of the glory of God. 
 
 " The angels keep their ancient places ; 
 Turn but a stone, and start a wing ! " 
 
 she quoted softly. 
 
 Her eyes were wet, but there was no sting in those 
 tears. They were tributary to the beautiful rather
 
 ON THE SHOCKING OF OYSTERS 53 
 
 than the sorrowful, and distilled all essence of bitterness 
 from the girl's heart through their crystal dew. 
 
 The murmured shamefaced prayer of youth for 
 greater tolerance and a wider understanding of her 
 mother's puzzhng personality ascended to the Throne 
 on the winged thanksgiving of the larks, and Hildred, 
 healthily sleepy still, turned from the glowing eastern 
 window to the more subdued radiance of the west, 
 and slept until Katherine aroused her with a hard cold 
 hand upon her shoulder. 
 
 " Tea for the soft of the earth, as your mamma says, 
 miss." Katherine's voice shattered iridescent dreams. 
 
 Hildred sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes with her 
 knuckles as a child might, and looking very young for 
 her twenty years with her fair hair tumbhng about her 
 shoulders. 
 
 " Oh, Katherine, is it time to get up ? Why did you 
 trouble to bring me tea if no one else takes it ? " 
 
 " What trouble ? I had to boil the water for your 
 bath, and I thought you might like it." 
 
 " I love it," cried Hildred, clasping her arms round 
 her knees. " But is there no bathroom here ? " 
 
 " Miss, you're not in London. You're in the heart of 
 the country. In fact, being at the far end of the village 
 you might almost say we was ' county ' ! " Katherine 
 gave a grim laugh at her own humour. " County 
 we was once, and I suppose once county always county. 
 Except them Miss Derings now. They went too near 
 London, and when you go too near London you get 
 to be — what do you call the word, miss ? " 
 
 " Do you mean suburban, I wonder ? " asked 
 Hildred, amused.
 
 54 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Yes, that's the word, suburbian. So I've heard 
 your mamma say, at least." 
 
 " Is she up yet ? " 
 
 " \Vhat, up ? She had her cold tub and some grape- 
 nuts an hour ago, and she's in the dining-room now 
 polishing them golf sticks of hers as if her hfe depended 
 on it." 
 
 Katherine's voice, in speaking of Mrs. Ivors, always 
 rang on the same note, a note of half -fierce, half- 
 grudging affection, of resentful toleration, of perpetual 
 judgment tempered with a regretful leniency. It 
 seemed to Hildred as if she reserved all rights of criti- 
 cism to herself, and would resent very keenly any 
 infringement upon her copyright of condemnation. 
 
 Meanwhile with quick abrupt movements she had 
 pulled back the curtains and arranged the girl's bath. 
 With her, conversation never imphed waste of time, 
 for her tongue moved in concert with other physical 
 activities. 
 
 " Johnny, the porter, brought me a string of trout 
 this morning. Don't be long now, for they'll be spoilt 
 if they're not eaten hot off the pan." 
 
 " Is he a friend of yours, Katherine ? " 
 
 " A friend of mine ? That loon ? I paid him for 
 them, of course." 
 
 Katherine stalked indignantly out of the room, while 
 Hildred sprang from her bed with a laugh that echoed 
 through the open doorway and penetrated down the 
 little stairs as far as the dining-room. 
 
 Mrs. Ivors sat in the window polishing a heavy putter 
 to the last degree of brightness. At the sound of that 
 ripple of laughter she let it fall heedlessly. It struck
 
 ON THE SHOCKING OF OYSTERS 55 
 
 Tartar, who lay at her feet as usual, and he sprang aside 
 with a quick yelp at the unexpected hurt. Mrs. Ivors 
 took no notice : her senses seemed concentrated upon 
 the one effort of listening. But silence followed upon 
 the closing of the bedroom door, and she turned to her 
 work with an odd little noise between a sigh and a 
 grunt. 
 
 " Queer sound for this house," she said, and she 
 began to whistle a popular air quite incorrectly between 
 half-shut teeth. It was a little idiosyncrasy which 
 she shared in common with many unmusical persons, 
 that desire, in moments of perturbation or emotion, 
 to hum or whistle formless, tuneless tunes, until the 
 very teeth of the hearers are set on edge. 
 
 In this case the only auditor was Tartar, whose 
 musical education had been presumably neglected, for 
 the tattered air was as a siren's lure to his shaggy 
 body, which crept back closer and closer to his mistress 
 until he was near enough to push a moist nose into her 
 hand and mutely beg forgiveness for a fault which 
 she had committed. 
 
 She patted his head as she looked into his pleading 
 eyes. 
 
 " Good old fellow ! Foolish old boy," she said in 
 her gruffest dog-voice. " Mustn't get in the way, 
 you know." 
 
 And Tartar curled up at her feet again with a happy 
 snort, in glorious ignorance of the rigid principles of his 
 mistress's great gospel of Give and Take. 
 
 She looked up later from her polishing when Hil- 
 dred entered, comprehending with one quick glance 
 the daintiness without the details of the girl's attire —
 
 56 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " frippery," as she mentally phrased it. Yet the dark 
 blue alpaca was simplicity itself, having for sole adorn- 
 ment delicately-stitched lawn collar and cuffs fastened 
 with tiny black bows. Hildred's hair was well brushed 
 and well arranged, and shone with the soft gloss of 
 youth : her step was light and alert ; a faint tinge of 
 the morning's glow lingered in her cheeks. 
 
 Mrs. Ivors' thick cropped hair was still wet from her 
 bath : she had not troubled to dry it properly, and 
 it showed at the back the hasty dividing marks of the 
 comb. She wore a flannel shirt whose collar lacked a 
 sufficiency of fastening in the rear, a deficiency which 
 she had striven to supply with the aid of a crooked 
 black pin. 
 
 " Good-morning," said Hildred, entering with a body- 
 guard of dogs. " You look busy." 
 
 " I am busy," returned Mrs. Ivors. " I'm due for a 
 round with the pro. at ten o'clock and the Hnks are 
 four miles off." 
 
 " Four miles off ? " Hildred caught at the one 
 intelligible phrase. " That's a long way. How do 
 you get there ? " 
 
 " Bicycle. Do you ride ? " 
 
 " No. I never cared to learn somehow." 
 
 " H'm. Lethargic, I suppose ! That puts your 
 golfing out of the question unless you care to walk to 
 the hnks." 
 
 A tincture of relief in Mrs. Ivors' tones pricked 
 Hildred to quick retort. 
 
 " I shouldn't mind the walk in the least, but I 
 don't think I'd care about the golf when I got 
 there."
 
 ON THE SHOCKING OF OYSTERS 57 
 
 " With that feehng to start on you'd never make a 
 golfer." 
 
 " I'm not very keen on games." 
 
 " Golf is not a game." 
 
 " What is it, then ? " 
 
 " It's a pursuit." 
 
 " Yes," returned Hildred, " I've seen it defined in 
 a penny paper as the pursuit of pale pills by purple 
 people," 
 
 Mrs, Ivors sniffed : her eyes flashed quick wrath at 
 the vulgar impertinence of such a comment on such a 
 subject. The amour propre of the enthusiast was stung, 
 but repartee failed her for once. The only available 
 retort implied ground-shifting. 
 
 " I wonder you read such trash," was all she 
 permitted herself to say. 
 
 " Even great minds such as mine need occasional 
 relaxation," Hildred replied, with a httle tilt of her 
 nose. " I didn't realise that golf was such a sacred 
 subject. I'll keep off the grass — greens you call them, 
 don't you ? — for the future." 
 
 " I never knew a game so trying to the temper," 
 pursued Mrs. Ivors, melting at the other's concession. 
 " When you get into a bad bunker or are stymied " 
 
 " There ! it's a new language ! " cried Hildred. " I 
 don't understand a word of what you've said, what a 
 bunker is, or a pro. or a stymie. The only golf word 
 I know is one which seems entirely applicable to the 
 whole game, I beg its pardon, pursuit ! — and that is — 
 bogey ! " 
 
 Mrs. Ivors gave her queer little chuckle. " Come to 
 breakfast, you ignorant, impertinent child, and don't
 
 58 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 talk of what your infantile mind cannot even grasp ! " 
 Her tone was one of high good-humour, as she carefully 
 laid her clubs aside, jumped up and went towards the 
 table. 
 
 In spite of open windows the smell of smoke lin- 
 gered in the room mingled with a suggestion of dogs 
 and leather, but above this distinctly unfeminine atmos- 
 phere rose the delicious aroma of frying trout. 
 
 " What a heavenly smell ! " cried Hildred, snifhng 
 appreciatively, " I am developing a country appetite 
 already, and feel inclined to call down blessings on the 
 head of Johnny, the porter, for having caught those 
 trout." 
 
 " Did he ? I'm afraid I never trouble much about 
 the commissariat. I leave all those things to Kather- 
 me. 
 
 " She was quite annoyed with me when I asked her 
 if Johnny were a friend of hers. I thought perhaps 
 he had brought the fish as an offering." 
 
 " An oifering to Katherine ? No man living would 
 be bold enough to venture on such an act. Her atti- 
 tude towards men is that of the female spider, who 
 looks upon the male sex as necessary for one object only, 
 and devours her lovers as soon as that is accomphshed." 
 
 Hildred reddened at Mrs. Ivors' unconsidered speech. 
 With her cousins. Nature, in what they considered her 
 grosser forms, had been ignored to the point of exclusion 
 from speech if not from actual fact. They belonged 
 heart and soul to that short-sighted generation which 
 exists in every age, who, unable to see beyond their 
 noses, and lacking spectacles, declare that what is 
 invisible to their purbhnd eyes does not exist.
 
 ON THE SHOCKING OF OYSTERS 59 
 
 Hildred's quick flush was one of innocence not 
 prudery, and it deepened at Mrs. Ivors' prompt com- 
 ment : 
 
 " Ha ! I've shocked you. Look, Katherine, I've 
 made my daughter bhish ! " 
 
 " Better a blush on the face than a spot on the 
 heart," retorted Katherine, as she dashed the dish 
 with the trout on the table in front of Hildred, and 
 flounced out of the room. 
 
 " No, you haven't shocked me," said Hildred, when 
 she had gone. " But I'm not used to much plain 
 speaking. At Wilmerhurst things were always wrapped 
 up so that one was afraid of appearing indelicate " 
 
 " If you uncovered so much as the toe of the naked 
 truth," shot in Mrs. Ivors, jubilant. " Yes. I know. 
 Makes you sick of wrappings and coverings. Feel 
 you must tear them away, or, or " 
 
 " Bust ! " suggested Hildred vulgarly. 
 
 Grey eyes met grey eyes and laughter twinkled in 
 them. 
 
 " She's not shocked after all, Katherine," said Mrs. 
 Ivors, as Katherine marched in with the tea and toast. 
 
 " That surprises me, ma'am," retorted Katherine, 
 " for sometimes the things you say is enough to shock 
 an oyster ! " 
 
 " Are oysters easily shocked, Katherine ? " asked 
 Hildred mischievously. Her three years' sojourn in 
 countries where the relations between mistress and 
 maid lack the starched formality of English house- 
 holds made the frank intercourse with Katherine seem 
 natural to her, and even homehke. The Misses Dering, 
 gentle, well-bred women, would have been horrified
 
 6o THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 at Katherine's unconventional familiarity towards 
 her mistress, 
 
 Katherine tm'ned from the door at the girl's question, 
 her hand on her hip. Her smooth hair boasted no 
 butterfly incongruity this morning, and in her neat 
 print dress and linen apron she owned a working-day 
 trimness which was lacking in Mrs. Ivors' attire, 
 severe though it purported to be. As her gaze met 
 Hildred's twinkle she deliberately shut her left eye in a 
 desperate attempt at a wink, 
 
 " If you ever hear of one that is, I'll be glad to know 
 of it," she said, and left with the honours of war. 
 
 " One to Katherine," exclaimed Mrs. Ivors, attacking 
 the trout with gusto. " Now what are you going to 
 do with yourself to-day ? " 
 
 Hildred felt the thread of her days hang loosely as 
 yet. Hitherto she had not known much freedom of 
 action ; her hours had been filled, her amusements 
 chosen, her few accomplishments fostered with a sedu- 
 lous care that left but odd moments for the occupation 
 of the rose-red citadel of dreams. She was conscious 
 that her mother expected an answer as prompt and 
 decisive as her question had been, and the knowledge 
 spurred her to uncalculated response. 
 
 " I shall first unpack my boxes and put away my 
 things." 
 
 " Your clothes ? " 
 
 " Yes, and my treasures," said the girl with a little 
 shamefaced laugh at the implied sentiment. 
 
 Mrs. Ivors' brow darkened, and a hard little laugh 
 followed Hildred's like a mocking echo. 
 
 " Your treasures ? I know the sort.^ Photographs
 
 ON THE SHOCKING OF OYSTERS 6i 
 
 of stiff Madonnas, dirty little bits of pottery or enamel, 
 rags of brocade of beautiful colours." She put quota- 
 tion marks in her voice about the " beautiful colours," 
 and the words stung with a disproportionate keenness. 
 
 Hildred's ready flush fluttered flags of distress, but 
 there was to be no hauling down of her colours. 
 
 " You needn't see them," she returned quietly. " In 
 fact I'd rather you didn't." 
 
 The words seemed to hurt Mrs. Ivors oddly. 
 
 " You'd rather I didn't see your httle rubbishes ? " 
 she repeated, with the same ring in her voice. Through 
 the bitterness was a vibration of pain, Hildred thought, 
 and pain of any sort touched a heart that beat tenderly 
 under its mantle of quiet reticence. 
 
 " Only if they irritate you," she answered softty. 
 " Besides you must remember they are not trumpery 
 to me. I said treasures, remember, and there arc no 
 real dust-collectors among them." 
 
 Mrs. Ivors pounced on the word with avidity. " No 
 dust-collectors ! I'm glad of that, I hate dust. And I 
 don't understand Art, or sympathise much with it 
 either." 
 
 Evading hinted personahties Hildred tried to turn 
 the conversation towards the general. 
 
 " One usually implies the other, doesn't it ? " 
 
 " One what ? " asked Mrs. Ivors gruffly, throwing the 
 backbone of a trout to Tartar, who caught it and laid 
 it at her feet in silent disgust. 
 
 " Sympathy implies understanding." 
 
 " Oh, don't talk rot," said Mrs. Ivors rudely. " Bad 
 dog, I won't give you am'thing else. Life is too short, 
 my dear Hildred, for these abstract discussions. Soft-
 
 62 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 ness and sentiment aren't in my line, and I believe 
 they're only veneered on to you, too." She looked at 
 her watch and stretched her legs out under the table. 
 " Time for a smoke, I declare. What luck ! " 
 
 She pulled a chain which was fastened to the buckle 
 of her belt, and by its means drew from her pocket a 
 silver cigarette-case and match-box combined, a bag, 
 and a small pigskin purse. 
 
 " Good idea, isn't it ? My own invention entirely. 
 I have all necessaries ready to hand, from smoke to 
 latch-key." 
 
 She held it out for the girl to admire, and as Hildred 
 bent over it and praised the handiness of the contriv- 
 ance she felt that her mother's favourite motto " No 
 offence meant " should be blazoned in large, compelling 
 letters at the head and foot of every conversation, so 
 that no trick or device of apparent rudeness should 
 cause it to be overlooked or indeed forgotten. 
 
 " This doesn't tell me, though, what you're going 
 to do with yourself all day." 
 
 " I thought, perhaps, if you didn't mind, of tidying 
 up the front garden a little." 
 
 " Mind ? I should be delighted. The dogs have 
 made a perfect wilderness of the place with their 
 scratchings and bone-buryings, and I never have time 
 to see to any of these things myself. Katherine says 
 that the kitchen-garden gives her enough to do. You 
 might see, by the way, if she's cut and rolled the tennis- 
 ground. I told her to do it before you came, on the 
 off-chance of your playing, and I hadn't time to see 
 about it. Do you play tennis, by the way ? " 
 
 " Yes. It's the one game I'm really fond of."
 
 ON THE SHOCKING OF OYSTERS 63 
 
 " Good. We'll get up some next week if the weather 
 keeps fine. I'll send a hne to the Waveneys to tell 
 them to come over." 
 
 " That will be pleasant. Who are the Waveneys ? " 
 
 " Cousins of mine — of yours too " Mrs. Ivors 
 
 interpolated awkwardly, " who live at Standish. At 
 least Laura Wavency is a cousin of mine. She was 
 one of the Suffolk Darings." 
 
 " I don't know very much about any of my relations." 
 
 " No, Antoinette and Mary didn't keep up with their 
 people when they left the country." 
 
 " I think it was the other way round," Hildred put 
 in. " Their people seemed to forget them very easily 
 when they lost their money and came down in the 
 world." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense. Nothing of the sort. The Suffolk 
 Derings — but that's neither here nor there. Laura 
 married Sir John Waveney some years ago and 
 they live at Standish Court, about eight miles away. 
 Standish is the next station to this." 
 
 A sudden suspicion crept to Hildred's mind. " What 
 sort of looking people are they ? " 
 
 " She's a nice, fresh-looking girl — well, perhaps hardly 
 a girl now. Nothing particularly striking about her 
 in any way. And he ? Oh, he's just the usual country 
 squire, quite a line-looking man. I'm not much good 
 at description." 
 
 No, she was certainly not. Still, the colourless 
 sentences convej-ed an impression of the people who 
 had travelled in Hildi"ed's carriage yesterday ; an 
 impression which the memory of their conversation 
 strengthened. She held her peace, yet a hot wave of
 
 64 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 indignation surged over her. How had they dared to 
 discuss her mother in such a way in a pubhc railway- 
 carriage ? It was monstrous ! Intolerable ! 
 
 Mrs. Ivors suddenly jumped up and flung away the 
 end of her cigarette. 
 
 " I quite forgot that I'll probably have to pump 
 up my bicycle. That is unless Katherine has done it 
 already." 
 
 " Let me do it." 
 
 " You ? You'd soil those dainty cuffs of yours." 
 
 " I've got straw gardening-cuffs upstairs." 
 
 " Straw gardening-cuffs ! What next, I wonder ? " 
 Mrs, Ivors chuckled contempt. " Here, out of my 
 way, child. I'll have it done while you're looking at 
 it, and wondering where the valve is." 
 
 As she spoke she had the pump already fitted to the 
 wheel and was working vigorously, pinching the tyre 
 at intervals to see if it were hard enough, while 
 Hildred stood looking on, feeling helplessly ignorant. 
 
 " There ! I think that will do," she said at last, 
 hfting a flushed face. " Where's my hat ? I think I 
 left it on the sideboard last night. No, it's not there 
 now. Katherine ! Katherine ! Where did you put 
 my hat ? " 
 
 " On the hat-rack, of course. Where else ? " 
 asked Katherine, emerging from the kitchen for a 
 moment with wet steaming hands. " There it is, 
 under your nose — and as plain as it is," she added 
 under her breath. " I suppose you expect me to be a 
 lady's-maid as well as everything else." 
 
 " Jack of all trades and master of none," said Mrs. 
 Ivors, slinging her heavy bag of clubs across her
 
 ON THE SHOCKING OF OYSTERS 65 
 
 shoulder, and wheeling her bicycle through the door- 
 way. 
 
 The words, as Hildred remembered to whom she had 
 last heard them applied, added another prickle to the 
 nettle-sting of her resentment against the Waveneys. 
 
 Mrs. Ivors opened the gate and went out without 
 looking back, Tartar, as usual, close at her heels. The 
 other dogs lay in various attitudes about the door- 
 step, watching Hildred's movements with assumed 
 indifference. 
 
 When, after a moment's breathing of the sweet spring 
 air, she left them and went indoors, they turned lan- 
 guidly, buried nose in paw or stretched out head on 
 gravel as was their wont, and went to sleep, with a sigh 
 and a pretence that that was what they had desired all 
 along.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " SUMLESS TREASURES 
 
 IT did not take long for Hildred to unpack and 
 arrange her possessions, which imparted to the 
 pink and white room a note of character 
 hitherto lacking. Her treasures, as she had 
 girlishly called them, were few and only valuable 
 in so far as they recalled the masterpieces of 
 which they were but inadequate reproductions. 
 Wistful Delia Robbia babies framed in painted 
 vellum, Botticelli's " Coronation of the Madonna " 
 within a carven circle of gilded wood, a tiny bronze of 
 the Dancing Faun of Pompeii, cream plaster models 
 of the Venus of Milo and the Victory of Samothrace, 
 an iridescent morsel of glass, blown like a foam bubble 
 by Venetian lips into the clasp of a gold-flecked sea- 
 horse, a Sistine Madonna in a brown Florentine frame, 
 and a small shelf-ful of books. These, with a casket of 
 beautiful Berlin leather-work, were the treasures which 
 Mrs. Ivors had so bitterly derided, unseen. 
 
 Hildred kissed the Victory shamefacedly before she 
 put it on its shelf. 
 
 " Lend me your wings sometimes, won't you ? " she 
 murmured. " I shall often envy them, you free, 
 beautiful creature ! " 
 
 After a while she went downstairs, armed, cap 'a pie, 
 with straw cuffs and gardening-gloves. 
 
 66
 
 "SUMLESS TREASURES" 67 
 
 Katherine emerged from the kitchen when she heard 
 the step. 
 
 " You look very grand in yourself," she exclaimed. 
 " Where are you going in them gloves ? " 
 
 Hildred explained, ending with : " I am very fond 
 of gardening." 
 
 " Gardening ? What gardening ? 'Tis rough boy's 
 work, that is, not the little planting or weeding that 
 them hands of yours is used to. Picking off dead 
 blossoms maybe, or a bit of quiet lawn-mowing on a 
 little plot where a daisy daren't show its head ! I 
 know the sort of gardening." 
 
 " Perhaps I'm not so helpless as you think." 
 
 " Bless you, miss, I don't think you're helpless. 
 'Tis too independent maybe you are after all your 
 foreign travel. But it's easily seen you're not used to 
 this sort of life, and all I want is for you to take it in 
 bits at a time, and not try to swallow it whole. If you 
 can wait till after lunch I'll help you. I can dig as 
 good as a man." She stopped, recollected herself, and 
 continued : " What man ? I'd beat the best of 'em, 
 I'd bet, but the most we can do is a httle tidying. 
 Them dogs would make any place into a bear-garden." 
 
 Mildred's face fell at the postponement of her plans. 
 She wanted to be out : she felt the need for action, 
 for occupation. She was unprepared as yet for the 
 filling of empty hours. 
 
 " There are clumps of fern half-choked by rank 
 grass," she demurred. " I could free them at least, 
 and I'm sure I should find other treasures." 
 
 " Find away, then," returned Katherine, " but 
 don't attempt any of the rough work till I'm ready to
 
 68 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 go. Perhaps when you've picked enough blades of 
 grass to satisfy yourself you might find a letter to 
 write, or something of that sort to keep you quiet. 
 Can you eat a poached egg for your lunch ? " 
 
 " I can but try," answered Hildred with a twinkle. 
 " But won't ? " 
 
 " No, she won't. I put up some sandwiches for her, 
 and her flask, and she'll spend the day on the links. 
 Links ? It's a silly sort of name for just fields. But 
 all them names what has to do with games is silly. 
 Love and deuce in tennis, and peel and break in 
 croquet ! How sensible people ! " 
 
 She shook her head, silenced by the colossal folly of the 
 games-playing humankind, and went back to her work. 
 
 It was a tired and rather stiff Hildred who stood in 
 the doorway in her grey gown to greet her mother that 
 evening ; but the girl's eyes were brightened, and her 
 colour deepened by her wholesome day in the open air, 
 and she waited with a sense of expectancy for some 
 comment upon her labours. 
 
 Truly the improvement was marvellous. The grass, 
 though still coarse and worn here and there into bare 
 patches by the dogs, was cut close, the edges trimmed, 
 the walks scuffled and raked into neatness. Hildred 
 and Katherine had cleared the clogging undergrowth 
 from the flowering bushes, and raked basketsful of 
 leaves and twigs and rubbish from the grass. Clumps 
 of ferns raised inquiring fronds here and there above 
 this newer, freer world, and under the delicate green 
 of a beech-tree shed bud-sheaths made patches of 
 rusty gold. Closed bluebells pushed slender stems 
 above their curving leaves, and in one corner a whit-
 
 "SUMLESS TREASURES" 69 
 
 ened stump and spray of sawdust showed where they 
 had cut down a half-dead bay which hid an exquisite 
 young almond-tree, rosy as a bride against its filmy 
 background of green. 
 
 Mrs. Ivors, flushed and excited, wheeled her bicycle 
 up the path, commentless. 
 
 " I am hot," she said, resting her bicycle against the 
 wall. " Hot and tired, but I had a glorious day, 
 nevertheless." She took off her hat : flung it towards 
 the hall-table, which it missed, falling upon the tiled 
 floor with a little clatter. She mopped her forehead 
 with her handkerchief. 
 
 " I shall feel better when I have had a drink. I 
 suppose your expensive education hasn't taught you 
 how to mix a whiskey and soda, has it ? " she con- 
 tinued, pushing past Hildred and sinking into her chair. 
 " Little whiskey, big soda — just a long drink in that 
 big tumbler there on the sideboard. Yes, that'll do. 
 Not so much whiskey. Pour some back. Now fill it 
 up with soda. Ah ! that's good." 
 
 She drank the mixture with a sigh of relief, and pro- 
 ceeded in terms which were practically unintelligible 
 to Hildred, to expound upon her glorious day. It 
 had had its ups and downs, it appeared. She had 
 bungled an absurdly easy putt at the fourth hole, 
 increasing her score by an unnecessary two, but then 
 at the ninth she had made a marvellous drive, doing the 
 hole in three — one less than Bogey. 
 
 " One less than Bogey ! Just imagine that ! " she 
 cried, sitting upright in her triumph. 
 
 " It sounds very wonderful," Hildred answered, 
 trying to assume an unfelt interest. She felt flat and
 
 70 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 dispirited at the greetingless, commentless return after 
 her day of unwonted hard work. 
 
 " Of course it's Greek to you," continued Mrs. Ivors 
 good-humouredly. " But I wish you'd seen that drive. 
 The pro. said that I was the first of his pupils (women, 
 of course) who had ever driven so far. It was such a 
 clean true shot. The ball soared, but not too high. 
 It was like the flight of a bird. I felt I was going to do 
 it somehow. You always know." 
 
 " Afterwards, I suppose," commented Hildred drily. 
 
 The clock on the chimney piece chimed the half- 
 hour. 
 
 " Heavens ! it's dinner-time," cried Mrs. Ivors, " I 
 must go and wash my hands. I won't change." 
 
 She glanced at Hildred as she spoke. The girl 
 looked away, but it seemed to her mother as if the 
 averted gaze pointed a contrast between her own 
 fresh daintiness and the dusty disarray of Mrs. Ivors' 
 flannel shirt. As a matter of fact it was to prevent 
 such an inference that Hildred had refrained from even 
 a cursory glance at her mother's attire ; but the com- 
 parison was inevitable if unsought, and pricked Mrs. 
 Ivors to unconsidered speech. 
 
 " It's my own house, anyhow," she said with a 
 dehberate gruff ness, " and it doesn't matter to any 
 one what I choose to come to dinner in, even if it's 
 my combinations ! " 
 
 Hildred's heart swelled, but her spirit rose. The 
 only way to live amicably with Mrs. Ivors was to meet 
 frankness with frankness. 
 
 " The weather is scarcely hot enough for the latter 
 costume," she retorted coolly, but something bright
 
 "SUMLESS TREASURES" 71 
 
 fell on Nip's wrinkled forehead as she stooped to pat 
 him and pull his ears. 
 
 •^ ^p ^p ^p "^ 
 
 " Some people are as blind as bats ! " 
 
 Katherine's remark was apparently addressed to the 
 soup tureen as she set it down before her mistress. 
 
 " Why ? What is it that I haven't seen, now ? " asked 
 Mrs. Ivors, restored to good-humour by the Httle passage- 
 at-arms, and the assertion of her own independence. 
 
 " You never even cast a glance at the grand things 
 young miss and I did when you were out and away 
 amusing yourself." 
 
 " What did you do ? Rolled the tennis-ground ? " 
 
 " What rolled ? Wait till after dinner, if it's light 
 enough, and until to-morrow if it isn't, and cast your 
 eye at the front that you walked through to-night as if 
 it was the bear-garden you'd left it in the morning." 
 
 " My dear Katherine, I didn't leave it any more a 
 bear-garden this morning than any other morning. 
 Still, I'm glad to hear you've tidied it up a bit. A 
 place always looks better for being tidy, and when the 
 Waveneys come next week " 
 
 " Are they coming ? " Katherine's tone was instinct 
 with disapproval. 
 
 " Only to tea," Mrs. Ivors hastened to add. " I met 
 them on the hnks to-day, and they said they would be 
 delighted to come over for tennis on Wednesday. 
 You'll have to make some of your cream-cakes, 
 Katherine. Sir John loves your cream-cakes." 
 
 " Yes, and makes no more of a plateful than if it 
 was a mouthful," snapped Katherine. " But it's 
 that Laura I can't abide ; no, nor never could."
 
 72 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Why, what harm has she ever done you, you old 
 mass of prejudice ? " 
 
 " Peered and pried, no more nor no less," returned 
 Katherine, " and well you know it." 
 
 This disrespectful mention of Lady Waveney amused 
 Hildred, whose sense of humour was young and alert ; 
 her own feelings towards that lady were not alto- 
 gether tinged with sympathy, so her mood fell in with 
 Katherine's cUsparagement. 
 
 " How did Lady Waveney come to offend Kather- 
 ine ? " she asked when they were alone. 
 
 " Silly old creature ! " Mrs. Ivors laughed toler- 
 antly. " It was long ago, before Laura was married, 
 when I lived in Suffolk. I believe she tried to pump 
 Katherine about me and my affairs — girl's curiosity, 
 nothing more — but Katherine resented it, and has 
 never either forgiven or forgotten it. She's a good 
 hater, is Katherine." 
 
 " And a good lover, too, I should think." 
 
 " Apart from love in the sentimental sense, I should 
 say yes." 
 
 " You should," returned Hildred calmly. " What 
 would you do without her, I wonder ? " 
 
 " Without Katherine ? " Mrs. Ivors looked posi- 
 tively startled for an instant. " I'd be perfectly lost. 
 But there's no fear of her leaving me, thank Heaven ! " 
 
 " I don't suppose there is." 
 
 " It's not playing the game to alarm me hke this 
 
 without a cause. It's so like " Mrs. Ivors stopped 
 
 abruptly. " I've made an engagement for you for 
 to-morrow," she continued, after a pause. 
 
 " Yes ? "
 
 "SUMLESS TREASURES" 73 
 
 " Tea with the Miss Lebartes." 
 
 " Who are the Miss Lebartes ? " 
 
 " An aunt and niece who Hve in the village. The 
 aunt was sister of our late vicar, and used to keep house 
 for him, and she thinks her mission in hfe is to keep 
 an eye on parochial matters in general, and in particular 
 to put down, with a high hand, anything that savours 
 of Ritualism. She looks on any innovation of the new 
 vicar's in that light." 
 
 " Pleasant for the new vicar." 
 
 " He's not so very new. He's got used to it now 
 after three years of it. Personally, I can't see what it 
 matters whether a man turns to the east or to the west, 
 or wears blue vestments or green so long as he's an 
 honest, straightforward fellow, and lives up to his 
 prayers as best he can. But a difference of opinion 
 in the Church seems to upset the religious digestion of a 
 good many so-called Christians. To my mind it would 
 be more really religious if they attended to the prayers 
 they were supposed to be saying instead of peeping 
 through their fingers to see whether the parson was 
 turning to the right or to the left. More pretence 1 
 More frippery ! Bah ! I've no patience with it." 
 
 Hildred's religious beliefs, like her innate worship of 
 the beautiful, were hidden away within the ivory 
 shrine of her inmost heart, and any alien touch upon 
 them jarred. She saw the sound common-sense of 
 what her mother was saying, but she was too young, too 
 much enwrapped in her veil of reticence and sensitive- 
 ness to suffer any intrusion upon so intimately personal 
 and sacred an emotion. She glanced to a side-issue. 
 " What sort of person is the younger ]\Iiss Lebarte ? "
 
 74 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Oh, Arabella — Arab, every one calls her — is a 
 bright, capable sort of girl." 
 
 " A girl ? " Hildred's eyes brightened, foreseeing 
 possible companionship. 
 
 " Well, scarcely what you would call a girl, I sup- 
 pose. Arab must be anything from thirty to thirty- 
 five. She's great at competitions." 
 
 " Golf competitions ? " 
 
 " No, no, nothing of the sort. Competitions in news- 
 papers, magazines, that sort of thing. She's no use at 
 games. She has a good serve at tennis, that's all, but 
 plays a footling game of croquet. Golf, of course, she 
 can't touch." 
 
 It was easy for Hildred to perceive that at the mo- 
 ment golf reigned king, no, emperor, over any and every 
 other form of game, amusement, pursuit — what you will. 
 
 " She and I ought to get on in that case. I have a 
 tolerable service and loathe croquet." 
 
 " My form is volleying," said Mrs. Ivors compla- 
 cently. " You might ask them both to come here on 
 Wednesday if you remember it." 
 
 " Why ? Aren't you coming to the tea-party to- 
 morrow ? " 
 
 " Me ? Go to a hen bun-worr}^' if I can possibly avoid 
 it ? No, thanks. I'm going to play in a foursome 
 with the Waveneys and Dr. Lisle." 
 
 Hildred's heart sank. The idea of an afternoon 
 spent with the lady of eagle eye for clerical mis- 
 demeanours and the damsel of competition-winning 
 proclivities appealed to her less than a day of the 
 garden and a semi-solitude tempered by Katherine. 
 
 " Thev asked us both, of course," continued Mrs.
 
 "SUMLESS TREASURES" 75 
 
 Ivors, sitting on the ledge of the open window, and 
 puUing out her cigarette-case. " But fortunately, I 
 had already made the other engagement. It's not 
 often Dr. Lisle is able to get away. We ought to have 
 a good match. There's a box of balls on it, best 
 Spaldings. Not to be sneezed at, I can tell you, in 
 these days of high prices." She lit a cigarette and puffed 
 at it. Her outhne looked shm and spare, silhouetted 
 against the blue dusk of the night, She drummed her 
 heels against the paneUing as a boy might, perched 
 there upon the sill. No one coming into the unlit room 
 would have taken her to be the mother of the girl who 
 sat near her with clasped hands lying in her lap — a grey 
 shadow among the deeper shadows of the Spring night. 
 
 " It's a pity Arab doesn't play golf. It might 
 improve her chances." 
 
 " What chances ? " 
 
 " Arab, hke her namesakes," continued Mrs. Ivors, 
 with apparent irrelevance, " is always looking across 
 a sandy desert. On the horizon is the figure of a man 
 — Dr. Lisle — but he comes no nearer. He is always a 
 silhouette upon the fringe of the desert. Do you 
 understand ? " 
 
 The dry words called up an instant vision of the East 
 before the girl's eyes. An unconsidered query rose 
 to her lips and broke from them impulsively. " Have 
 you been in Egypt ? " 
 
 " Yes." The curt monosyllable fell cold as a stone 
 with a chiU finality which checked the spring of 
 further question or comment, 
 
 Hildred shrank back a little, reddening in the dark- 
 ness. Unawares she had touched a wound.
 
 M 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 
 
 ISS ARABELLA LEBARTE'S mitier had 
 been determined almost at the outset of 
 her competitional career by her winning 
 of the prize of a dozen pairs of gloves for 
 the best definition of an old bachelor. With smart 
 flippancy she described that anomaly of humanity 
 as " the crooked stick that is left in the wood." Since 
 then she had never looked back. If success had not 
 always crowned her, if her best efforts had not won her 
 either a house in the country or a pound a week for life, 
 still her epigram on the New Woman — " A fresh darn 
 on the original blue-stocking " — appropriately provided 
 her with a shoe outfit, and her selection of Easter 
 Egg as the best name for a race-horse (pedigree given) 
 with a new Spring hat, while odd sums for successful 
 limericks, and an occasional guinea for the correct 
 results of Literary Guessing Competitions pleasantly 
 supplemented her pocket-money. 
 
 An accurate list of words ending in " ism " in answer 
 to rather misleading questions had just secured her a 
 fountain-pen, which she was utilising in filling in a 
 similar series with answers ending in "ic" when Mil- 
 dred was ushered into the cool little drawing-room 
 of Miss Lebarte's house. 
 
 76
 
 BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS ^^ 
 
 The neat precision and orderly trimness of the 
 place, from garden gate to inner sanctum, was grateful 
 to the girl after the untidiness of the Whitecot sitting- 
 room. Into its drawing-room, a place of drawn blinds 
 and stiff new-smeUing furniture, unfriendly of aspect, 
 with unused, almost menacing air, she had peeped this 
 morning, shutting the door hastily upon its aloof 
 ugliness. That Kathcrine waged constant war upon 
 slovenliness she well knew, but even she had long 
 ceased to try to conquer the atmosphere of dogs, cigar- 
 ette-ash, and general disarray which was as the breath 
 of heaven to Mrs. Ivors' nostrils. 
 
 " Nothing pretty here, thank God ! " she used often 
 to say, looking round complacently as she put her 
 feet on the chimney-ledge. 
 
 There was a sufficiency of prettiness — perhaps a 
 superabundance of it — in the drawing-room at Hillside, 
 which was the name of Miss Lebarte's house, so-called 
 with the usual sweet reasonableness to be observed in 
 house-nomenclature, because it stood farther away 
 from the hills than any other house in the village. 
 
 The bureau at which Arabella sat was over-elabor- 
 ately ornamented ; each chair had its blatantly-spot- 
 less frilly head-rest, and there were plants enough, in 
 art pots, to have stocked a small-sized green-house. 
 Still the effect was of dainty freshness, even if one had 
 to be careful in threading one's way through the innum- 
 erable crowd of little tables, chairs and ottomans. 
 
 Arabella jumped up as Hildred entered. She was 
 taU and well-proportioned, dark of hair and bright of 
 eye. As she held Hildred's hand and murmured 
 words of conventional greeting, it seemed to the girl
 
 78 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 that to judge from the quickness of her darting glances 
 her mind must be sharp and poHshed as a needle. Her 
 conversation, however, but seldom indicated this : 
 Arabella Lebarte was wittier with her pen than with 
 her tongue. She could write an epigram where speech 
 would falter into muteness. 
 
 " Sit here in this chair near the window," she said, 
 " that is, if you're not afraid of draughts. You must 
 be tired after your walk from Whitecot. The weather 
 has turned surprisingly warm." 
 
 " I did not mind the walk in the least, thanks," 
 Hildred answered, sitting down in the indicated 
 chair. "I am rather fond of walking, and it's only 
 about a mile here, if as much." 
 
 " Your mother always says it is such a distance, 
 but then people who are used to cychng think a 
 half-mile walk a nuisance. Yet she thinks nothing of 
 tramping miles over the hnks. Aren't we strange 
 anomalies ? " 
 
 " We are," agreed Hildred. " The older one grows 
 the more one realises the queerness of human beings." 
 
 " The queerness of ourselves, I think," said Arab, 
 shrewdly. " But you're not old enough to have found 
 that out. We girls take a long time before we make 
 that discovery." 
 
 " I don't know," Hildred pondered in an odd Httle 
 grave way characteristic of her. " I think the more 
 we see of life the more we realise how ordinary we are. 
 We begin by thinking that we are abnormal beings, 
 unusually subtle and difficult to understand, but as we 
 gain experience we discover that we are very ordinary 
 and no more brilliant or interesting than anybody else.
 
 BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 79 
 
 Not half so much so, probably, but I don't think I've 
 quite reached that stage yet." 
 
 Arab darted one of her needle-hke glances at the girl. 
 
 " Now that's just the sort of thing Dr. Lisle would 
 say. Have you met Dr. Lisle ? " 
 
 " Not yet. I've only been here two days." 
 
 " Where have you been all the rest of the time ? " 
 
 " Abroad, finishing my education," replied Hildred 
 curtly. She shrank from being questioned, uncon- 
 scious of how much or how little these people knew of 
 the real circumstances of her life. 
 
 " Yes. I remember Mrs. Ivors said yesterday that 
 you had gone to Germany the year she came to live 
 here. What did you think of the Germans ? Fat, 
 beery, greedy creatures, aren't they ? " 
 
 Hildred smiled, relieved at the change of topic. 
 " Not all of them. And you've asked me a very large 
 question. I went to Germany rather full of prejudices, 
 but I found that I had to leave most of them behind 
 me. 
 
 " Had you really ? And the Itahans now ? Aren't 
 they greasy, treacherous creatures, and don't they fry 
 all their food in oil ? " 
 
 Hildred laughed outright. " They certainly fry 
 things in oil, but " 
 
 " Plow horrid ! I should hate to have everything 
 taste oily ! " 
 
 " But it doesn't " 
 
 " Oh, it must," said Arab, with the cahn superiority 
 of the untravelled. " Things fried in oil must taste 
 of oil." 
 
 " What about the French ? " Hildi-ed enquired.
 
 8o THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Horrid, finicky little mannikins ! I don't know 
 anything about them." 
 
 " It's good of you to admit it," said Hildred drily. 
 " Have you ever been abroad ? " 
 
 " Never, except once, a day-trip from Folkestone to 
 Boulogne. I never want to go again." 
 
 " Why ? " queried Hildred softly. 
 
 " I didn't enjoy it a bit. I couldn't make out one 
 word the people said, and they couldn't understand my 
 French. No, England is good enough for me." 
 
 " That is a typically English point of view," said 
 Hildred, feehng almost overwhelmingly cosmopolitan. 
 " You and my mother should have much in com- 
 mon." 
 
 " Yes, we agree thoroughly on that point," returned 
 Arab, with an emphasis which inferred non-agreement 
 on other subjects. " By the way, in the interest of 
 our conversation — and you can't imagine how nice 
 it is for me to have another girl to talk to — I forgot 
 to make my aunt's apologies to you. She was obliged 
 to go to the vicarage on business, something about 
 the design of the new church book-markers. She 
 hoped to be back quite soon, but has probably been 
 delayed." 
 
 Hildred's quick imagination pictured the scene : the 
 harrying of the vicar over the too Ritualistic tendency 
 in the design of the book-markers, the protest and 
 explanation thereof leading to further argument, in 
 the heat of which Miss Lebarte, senior, had probably 
 forgotten all about her expected guest. 
 
 " I hope your aunt will not hurry back on my 
 account," she said pohtely, " that is, unless I am taking
 
 BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 8i 
 
 up too much of your time. My mother tells me you 
 are very clever." 
 
 Arab blushed with pleasure. " Oh, that's only Mrs. 
 Ivors' joke. Sometimes she has rather a sardonic sense 
 
 of humour. Sardonic " She paused on the word. 
 
 " Excuse me for a moment. Sardonic. I must see 
 if that fits anywhere in my list." 
 
 She darted across the room to the bureau, avoiding 
 the tables and chairs with the skill of long practice, 
 and eagerly scanned the list of questions, the answer 
 to each of which should be a word ending in " ic." 
 She came back to her seat near Hildred, shp in hand, 
 shaking her head at the momentary disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 " I am sure you could help me," she said. " You 
 must know more words ending in * ic ' than I do." 
 
 " I'm convinced I don't," cried Hildred. " I can't 
 think of a single one this minute except stick, and you 
 don't want a k, do you ? " 
 
 Arab's dark brows almost met in a frown of 
 concentration. 
 
 " No, we mustn't have a k. Now what can this 
 possibly be — ' Circular yet devastating ' ? " She 
 repeated the words slowly, as if to lure the answer from 
 the phrase. " Circular yet devastating ! A saw is 
 all I can think of, which is absurd, and that ' yet ' 
 puzzles me." 
 
 " It's probably meant to," said Hildred, gazing at 
 a pot of Hly-of-the-valley which stood on a table near her 
 from which every waft passing through the open window 
 brought gusts of bewildering fragrance. She stooped 
 closer to breathe in its sweetness. " It's an intoxicat- 
 
 F
 
 82 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 ingly beautiful scent," she said. " Perhaps it will 
 inspire me." 
 
 She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. 
 " Circular yet devastating — Faint yet pursuing," she 
 murmured. " Ah, I have it ! Would cyclonic do ? " 
 
 " Cyclonic ? " With a colourable imitation of the 
 adjective Arab fled for the dictionary, returning with 
 triumphant mien. " Cyclone, a circular or rotatory 
 storm. Cyclonic, that must be it. Miss Ivors, I am 
 awfully obliged. I can't tell you how grateful I am." 
 Her whole air sparkled with delight. 
 
 " What is the prize ? " 
 
 " A hair-comb from the Parisian Diamond Com- 
 pany. Won't it be lovely for evening wear if I get 
 it?" 
 
 " Indeed it will," cried Hildred, fired with the con- 
 tagion of the other's enthusiasm. " Let me see the 
 list. How many words have you got ? Perhaps I 
 could help a little more. It's quite exciting." 
 
 " Are you sure you wouldn't like to enter yourself ? " 
 asked Arab, drawing back a little. 
 
 " Absolutely certain. I never won anything in my 
 life except the booby prize at a golf-croquet tourna- 
 ment at ho — at Wilmerhurst once." 
 
 Swift as the correction of the slip had been, Arab 
 noticed it, but it caused no wonder in her mind, for 
 she concluded that Wilmerhurst was where Mrs. Ivors 
 had lived before she came to Burnaby. She cherished 
 a friendly enmity for Hildred's mother, a feeling often 
 to be observed among the limited members of a small 
 social community, but the girl herself had lit in her 
 a spark of interest which might possibly develop into
 
 BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 83 
 
 a light of warm friendship. With a large flight of 
 imagination she annihilated the fifteen years' difference 
 in their ages, ignored the diversity between the outlook 
 of twenty and that of thirty-five, and was ready to 
 admit and admire the wider view of one who had 
 travelled in a large circle, in comparison with herself, 
 who had scarcely looked over the edges of her own 
 groove. 
 
 " Here is one which has puzzled me more than any," 
 she said, tapping her list suggestively. " I wonder if 
 you can make head or tail of it. " Derived from dog, 
 may bite as well as bark." 
 
 " Derived from dog, may bite as well as bark," 
 Hildred repeated. " My mind is a perfect blank. I 
 really am very stupid about such things. Is there no 
 one else whom you could ask ? Dr. Lisle, for instance. 
 Has he any talent in that direction ? " The girl thought 
 vaguely that perhaps an unexpected bond might lurk 
 in the pages of a mutual dictionary, 
 
 Arab flushed a slow red. " Oh, no. I couldn't 
 think of bothering Dr. Lisle. Besides he rather 
 laughs at my competitions, though he knows they are 
 all I have to keep my mind alive in this dull hole." 
 She spoke with sudden vehemence which almost 
 startled Hildred. 
 
 " There are different sorts of laughter," the girl 
 rejoined softly. " The laughter that mocks, the 
 laughter that hurts and the laughter that understands. 
 Probably his is the latter kind, the kind that no one 
 minds." 
 
 Arab's hard, bright face softened. " Now, how did 
 you think of that ? " she asked. " You are a clever
 
 84 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 little thing to hit on the explanation that would please 
 me most, and you must be a great deal older than you 
 look to be so wise." 
 
 " I am twenty." 
 
 " Yes, so your mother told us. Sweet and twenty," 
 added Arab on an unexpected impulse, leaning for- 
 ward and giving her a little peck on the cheek, which 
 so embarrassed the donor that she hastily returned to 
 her list with a little cough, as if of warning to take no 
 notice of the incident. 
 
 Hildred was amused, and at the same time a trifle 
 touched. The spectacle of a spirit peering out of the 
 limitations of its body was one to rouse sympathy 
 if not compassion. Still, the groove may lead to Heaven 
 as well as the wider road, and the rut merge into the 
 great Highway. Who can tell ? The outlook from a 
 peak may breed the pride of the eye, while the valley- 
 dweller has only to raise his to see the stars. 
 
 " Derived from dog " Arab murmured. " Ah, 
 
 here's auntie, at last ! " 
 
 She jumped up and ran to greet her aunt. All her 
 movements were quick and brisk, and accorded with 
 her alert glances. The elder Miss Lebarte was large 
 and imposing, with a fuller eye and a more commanding 
 nose than her niece could boast, and she sailed to greet 
 Hildred upon a wave of welcome. 
 
 " I hope Arab has made my apologies, my dear Miss 
 Ivors," she said benignly. " I could not help my 
 absence, for there was a little matter which positively 
 had to be seen to before next Sunday, and which would 
 brook no delay." 
 
 " I quite understood."
 
 BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 85 
 
 " And you two girls made friends meanwhile. It is 
 such a boon for Arab to have some one to talk to who is 
 nearer her age than I am, and I hope that you will come 
 to see her very often." 
 
 Hildred murmured thanks. Then she recollected 
 her mother's message and dehvered it. Arab's face 
 brightened, but fell, as Miss Lebarte rephed : 
 
 " Wednesday ? Many thanks, my dear, but it is 
 my Mothers' Meeting day, and I could not possibly go. 
 Mrs. Ivors must have forgotten — but there, she does 
 not take much interest in parochial matters. Her 
 tastes he in a different direction. However, I am sure 
 it will give Arab much pleasure to accept your kind 
 invitation." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, Auntie ! " cried Arab in such heart- 
 felt tones that Hildred wondered if it were possible that 
 auntly permission had to be granted for every outing 
 to a person who had surely reached years of discretion 
 long ago. 
 
 She could not know that Miss Lebarte considered 
 that no spinster (always excepting herself) ever 
 reached years of discretion. To the members of the 
 Honourable Estate alone (with the exception of those 
 mothers whom she weekly exhorted and instructed) 
 was freedom of action or initiative permitted, and they, 
 she reflected consohngly, possessed the wholesome 
 checking influences of husbands. 
 
 The bringing in of tea created a diversion, during 
 which Miss Lebarte questioned Hildred upon her 
 doings since her coming to Whitecot. \\lien she heard 
 of her gardening experiences she benignantly desired 
 to help.
 
 86 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Only for those dogs you could have a beautiful 
 herbaceous border," she exclaimed. " But of course 
 it is too late to start one now in any case. However, 
 in the autumn " 
 
 " I should like to experiment on some summer 
 flowers first," said Hildred, with her ready flush, a 
 blossom-like rosiness that came and went across the 
 fine whiteness of her skin with a distinctly attractive 
 effect. 
 
 " Auntie is a great gardener. She does all the 
 planning and arranging, and every one admires our 
 garden." 
 
 " And what do you do ? " 
 
 " Oh, just the planting, and tidying, and weeding." 
 
 " A fair division of labour for age and youth," said 
 Miss Lebarte with her commanding smile. With the 
 generosity of the true garden-lover she pressed plants 
 and cuttings on Hildred, and the girl went home with 
 hospitable invitations ringing in her ears and a great 
 basketful of green summer promises in her arms.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MAY DEW 
 
 " ¥"— ^ON'T forget that to-morrow is May Day, 
 I 1 and get up in proper time, and go out and 
 I ^ wash your face in the dew," said Katherine 
 late that night. 
 
 " What do you call proper time, three, four, five or 
 six ? " asked Hildi'ed. 
 
 " Go on with you ! " said Katherine, her grim face 
 relaxing into a smile. "Be off before the good has 
 been sucked out of it by the sun, for the first dew of the 
 mother of months will do your skin more good than all 
 the nostrums in the world." 
 
 " Why, Katherine, have you been reading Chaucer ? 
 * May, that mother is of monethes glad ' — " the girl 
 quoted softly. 
 
 " What Chaucer ? Never heard of him, except an 
 old shepherd at home that used to beat his wife every 
 Saturday night as regular as the calendar. You could 
 set your watch by her screams." 
 
 " Katherine ! " 
 
 " Well, that's all the Chaucer I ever knew, and she 
 used to scream before ever he laid a finger on her, 
 like a sensible woman. My old grandamc used to say 
 that May was the mother of months and May dew the 
 magic which made roses blossom on the young maids' 
 cheeks." 
 
 87
 
 88 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " That's as poetical as Chaucer." 
 
 " What poetical ! Poetry won't butter parsnips." 
 
 " I don't want it to." 
 
 " No, you're full of whimsies. That's why I reminded 
 you about the May dew. Where's your mamma ? " 
 
 " Asleep in her chair in the dining-room. She seems 
 tired. She lost her match, but they played another 
 round and won, and they stayed on playing until just 
 dinner-time." 
 
 " Tired, is she ? That's not like her. I hope she's 
 not ailing," cried Katherine, all gruff anxiety. " Til 
 go and wake her up, and make her a hot drink and send 
 her to her comfortable bed. Off with you, and if 
 you're not out by six I'll bring you up a cup of tea." 
 
 " Oh, don't bother about it," said Hildred, mounting 
 upwards, hearing as she went a sharp remonstrance 
 from her mother for Katherine's arousal of her. 
 
 She and Katherine had dug a bed for the little plants 
 which Miss Lebarte had given her, fencing it round 
 carefully with chcvaux de frise of sticks and wire to 
 prevent canine depredation. Katherine had also 
 bought her some mignonette and poppy-seed in the 
 village, and she fell asleep dreaming of the riot of 
 sweetness and colour which as yet lay hidden in the 
 tiny dry globules. *^ 
 
 The choir of birds awoke her early, to the magic 
 symphony of May, thrush and blackbird vieing in 
 golden solo, mellow note after note falling round 
 and lyric through the hushed air, a dew of sound, as 
 evanescent as beautiful. 
 
 The house was still in slumber. She rose softly, 
 dressed, and stole out into the sweet morning fragrance. 
 
 t.
 
 MAY DEW 89 
 
 A gap in the hedge behind the shrubbery led into the 
 field near the house. Hildred shpped through it 
 into a world of dew, whose crystal drops beaded heavily 
 each drooping blade of grass, and filmed gossamer- 
 thread and cobweb to a fairy silver. It was a green 
 May emerging from an early-springing April, a May 
 pausing on the threshold of her first morning in dryad 
 wonder. Overhead the beech-trees spread delicate 
 black branches thick with exquisite young leaves, as 
 light in frondage as giant maidenhair ferns : through 
 their thin translucence a sky of half-veiled blue peeped 
 tenderly. 
 
 Hildred went out into the grass, stooped and 
 gathered the dew in rosy palms, bathing her face again 
 and again in its fresh moisture. Never before had she 
 savoured a sensation so exquisite, so fresh, so pure. 
 She felt newly-created — a virgin Eve in the world's 
 first morning. She moved through the heavy grass 
 in ecstasy, not knowing whither she went, drawn to- 
 wards the open by spirals of song from mounting larks. 
 At her feet the daisies opened eyes of wonder, and the 
 buttercups hfted burnished golden chahces to the sun, 
 mounting, like the larks, to his appointed zenith ; 
 while in the hedges frail blue speedwells reflected the 
 deepening colour of the sky. 
 
 Another gap lured her un\vitting feet. She passed 
 through beneath the elms, whose shed blossom-discs 
 carpeted ground and bank with palest green, while 
 overhead their branches were as yet merely filmed with 
 tiny leaves, to find that the country dipped to a sudden 
 valley beneath her : — a wooded valley of oak and fir 
 and larch ; a wonderland of greens of every hue from
 
 90 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 the bluish depths of the fir through the young yellow 
 of the oak to the tasselled pride of the larch. 
 
 The undergrowth at the opposite side was a tangle of 
 brambles, whose light new trails rose triumphing above 
 the darker growths of last year ; the near side was 
 spread with the pale brown croziers which the ferns 
 hfted above the rust of their dead leaves, and emerald 
 patches of wood-anemones ; while on a slope towards 
 a trickling stream, a faint hyacinth mist presaged blue- 
 beUs. 
 
 Hildred ran towards them, her spirit dancing, her 
 heart singing : the youth of the year calling to the 
 youth in her found an echo invincible. The bubbling, 
 brown stream danced over sun-flecked stones, rippling 
 and laughing at the spring secrets it knew. Like the 
 trees that listen to immemorial lovers all Nature knows 
 but does not tell, save to those who have ears to hear 
 and eyes to see withal. 
 
 The bluebells were but a promise yet ; a full bell 
 emerging here and there from the clustered buds, drew 
 the threads of the amethyst-grey veil that soon would 
 turn to a magical mist of blue. 
 
 Hildred knelt, in spirit as well as body. The petty 
 annoyances and disappointments of daily life were for- 
 gotten, obliterated, swept aside like the cobwebs whose 
 delicate weft her careless feet had passed through in 
 their quest of May dew. The hours were winged. Time, 
 as divided into prosaic minutes, was not. It was a 
 moment of spiritual growth, lit by a far radiance of the 
 eternal. It was a thread of sudden gold woven into 
 the fabric of her life, unsought, its import unnoted in 
 its passing, but never to be set aside or forgotten.
 
 MAY DEW 91 
 
 The sound of a footstep on the upper path trampled 
 among her dreams and put them to flight. She rose 
 to the reluctant admission of others into this magic 
 morning world. A whistling accompaniment to the 
 heavy footfalls premised a ploughboy or a shepherd : 
 some country yokel whose dreams rose no higher than 
 bread and cheese and kisses. 
 
 Prose brushed aside the gossamer wings of fancy, and, 
 taking Hildred by the hand, led her back to Whitecot 
 through the dew-iield where now pastured an intrusive 
 flock of sheep and lambs, who had long since shaken the 
 dew-drops' stars of morning from their grassy heaven. 
 
 As Hildred slipped in through the gap she came 
 face to face with the httlc almond-tree, whose fortress 
 she and Katherine had so successfully assailed and 
 demoHshed. 
 
 " You are free, fairy princess among trees," she 
 murmured. " Oh, you exquisite thing, you are as 
 rosy as the sunrise on the snow mountains ! " 
 
 She stood rapt for another magic moment, so absorbed 
 that she neither heard the opening of the wicket nor 
 the sound of approaching footsteps until a voice spoke 
 behind her. 
 
 " If every common bush is afire with God, what then 
 is this ? " it asked softly. 
 
 The tone and words so fitted with her mood that it 
 was scarcely with surprise that she turned to find a man 
 at her elbow, a httle brown, wiry man with eyes of that 
 surprising forget-me-not blue which is so rarely seen 
 outside the fields of childhood. 
 
 " But only he who sees takes off his shoes," she 
 finished the quotation gi-avely.
 
 92 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Apropos of which," said the little man, glancing 
 downwards with a change of manner, " your own shoes 
 are as wet as if you had been walking through a river. 
 You ought to go in and change them at once, I am a 
 doctor — Dr. Lisle — so I speak with authority." 
 
 Hildred laughed : she felt an instant sympathy 
 with this little man of Protean changes of mood, none 
 of which, she felt with sudden intuition, would ever jar 
 or wound. 
 
 " The wet hasn't penetrated yet, though you brought 
 me back to earth with a bump ! I've been to church 
 in a wood where the bluebells rang the chimes." 
 
 " You've been washing your face in the May dew." 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " By the result, of course. But, pardon my curi- 
 osity, are you an expert exponent of the mango 
 trick ? " 
 
 " The mango trick ? " Hildred looked puzzled. 
 
 He waved his hand towards the almond-tree. " I 
 have come here at all times and all seasons within the 
 last three years, and never have I beheld that slip of 
 enchantment before. Did you evolve it out of the 
 bare earth ? You couldn't have planted it there in 
 full blossom." 
 
 Hildred smiled again, her varying flush fleeting like 
 cloud-shadows across her cheeks. " It was always 
 there," she answered. " But it was hidden behind a 
 bay-tree which was more than half dead. Katherine 
 and I cut it down and released the prisoner," 
 
 " It was always there, but it took you to show it to 
 us," he repeated softly. " A very pretty morning's 
 work, upon my word, very pretty. Now go in and
 
 MAY DEW 93 
 
 change your shoes and tell your mother — for I pre- 
 sume you are Miss Ivors — that Dr. Lisle would like 
 to see her for a moment." 
 
 " If she's visible." 
 
 " She's sure to be visible. Mrs. Ivors is one of the 
 early birds." 
 
 " But what o'clock is it ? " asked Hildred. 
 
 " After eight." 
 
 " And I've been out since five ! " 
 
 " You must be hungry," remarked Dr. Lisle, with 
 a dry smile. " May dew and bluebell music make 
 somewhat unsubstantial fare." 
 
 " Hallo, that you ? I heard voices and wondered 
 who it could be at this unearthly hour 1 " Mrs. Ivors 
 emerged from the house with a golf-club under her 
 arm, and sauntered towards them. " Now, don't 
 say you've come to tell me that foursome's off, doctor." 
 
 " I'm afraid I have. I've got to go to Mudford 
 by the 9.20, for a consultation." 
 
 Mrs. Ivors' face fell. " Well, you needn't look so 
 radiant over it. I wouldn't have let you in for such a 
 hcking as we got yesterday. Something tells me I'm 
 in form to-day." 
 
 " All good luck go with you, then. You'll easily 
 get another man." 
 
 " One would think you liked going to Mudford ; 
 dirty httle hole." 
 
 " It means work, my good madam," answered the 
 doctor, with a light in his blue eyes, " and though you 
 won't agree with me, work is a hundred times better 
 than play." 
 
 " That's just one of your platitudes," snapped Mrs.
 
 94 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Ivors. " But where did you two pick each other 
 up?" 
 
 " I saw Miss Ivors dry ad- worshipping. She was 
 adoring the nymph of the almond-tree, so I went and 
 joined her." 
 
 " The nymph of the almond-tree ? What rot you 
 talk ! Oh, that wretched little bush ? I see. The 
 cult of the beautiful in full swing." Her lip curled 
 disagreeably. She turned to the house, shattering 
 the last fragments of the morning's magic. 
 
 Then she swung back again, her face a little clearer. 
 " Won't you breakfast with us, doctor ? Do. I hear 
 and smell bacon frying in the kitchen. Hildred, tell 
 Katherine that Dr. Lisle will be here for breakfast, 
 and don't be long." 
 
 " I must change my shoes and skirt," said Hildred, 
 "but please don't wait for me." 
 
 " Why ? What have you been doing ? " 
 
 " Something silly, as usual," blushed Hildred. 
 " Scold Katherine if you like. It was she who put 
 me up to it." 
 
 She disappeared into the house, her pulses beating 
 with a pleasurable sense of excitement, and entered the 
 dining-room, fresh and fair in a pale pink cotton frock 
 just as Mrs. Ivors began to pour out the tea. 
 
 " I hear that you are not a golfer, Miss Ivors," 
 said Dr. Lisle. " We must banish golf from our 
 conversation." 
 
 " Please don't on my account." 
 
 " Wouldn't you think it rather rude if Mrs. Ivors 
 and I began to talk Dutch, knowing that you didn't 
 understand a word of the language ? "
 
 MAY DEW 95 
 
 " It's an apt analogy," laughed Hildred. " But 
 what shall we substitute, the weather or the country ? 
 Both are exquisite at present." 
 
 " The country for choice. The beeches are at their 
 lovehest now." 
 
 " Yes, but they thicken and darken in a few days," 
 said Mrs. Ivors, " and lose their bloom even quicker 
 than a young girl." 
 
 Hildred glanced at her mother, wondering if a 
 snub were intended, but Mrs, Ivors' face was 
 impassive. 
 
 " What a pity that young things must grow up ! " 
 Hildred exclaimed. " I passed through a field of 
 sheep and lambs this morning, and the lambs were so 
 pretty with the light shining pinkly through their 
 ears, while the sheep looked so ugly with their weight of 
 wool and their bare faces looking exactly as if they 
 had screwed all their hair tightly back." 
 
 Dr. Lisle laughed. " Yes, young things are poig- 
 nantly pretty," he said. 
 
 " Not young birds," put in Mrs. Ivor quickly. 
 " Most young birds are perfectly hideous. Young 
 swallows are exactly like two woodlice joined together, 
 and their ugly fluff — ugh ! " 
 
 " I think I like young things because they are 
 little and helpless," said Hildred softly. 
 
 " I don't," answered Mrs. Ivors shortly. " But 
 then I fear I haven't got what you call the maternal 
 instinct." 
 
 It was an odd speech for a mother to make before 
 her only child. Dr. Lisle looked from Mrs. Ivors, 
 hard, spare, and muscular, to Hildred's soft curves
 
 96 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 and pliant lines, and thought that the maid suggested 
 more of the derided instinct than the matron. The 
 situation piqued and puzzled him, but he was used 
 to the facing of problems in his professional life, which 
 had taught him many things — noticeably the useful 
 lesson of knowing when to interfere and when to 
 stand aside. 
 
 " There's a great deal too much sentimentality in 
 the world," said Mrs. Ivors, helping herself to toast, 
 and crunching it determinedly. " I bar sentiment, I 
 must sa}'." 
 
 " Who sat up all night with a sick dog ? " asked 
 Dr. Lisle of no one in particular. 
 
 " Pish ! My dear man, that was humanity, not senti- 
 ment. You should choose your words better." She 
 smiled until her lips drew into a thin hne. " In my early 
 days I had much instruction upon the nice discrimina- 
 tion of words, the selection, the meaning, the shades 
 of meaning, the beauty of the ring of the right word 
 in prose or poetry ! " 
 
 Hildred had again the hurt sensation of quotation 
 marks : she knew too well whose phrases were being 
 hurled at her like javelins. 
 
 " Poetry I bar at all costs ! Oh, Lord, what a 
 relief it was to drop into slang again ! " She leaned 
 back in her chair and laughed, but it was a laughter 
 that sounded like the clash of steel, very different from 
 the bubbling spring of mirth which had concentrated 
 her senses into the one tense effort of hearing only 
 yesterday. 
 
 There was a pause — a weighted, sharp-edged pause. 
 Then Hildred, with a voice which trembled a Httle
 
 MAY DEW 97 
 
 despite a valiant effort at self-control, turned to Dr. 
 Lisle, and said : 
 
 " Apropos of words, do you know any one ending 
 in ' ic ' which is derived from dog ? " 
 
 It was rather a surprising question in the circum- 
 stances, but Dr. Lisle, turning on the girl blue eyes full 
 of admiration for her adroitness, rose to the occasion 
 and answered almost without thought : 
 
 " Cynic. Yes, from the Greek, ^•tfa)v, Kuv5i, a 
 dog." 
 
 " Ah, that must be it," cried Hildred, in quick relief. 
 " I must tell Miss Arabella Lebarte. She will be so 
 pleased." 
 
 " One of Miss Arab's competitions." Dr. Lisle 
 laughed softly. " Well, they give her an interest, a 
 mental interest I mean, in a place where there are very 
 few to be had." 
 
 Hildred smiled in response : it was another bond. 
 He understood, and before she had even seen him she 
 had known he would. 
 
 " Rubbish," said Mrs. Ivors. " She has her garden 
 and her aunt and the parish and the Standish Tennis 
 Club in summer. I call that plenty of interest for a 
 single woman." 
 
 " Come now, Mrs. Ivors, you know you like your 
 paper as well as any one, and can appreciate a good 
 leading article with the best." 
 
 " The sporting news is all that interests me," 
 answered Mrs. Ivors perversely. " That is when it 
 doesn't involve killing things unnecessarily. I don't 
 want to be inhospitable, but you'll miss your train 
 if you don't go now, my good man." 
 Q
 
 98 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Dr. Lisle rose. Mrs. Ivors buttonholed him as one 
 man would another. 
 
 " Don't forget, consultation or no consultation, 
 that you've promised to come here for tennis on 
 Wednesday." 
 
 " I won't forget. No fear of that." 
 
 " And would you tell Miss Arab about cynic your- 
 self ? " Hildred suggested, as he held her hand for a 
 moment. " That is, if it isn't out of your way. I'm 
 rather hazy about the lie of the land as yet." 
 
 " I'll call at Hillside on my way back to-night," 
 he promised. " Meanwhile I hope you won't forget 
 how to do the mango trick." 
 
 Hildred laughed. She reminded Dr. Lisle of the 
 almond-tree as she stood there, a young blossom of 
 womanhood in her pink gown. 
 
 " What does he mean ? " asked Mrs. Ivors, when he 
 had gone. 
 
 " It was only a joke," Hildred explained flatly. 
 " He pretended to think that I put the almond-tree 
 there myself. That was all." 
 
 " Nonsense enough," exclaimed Mrs. Ivors, but her 
 tone had lost its edge. 
 
 She got up to collect her golf-clubs, and in passing 
 pinched Hildred's cheek, leaving her agasp at this caress 
 in the rough. 
 
 " What a soft little pussy-thing it is ! " she said, 
 as she turned, whistling tunelessly, to get her bicycle.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE TENNIS PARTY 
 
 BY the time that Wednesday broke cloudlessly 
 into a day of perfect summer, still freshly 
 tinged with Spring, Hildred had settled into 
 the Whitecot routine, adapted her lines 
 to its hnes, her curves to its irregularities. It 
 seemed to her somewhat strange that she should 
 have fitted so easily and so quickly into what was 
 in a sense such an ahen environment, but the three 
 years of travel in different countries had rendered her 
 more adaptable to her surroundings than if she had 
 lived the ordinary life of an ordinary EngHsh girl. 
 Not that such apparent plasticity implied weakness 
 of character ; the chameleon, though he may vary 
 his hue according to circumstances, still remains a 
 chameleon. 
 
 Katherine's crusty warmth cheered and amused her, 
 while she felt instinctively that Mrs. Ivors' sudden 
 onslaughts of hostihty were directed more towards her 
 father in her than towards her own personahty. She 
 felt outbursts of sympathy for and with the absent, 
 even while her spirits rose in response to some unex- 
 pected tinge of approval from the present parent. She 
 did not try to analyse the situation ; with the healthy 
 optimism of youth she accepted the daily round as it 
 
 99
 
 100 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 came, and gazed into no imaginative crystal for future 
 revelation. 
 
 After breakfast she paused at the drawing-room door. 
 
 " I was thinking of bringing in some flowers and 
 branches to give this place a more lived-in look, if I 
 may," she said tentatively. 
 
 " Certainly not," declared Mrs. Ivors. " I see no 
 sense in making any place look Hke a Jack-in-the-green. 
 The whole room is a concession to Katherine and con- 
 ventionality. She insisted that I should have a 
 drawing-room, though I never use it." 
 
 " What about tea ? " 
 
 " We'll have tea out of doors in the little summer- 
 house, so you can save yourself the trouble of making 
 the room look beautiful." 
 
 " I couldn't do that in its present condition. The 
 best I could do would be to make it look pretty." 
 
 " There you go ! Pretty and beautiful ! What's 
 the difference ! " 
 
 " All the difference in the world," cried Hildred, 
 pricked to an undesired discussion. 
 
 " Pray enlighten my ignorance," Mrs. Ivors leaned 
 against the hall table as she ht a cigarette, and prepared 
 to listen. It almost seemed as if she probed deliber- 
 ately for the artist in Hildred, and as if the result hurt 
 her more than it did the girl. 
 
 Hildred was roused to defend her young absorbed 
 opinions : her worship of the beautiful was almost a 
 religion with her. 
 
 " Ruskin says," she began. 
 
 " Oh, tell me in your own words. Don't fling 
 Ruskin at me."
 
 THE TENNIS PARTY loi 
 
 " My own words will be only an echo of his — that 
 if a thing has once been really beautiful, any fragment 
 of it which remains will still be beautiful, for instance 
 the mutilated but lovely Dancing Maenad in Berlin, 
 or the portion of the foot of the Venus de Milo." She 
 would not mention her beloved winged Victory. 
 
 "I've been kicked with that foot before," said Mrs. 
 Ivors drily. " Go on." 
 
 " On the other hand if you found a bit of a modern 
 Dresden-china figure you would not know if it had 
 even been pretty or not." 
 
 " Useless trash the whole lot," said Mrs. Ivors, 
 blowing smoke-rings. " What's the good of prettiness 
 after all ? Pretty girls quickly change into plain elderly 
 women. You'd never believe that I had been pretty 
 once, would you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I would. Why not ? I saw you look twenty 
 once." 
 
 " You saw me look twenty ? May I ask when ? " 
 
 " I think it was the day I came. I said some- 
 thing which piqued you, and you sparkled up and 
 looked as you must have looked then." 
 
 " Did I ? Well, I had my hour, I suppose, hke most 
 girls, and much good it did me. You are a queer child, 
 Hildred. Now I must go and mark the tennis-ground." 
 
 " Can I help ? " 
 
 " No. You'd probably spill the stuff all over the 
 court. Perhaps Katherine will have something for 
 you to do, but mind, I won't have any flowers on the 
 tea-table. Some one is bound to knock 'em over if 
 you put 'em there, and make what Katherine calls a 
 splothcr."
 
 102 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Very well," answered Hildred with a mock meek- 
 ness which her dancing eyes belied. 
 
 She went to help Katherine, while Mrs. Ivors set 
 about her self-appointed task with all the careless 
 energy which characterised her undertakings. Al- 
 though the old markings loomed white enough to guide 
 her to accuracy she drove the machine with a Jehu-hke 
 recklessness which caused the lines to waver erratically 
 here and there, noting sudden dashes with a splash of 
 thickening and diminishing to an accurate illustration 
 of Euchd's definition of a line when the machine began 
 to require replenishing. 
 
 She was hot and exhausted by the time the court 
 was marked, and she sat on the floor of the summer- 
 house, with Tartar sprawling across her lap, to cool 
 herself. Thoughts circled through her mind with 
 such intensity that she let her cigarette go out. It 
 was not often that she allowed herself time to think ; 
 the process was, to her, neither exhilarating nor amus- 
 ing. At last, shaking Tartar off her lap with a sigh, 
 she rose and went to the house to fetch a ball and 
 club and practice putting on the tennis-ground. 
 
 " It's the very deuce to be idle," she said, ruefully. 
 " If Dr. Lisle had said that any occupation was better 
 than idleness I'd have agreed with him in toto. Was 
 Hildred dabbling her fingers in the pie matrimonial, I 
 wonder ? I hope she's not going to develop into that 
 sort of woman. There ought to be a clause in the 
 Litany — ' From all match-making women, Good Lord 
 deliver us ! ' If I had been taught that prayer in my 
 youth I mightn't have made such a mess of my life." 
 
 She putted with such unexpected force that the ball
 
 THE TENNIS PARTY 103 
 
 dashed across the path and disappeared into a cabbage- 
 patch, in which, probably, her guests would spend a 
 goodly portion of their afternoon hunting for vanished 
 tennis-balls. 
 
 Hildred looked forward to the advent of the Wave- 
 neys with mingled feelings, and an irresolution as 
 regarded her own demeanour towards them. Should 
 she cover Lady Waveney with confusion by reminding 
 her of their former encounter ? No, that would hurt 
 too dreadfulh' ; it would make the delinquent ashamed 
 and miserable from the outset, and after all, she was 
 her mother's guest. It was better to ignore the whole 
 affair : not to intimate by so much as the flutter of 
 an eyelash, unless she were forced to the acknowledg- 
 ment, that she had ever seen the Waveneys before. 
 And yet, they deserved to be taught a lesson. It was 
 very ill-bred of them to discuss a relation so openly 
 in the presence of a third and unknown person. 
 
 So swung the see-saw of Hildred's impulses, so 
 wavered the decision of the thumbs : whether the 
 errant lady was to be cast to the hons of remorse, or 
 rescued to a grateful recognition of tactful disregard. 
 
 The prospect of immediate gaiety, however slight, 
 also stirred the girl to a sense of quickened life, and it 
 was with a pleasant tingle of excitement that she 
 dressed for the tennis-party. Katherine had been most 
 particular and hard to please about her toilette ; had 
 rejected frock after frock of her summer outfit with 
 uplifted nose of scorn. 
 
 At last she made a definite suggestion.
 
 104 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " I'd like to see you in white," she said, " Hke you 
 used to be when you was httle." 
 
 " This is the best white for tennis," answered Hildred, 
 picking out of the heap which bestreewd her bed a 
 simple, soft white lawn, hand-embroidere d with delicate 
 stitchery. 
 
 " Yes, I suppose that'll do," said Katherine grudging- 
 ly. " It looks good for all it's so plain." 
 
 " It is good, you old goose ! Wait till you see it 
 on." 
 
 So when she was arrayed in her first summer white- 
 ness she went down to the kitchen to undergo Kather- 
 ine's inspection, and emerge with credit, if possible, 
 from the fire of those critical eyes. 
 
 Katherine took in every detail, from the broad white 
 hat with its simple curves and band of black velvet 
 to the silk-clocked stockings and white shoes. 
 
 " H'm. You'll do," she grunted. 
 
 Hildred pirouetted with delight. At that moment 
 even the great Fadette's approval would have given 
 her less pleasure than Katherine 's grudging comment. 
 
 " There's one thing wanting, though. You needn't 
 look so glum. Knowing the fancy you have for all 
 them silly things I picked 'em this morning for you 
 before the sun got too hot." Katherine produced 
 from behind a plate on the dresser (where they had 
 been carefully hidden from Hildred's eyes all the 
 morning) a cluster of pale pink roses, half-blown, half- 
 bud, exquisite and fragrant. 
 
 " There, in your belt. That's the place for 'em." 
 
 Hildred kissed the blossoms before she tucked them 
 into her belt.
 
 THE TENNIS PARTY 105 
 
 " Katherine, you're a fairy godmother in disguise ! " 
 she cried. 
 
 " What disguise ? Aren't I a fairy right enough with- 
 out any disguises at all ? " Katherine gave her grim 
 chuckle. " Go along with j^ou now out of my kitchen 
 and give a busy woman time to breathe before them 
 cormorants come pouncing down on us for their 
 tea." 
 
 Hildred flitted out into the hall, half-excited, half- 
 shy, at the thought of meeting her mother's friends. 
 The sound of approaching voices stilled her dancing 
 steps. She stopped, with a wild impulse of flight which 
 might have sped her to her room if Mrs. Ivors had not 
 caught sight of her through the open door. 
 
 " Ah, Hildred, there you are. Come and be intro- 
 duced to my cousins and yours." Unwonted gracious- 
 ness savoured Mrs. Ivors' tones. She put out a hand 
 to the girl to draw her nearer. 
 
 Hildred went forward with concealed reluctance. 
 The dreaded moment had arrived : were the thumbs 
 to go up or down ? 
 
 The introduction was effected. Lady Waveney 
 shook her hand and said : " Glad to meet you." 
 
 Sir John exclaimed in what Hildred called his 
 " turnipy way," 
 
 " So this is your daughter, Harry ? I thought she 
 was a little girl from your description, and here 3'ou 
 are springin' a young lady on us, eh ? Up to your 
 tricks as usual, Harry. Never knew such a sport ! " 
 
 Both kindly country faces regarded the girl with 
 interest, but to her relief, and perhaps a shade of chag- 
 rin, nothing more. There was no recognition in either
 
 io6 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 pair of eyes : no consciousness of ever having beheld 
 " Harry's " daughter before. There had been no need for 
 apprehension after all, no call upon her inner resources, 
 no necessity for thumb-gymnastics, or tactful ignor- 
 ings. With her ready blush, Hildred rephed to the 
 kindly greetings, feeling not unlike a pricked balloon. 
 She did not realise that there was nothing essentially 
 French about her appearance to-day, that in the white 
 simplicity of her array, except for an unusual daintiness 
 of detail and carefulness of hair-dressing, she closely 
 resembled the average fresh, wholesome-looking Eng- 
 lish girl, ^\^lite muslin and pink roses ? What could 
 be more typical ? It would have needed a subtler 
 observer than Lady Waveney to detect the tell-tale 
 nuances of style. 
 
 " Fresh from the Continent and not a golfer ? " she 
 was saying. " What a mercy you play tennis ! You 
 must join the Standish tennis-club. It's quite a nice 
 one. And we often play at Standish Court, too. You 
 must come over some day." 
 
 " That would be very nice," answered Hildred flatly, 
 noting the unconscious change of tone which always 
 followed the discovery of her non-existence as a golfer. 
 It amused her, and she laughed suddenly. It was a 
 pleasant rippling sound, but Lady Waveney regarded 
 her oddly. To laugh without a cause betokened an 
 ill-balanced mind. 
 
 " Eccentric, like her poor father, I suppose," she 
 commented mentally. " When Harry vaguely hinted 
 at eccentricity I knew she meant madness. I wonder 
 if he's shut up anywhere, or if his is only the harmless 
 madness of all artistic people. One can't very well
 
 THE TENNIS PARTY 107 
 
 mention the subject to Harry. Have 3^ou seen your 
 father lately ? "she suddenly shot at Hildred. 
 
 " I am going to spend next winter \vith him in 
 Egypt," Hildred replied, startled into a statement. 
 
 " Oh. That will be quite nice. At least for those 
 who care for travelhng, as I presume you do." She 
 talked down to Hildred, as if the imphcation included 
 her own personal superiority to such desires. " I 
 don't. My husband persuaded me to go to Paris for 
 my honeymoon, but I was afraid to eat anything but 
 ham there for fear I should get frogs or snails ! Ugh ! 
 Such an idea ! No, England's good enough for me." 
 
 Hildi'ed laughed again. She wondered if the phrase 
 crystallised the great article of Faith in this neighbour- 
 hood, and how many more times she should hear it 
 before she left Burnaby. 
 
 Mrs. Ivors was talking to Sir John, and Hildred 
 caught snatches of the conversation. It was about 
 dogs and their pedigrees. 
 
 " This chap of yours," she heard him say as he 
 playfully buffeted Tartar, " is a horrid mongrel, 
 Harry." 
 
 " I know he is, but he's affectionate and very faith- 
 ful." 
 
 " Yes, that's the only virtue mongrels have, the 
 brutes." 
 
 " A pity it isn't contagious," said Hildred. " I 
 don't think human mongrels have it." 
 
 " Come, come," said Sir John, " that's a cuttin' 
 remark from a young lady hke you." 
 
 " Is it ? " asked Hildred, opening innocent eyes. 
 " I didn't mean it that way."
 
 io8 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 The wicket-gate opened to ad»nit Miss Arabella 
 Lebarte and Dr. Lisle. 
 
 " Derived from dog," Hildred murmured. " Excuse 
 me, I must go to meet Miss Lebarte." 
 
 With a sense of relief she flew off round the curve of 
 the little drive, leaving Lady Waveney once and for 
 all confirmed in her belief in the girl's eccentricity. 
 
 " Well, have you got the prize ? " she cried as she 
 caught Arab Lebarte by the hand and smiled up at 
 her. 
 
 " My dear girl, the result won't be out for a fort- 
 night." 
 
 Hildred's face fell. " How horribly slow ! I thought 
 they would have told you at once." 
 
 " Competitions teach you patience, if nothing else," 
 said Arab with a resigned smile. 
 
 " And in a desert island like this," put in Dr. Lisle, 
 " you've got to be thankful for a fortnightly post." 
 
 " A desert island. Dr. Lisle ! Come now, that's a 
 little too bad," said Miss Arab archly. 
 
 " Well, I withdraw desert, then. That's the worst 
 of talking to you clever people. You are always so 
 keen on accuracy. Now, if I wanted to express the 
 essence of solitude by saying that I was alone in a crowd, 
 you would tell me that it was not solitude really, because 
 I was surrounded by people." 
 
 " I certainly should. How well you understand me, 
 Dr. Lisle." 
 
 Hildred looked at her with a swift pity. She wore 
 a mauve linen gown which seemed to accentuate her 
 hard brightness, and she swung her racquet restlessly 
 to and fro as she spoke.
 
 THE TENNIS PARTY 109 
 
 " But only those who see take off their shoes," the 
 girl quoted softly. 
 
 " Yes, and the bare-foot craze hasn't yet reached 
 Bumaby," answered Dr. Lisle in the same tone. 
 
 " Now if you two are going to cap quotations I'm 
 off ! I only know the usual old tags, and can't even 
 quote those correctly." Arab felt a sense of emancipa- 
 tion to-day which tinged her with renewed vivacity. 
 She had met Dr. Lisle at the gate, and had had a 
 friendly verbal tussle as to whether she should carry 
 her own racquet or not, in which she, being but a foolish 
 virgin, won. 
 
 Hildred responded to the atmosphere of youth, or 
 approximate youth exhaled by the two. There was 
 a soft pleasure in the certainty of comprehension by 
 the one, and a cheery knowledge of appreciated com- 
 panionship in the other. 
 
 They followed Mrs. Ivors and the Waveneys round 
 the house and through the kitchen-garden to the 
 tennis-ground. 
 
 " You two girls are to play with the men first," said 
 Mrs. Ivors, " and Laura and I will look on. Then we 
 shall have our usual foursome." 
 
 Hildred fell to the lot of Sir John, whose figure 
 owned a shade too much profile to permit him to be 
 a really active tennis-player. He thought it part of 
 his duty to keep up a running fire of chaffing com- 
 ments on every stroke, to which Hildred, unused to 
 such give and take, responded but briefly. As he 
 confided to his wife afterwards : 
 
 " I couldn't get a word out of that girl of Harry's. 
 Nothin' in her, nothin' at all. She's a pretty little
 
 no THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 thing enough — " (Hildred considered herself tall, 
 but it was Sir John's way to speak of all girls as little 
 unless they were positive giantesses !) — " but if she 
 has only her smile and complexion to go on they won't 
 carry her far. No sense of humour either — can't see 
 a joke that even a baby would laugh at. Doesn't 
 take after old Harry in any way. Suppose she's dull 
 like the painter chap, eh ? " 
 
 But to Mrs. Ivors' carefully-concealed pride Hildred 
 played what Sir John called " a rippin' game of tennis," 
 a game which should go far towards atoning for her 
 golfing deficiencies in a family of games enthusiasts. 
 
 Sir John was a little hot and begged for a moment's 
 grace before a fresh game was started. Mrs. Ivors, 
 whose energy required outlet, began to practise serving 
 to Dr. Lisle. 
 
 " Lisle' s an active httle chap," said Sir John, mop- 
 ping his forehead. " Ought to be with that figure." 
 
 " Rather like a monkey, don't you think ? " put in 
 Lady Waveney. 
 
 " No, I don't," rephed Hildred, to whom the remark 
 was addressed, hating the discussion. " There's nothing 
 in the least like a monkey about him, except perhaps 
 his eyes." 
 
 " His light blue eyes ? I never saw a monkey with 
 blue eyes," ejaculated Lady Waveney, while Arab, 
 mute, plucked tufts of grass from the bank on which 
 they sat. 
 
 " Not the colour, the expression." Hildred felt 
 impelled to elucidate her thought. " A monkey's eyes 
 have always a wistful, half-human expression in them, 
 and Dr. Lisle's eyes, to carry out the analogy on a
 
 THE TENNIS PARTY iii 
 
 higher plane, have always a wistful, half-spiritual 
 expression," 
 
 " Has any one a dictionary ? " asked Sir John, 
 humorously, " I haven't heard so many long words 
 since I was a schoolboy." He still tried to chaff 
 Harry's little girl : he had a tenacious mind and one 
 of his fixed beliefs was that all " young 'uns " as he 
 called them, hked chaff. 
 
 Hildred reddened. She had stupidly drawn aside 
 a corner of her veil of reticence and their coarse fingers 
 had torn it. 
 
 " Come on. Jack. You must be cool enough now," 
 said his wife. " I'm getting cramped from sitting still 
 so long." 
 
 When they were out of hearing Hildred turned on a 
 wave of indignation to Arab, sure of sympathy. 
 
 " Oh, these people with their inert minds and their 
 restless bodies ! " she cried. " I can't bear them, can 
 you ? " 
 
 " Oh. well, the Waveneys are really very nice," 
 murmured Arab. " They give delightful tennis- 
 parties, and Standish Court is a lovely old place." 
 
 To speak disparagingly of the Waveneys implied 
 more courage than Arabella Lebarte possessed. The 
 Waveneys were — well, the Waveneys, and Standish 
 Court was — Standish Court. There was nothing 
 within a fifteen-mile radius to compare with them, 
 and, if there had been, comparisons in such a case 
 would have been more than odious ; they would have 
 been almost sacrilegious. 
 
 Hildred, of course, could not understand ; she was 
 imbued with queer foreign notions : she had been
 
 112 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 brought up outside the pale of the Waveney tradition, 
 the centuries-old tradition of race. There had always 
 been a Sir John Waveney since Norman William, and 
 in the Domesday-Book 
 
 No, Hildred could not reahse the daring even of 
 Arab's qualified statement as regarded the Waveneys' 
 niceness. Had it not been for the monkey-comparison 
 she would have fluttered the Waveney banner in the 
 face of all comers. 
 
 " I'm sorry," said Hildred, cooling as quickly as she 
 had warmed, and withdrawing once more into her 
 shell. " Of course, that's all that matters — in the 
 country."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE CAGE OF DREAMS 
 
 SO Hildred slid into her groove and the summer 
 became a certainty of warm days and star- 
 jewelled nights, chequered occasionally by brief 
 thunderstorms, and the benediction of the rain. 
 
 Mrs. Ivors took her to the Standish Tennis Club, 
 where she became popular in her quiet way — friendly 
 to all, yet in the inner sense of the word friends with 
 none, except Arab Lebarte and Dr. Lisle. 
 
 Standish Court with its immemorial elms, its carp- 
 pond, and its yew-garden delighted her, but to study 
 its treasures and play with her small cousins pleased 
 her better than to spend much time in the society of 
 their parents. 
 
 She went for walks with the dogs, she helped Kather- 
 ine when permitted, and she made a real and beautiful 
 httle bit of garden fur the joy of her soul. The larch- 
 wood was her favourite retreat ; she often sat among 
 their shm pillared stems which rose straight and tall 
 above a miniature forest of ferns. 
 
 Still — " Time glides by and we grow old with the 
 silent years ; and the days flee away and are restrained 
 by no rein." Summer had merged into September 
 almost before Hildred was aware, and the thought of 
 impending departure filled her with a vague uneasiness 
 H 113
 
 114 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 and a sense of unrest. She had grown used to the 
 quiet monotony of her days, the Httle joys, the Httle 
 interests, the passing amusements, the stimulating 
 encounters with her mother, whose habit of mind, 
 hke flint on flint, always struck sparks from her own. 
 
 On a golden September day Hildred, basket in 
 hand, set off to ask Arab Lebarte to come black- 
 berr^'ing with her. 
 
 She found her in the garden bending over a long 
 bed, a third of which showed brown earth free from 
 weeds about the flower-roots while the remainder 
 bore a suspiciously weedlike greenness. At the back 
 of the bed tall Michaelmas daisies raised masses of 
 white and purple bloom, which in their sturdy autumnal 
 flowering reminded Hildred a little of Arab herself. 
 
 She lifted a hot tired face to the girl. 
 
 " No, Hildred, I can't come blackberrying, much as 
 I should like it." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 Arab waved an earthy glove towards the flower-bed. 
 " Auntie says this must be done before she comes 
 back, and as you see it's not half finished yet." 
 
 " What a task-mistress ! Can't you rebel ? " 
 
 Arab straightened herself wearily. " You don't 
 understand. Let's sit down on the seat under the 
 apple-tree for a minute. It's nice to rest for a bit." 
 
 " I understand that Miss Lebarte exacts a good 
 deal from ^''ou." 
 
 " Oh, no, no. You mustn't say that. Auntie is 
 goodness itself. She has been a mother to me since 
 poor mamma died, and I never could do enough for 
 her."
 
 THE CAGE OF DREAMS 115 
 
 " It shouldn't be all giving and all taking," said 
 Hildred hotly, remembering her mother's dictum. 
 " That's rather a one-sided arrangement." 
 
 " You're quite wrong," said Arab, reddening furi- 
 ously. " If there is any taking it's on my side. Poor 
 papa died without leaving a penny, and of course as 
 clergymen always marry paupers, poor mamma hadn't 
 a farthing, so except for the few shillings I make by 
 my competitions I am dependent on auntie for every- 
 thing, everything. Only for her I should be one of the 
 miserable incapables who drudge along as nursery 
 governesses or mother's helps, for I was trained for 
 nothing and hadn't much education anyhow. Mar- 
 riage was the only career open to me, and except in 
 penny novelettes people don't wish to marry pauper 
 orphans ! " 
 
 Hildred was mute, shocked to silence by the sudden 
 pitiful outburst. She had no words, but she squeezed 
 the earthy gloved hands which lay on Arab's lap. 
 
 " I should have loved a home of my own," Arab 
 continued, words tumbling out through the seldom- 
 opened floodgates. " Good and kind as auntie is, 
 it's not the same. A home which I could have made 
 pretty, which I could have ordered well, and where I 
 could have tried all sorts of experiments ; where I had 
 some independence, where there was no necessity to 
 give an account of my comings and goings, and an 
 accurate description of all my movements, except 
 when I cared to, to a — a person who would be interested 
 just because they were 7ny movements, and not because 
 I might have been doing something foolish. I'd Uke 
 to do something foolish, just for a change. I'm tired.
 
 ii6 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 deadly tired, of always being sensible, always doing 
 and saying the right, the expected thing ! I've often 
 envied you your powers of speech " 
 
 " Me ? " cried Hildred. 
 
 " Yes, you. Clever, thoughtful, original things seem 
 just to slip off your tongue without an effort. You 
 have the courage of your ideas, and the self-confidence 
 to give vent to them, while I, even if I think the things, 
 have neither the pluck nor the wit to say them. I can 
 listen and envy and agree. I could even write them 
 perhaps, but when I want the golden tongue of Chry- 
 sostom, I am dumb, dumb as the man possessed by 
 a devil." 
 
 " Poor Arab ! I never guessed you felt hke that." 
 
 " Of course you didn't. Nobody does, and nobody 
 ever wiU. I don't either, as a rule, only somehow to-day 
 it aU came over me in a rush, and I feel that I could 
 fall down and worship and kiss the feet of the man 
 who would come like a knight of old romance and 
 rescue me from the dragons of my own narrowness 
 and stupidity." She paused, breathless, borne on 
 the wings of her rebeUion with a flight that brought a 
 carmine flush to her cheeks, an inspired light to her 
 eyes. For the moment she looked brilliant, vivid to 
 amazement. One could believe that no man need 
 want the spur of chivalry to send him, hot-foot, to her 
 capture. Then the light faded ; the flame died. 
 Here was no Brunhild in her ring of fire, but Arab 
 Lebarte, an unsought woman of thirty-five, her age 
 written in her fixed complexion and every tell-tale 
 line. 
 
 Her voice went on, almost monotonous now in its
 
 THE CAGE OF DREAMS n; 
 
 low intensity, as if she had dropped from the heights 
 to the plains of reality : her eyes were fixed as on some 
 vision of her own summoning. Hildred thought of 
 her mother's horizon metaphor. 
 
 " I could love him, worship him, work for him. My 
 best would be too poor for him. I'd work my fingers 
 to the bone, and follow him barefoot round the world 
 
 if he desired it " a low sob shook her voice and 
 
 warned Hildred that she was losing control. 
 
 She flung a dash of Mrs. Ivors' common sense, 
 cold-water-hke, upon the trembling warmth of the 
 words. 
 
 " It would be much more sensible if you stayed at 
 home and darned his stockings." 
 
 Arab essayed a laugh — a quivering effort. 
 
 " How I'd love to darn his stockings ! " she said 
 dreamily. 
 
 " It seems to me that we are getting a Httle mixed 
 in our metaphors," Hildred put in briskly, her heart 
 sweUing with sympathy, but her generous impulses 
 warning her to prevent Arab from making an admis- 
 sion she might regret later. " Did knights of old wear 
 stockings, I wonder ? We really must stick to one 
 period for our imaginary hero and clothe him accord- 
 ingly. Dear Arab, I understand " she leaned over 
 
 and kissed her cheek softly. " How I wish I could 
 see him come riding over the brow of the hill ! " 
 
 " That's a sight you'll never see," said Arab brusquely, 
 rising and shaking the earth from her lap. " Please 
 forget all the rubbish I've been talking, Hildred. 
 That's the worst of you sj^mpathetic people, you tempt 
 others to make fools of themselves. I generally keep
 
 ii8 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 my dreams shut up in a cage, but you somehow 
 opened the door and let them out." 
 
 " They'll fly back again. That is the beauty of 
 one's own dreams ; they couldn't be happy with any 
 one else." 
 
 " Do they make one happy or unhappy, I wonder ? " 
 
 " ' Work grows fair through starry dreaming,' " 
 quoted Hildred. 
 
 " There you are ! " cried Arab, fondly envious, 
 " saying just the right, but not the obvious thing. 
 ' Work grows fair through starry dreaming.' Yes. 
 Let's put it into practice and see if my starry dreams 
 will help me to weed that bed." She struck her hands 
 together, shaking off the caked earth. 
 
 " Let me help you." 
 
 " Certainly not. I must do penance for my wild, 
 ungrateful, indelicate talk. After all, life, which must 
 be lived, is prose. Dreams which come but rarely are 
 poetry — useless frippery, as your mother would say. 
 There are no heroes nowadays, only common-place, 
 ordinary men who get colds in their heads and 
 sniff unromantically." Her eyes gazed with a veiled 
 brightness at the old horizon. " Well, I'd wash his 
 pocket-handkerchiefs," she said defiantly. 
 
 Hildred swung her basket to and fro. " Devotion 
 could go no further," she laughed. " But don't let 
 him know all that beforehand." 
 
 Arab darted a suspicious glance at her which fell 
 harmlessly off the mask of Hildred's unconsciousness. 
 " Don't let who know ? " 
 
 " The catarrhal hero," she returned with deliberate 
 lightness. " The not impossible he, whoe'er he be.
 
 THE CAGE OE DREAMS 119 
 
 Katherine has a proverb — ' Keep the bone and the 
 dog will follow you.' " 
 
 " You may keep the bone so long that the dog won't 
 want to follow you," said Arab, with a ring of the old 
 hidden bitterness, " What is one to do then ? Bury 
 it decently, I suppose, and say no more about it. Ugh ! 
 how horribly vulgar we are ! Why do you tempt me 
 to such unladylike freedom of speech, Hildred ? " 
 
 " I don't think I said very much." 
 
 " Your silence then — silence is provocative. It 
 makes you want to hurl words about — words which 
 you may regret bitterly afterwards." 
 
 " I don't think you need regret anything you've 
 said to me to-day. It shall go no further than this 
 bench. Even the apple-tree is bribing me to silence," 
 she said, trying to lighten the tension, as a rosy peach- 
 apple dropped into her lap. 
 
 The September sky shone blue through the yellowing 
 leaves, and the apples against it looked like jewels set 
 in a green-gold tracery. 
 
 Arab had one of her rare moments of softening. 
 
 " I don't think I shall regret it," she said, looking at 
 the girl with an expression in which warring emotions 
 stirred and strove. "O sweet and twenty, O Httle Eve, 
 hasn't your Apple of Wisdom told you of the terrible 
 handicap of years ? " 
 
 Hildred was puzzled. " I don't understand you." 
 
 " You will some day," returned Arab, enigmatically. 
 " Until you came I didn't understand myself. How- 
 ever, Katherine has another saying. ' Keep your own 
 doorstep clean, and you needn't bother about any 
 one else's.' "
 
 120 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Which is a polite way of teUing me to mind my 
 own business." 
 
 " No, it isn't. It's an apt illustration of my own 
 life. My doorstep is spotlessly, respectably clean, 
 but no one but you has any idea of what's inside." 
 
 " It's a garden — a garden full of good impulses and 
 unselfishness." 
 
 " A garden full of weeds." 
 
 " Who ever saw a garden without them ? And if 
 there are a few, why, you're an expert weeder, 
 Arab." 
 
 " Oh, go away. If you say any more soft things to 
 me I shall cry and look a sight when auntie comes in, 
 and I shan't be able to give any satisfactory explana- 
 tion." 
 
 " Say I beat you," Hildred suggested, " because you 
 beat me at tennis yesterday." 
 
 " Do you want an earthy embrace ? " asked Arab. 
 " Because if you don't I advise you to go." 
 
 " I certainly don't. You know I'm not a really 
 kissy person." 
 
 " I know you're not, thank heaven ! " cried Arab, 
 as she sank emblematically on her knees before a great 
 clump of golden-rod.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 WILD FRUIT 
 
 HILDRED'S eyes shone as she left the Hill- 
 side garden, and skirting the village took a 
 detour through lane and field towards the 
 larch-wood, by whose stream the best and 
 biggest blackberries grew. 
 
 She felt moved out of her young quietude by Arab's 
 outburst. To come face to face with passion, even 
 though unexpressed, is one of the experiences which 
 teaches, and it was strangely disturbing to see love, 
 unsought, peering from, the eyes of a woman who, one 
 had thought, had long since ceased to seek its reflection 
 in other eyes. 
 
 Love, in personal guise, had not as yet touched 
 Hildred. She had her dreams, of course, the intan- 
 gible, rainbow-winged dreams of youth, but they had 
 not materialised further than man in the abstract ; 
 a possible vision of glorified comradeship, which her 
 modern upbringing had taught her to relegate to its 
 proper place in the scheme of things. She did not 
 regard marriage, as Arab did, as the crock of gold at 
 the rainbow's foot, to be eagerly sought for in the hope 
 that when found it would be a talisman to turn the 
 whole world to a garden of roses lit perennially by a 
 golden honey moon ! 
 
 Her sole acquaintance with married life, or half of it, 
 
 121
 
 122 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 had taught her an early and enforced wisdom. " Mar- 
 riage lasts longer than the honeymoon " was a favourite 
 comment of Katherine's on the honourable estate, 
 and if its hght and shade were never to chequer her 
 life she would not write herself down a failure, as Arab 
 Lebarte was prone to do in the bitterness of her soul- 
 She was young, she wanted to look into Life's mirror, 
 to drink deep of Life's cup before she ventured on the 
 great experiment, if Fate ever gave her the chance. 
 
 She took off her hat as she walked through the field 
 towards the gap — the field where now she gathered 
 morning mushrooms instead of magic dew — and the 
 afternoon sun fell full on her fair hair and touched it 
 with gUnts of brightness. The year was spinning slowly 
 and goldenly towards its close, scarcely conscious as 
 yet of having left the valley of summer to rise towards 
 the bare austerities of winter. 
 
 The girl sang softly as she looked at the distant blue 
 hills, dismissing the thought of Arab's self-revelation 
 with a feehng that was half-shock, half-pity. She had 
 no yearning to play with fire, perhaps to scorch herself 
 in undesired flames. She wanted to hve her own hfe 
 untrammelled, impatient, as youth ever is, of restraint ; 
 too young and inexperienced to reahse that the chains 
 of self, of character, of temperament, invisible as 
 gossamer though they be, can bind and fetter closer 
 than bonds of steel. 
 
 It was in this mood that Dr. Lisle found her, as he 
 came up the path which led from the valley, and met her 
 descending through the wood. He was in riding attire, 
 and he did not look at aU surprised to see her as he 
 sauntered along, tapping his gaiter with his riding-switch.
 
 WILD FRUIT 123 
 
 Hildred stopped when she saw him. Was it that 
 her eyes were newly opened, or did a subdued radiance 
 light his thin brown face ? He looked trim, alert, 
 purposeful as he came forward and took her hand, and 
 his eyes shone. 
 
 " I've been to a distant corner of my kingdom usher- 
 ing a new hfe into this queer old world," he said. 
 " Since then I've been to church in your wood, where, 
 from information received, I thought I should find you." 
 
 " Katherine ? " 
 
 " You must not try to tap my sources of private 
 information." He took the basket from Hildred's 
 hand, and something new in the glance of his blue eyes 
 brought the ready flush racing to her cheek. 
 
 She rushed into speech. " I went to Hillside to see 
 if Arab Lebarte could come blackberrying with me, 
 but she couldn't." 
 
 " I'm very glad." 
 
 With Arab's outburst fresh in her memory Hildred 
 gave a little embarrassed laugh. 
 
 " That doesn't sound quite kind," she murmured. 
 
 " It is — to me," he returned quietly. " I hate a 
 three-cornered conversation, and so do you, if you 
 would only admit it." 
 
 " We have had a good many of them." 
 
 " Are they stamped on your memory in letters of 
 gold ? You know they're not. I know how to appre- 
 ciate a solitude of two when I get it. Come down into 
 the wood and talk to me. I never see you alone. If 
 your mother isn't there, Arab Lebarte is, or someone 
 to make the unnecessary triangle. I can't talk to 
 several people at a time, can you ? "
 
 124 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " No," Hildred admitted, her hand resting against 
 the grey trunk of a beech, round whose roots sprang 
 up innumerable saphngs whose young green gave an 
 illusion of spring. 
 
 It seemed to Dr. Lisle as he looked at the slender 
 figure with its leafy background that here was the 
 spirit of the almond-tree as he had seen it materialised 
 on that unforgotten May morning. His heart gave a 
 great leap : he seemed to hear the cuckoo calhng : 
 to feel youth and life and spring riot in his veins, 
 to thrill to the faint far echo of the pipes of Pan, the 
 call of Nature, who supplies her own answer to the 
 eternal question. 
 
 He gave no sign of the rushing impulses within him 
 as he stood there still tapping his switch, his eyes on 
 the down-bent glowing face. The silence was scarcely 
 marked before he spoke, as a yellowing leaf drifted 
 slowly down on Hildred's hair. 
 
 " There's a fallen fir-tree near the stream, which 
 makes a throne fit for a queen. I will enthrone you 
 there and feed you with ' apricocks and dewberries,' 
 or their equivalent in blackberries and wild straw- 
 berries. Will you come ? " 
 
 There was something in the tone of his question which 
 set Hildred's pulses racing, but with an effort she shook 
 off her unaccustomed embarrassment, and caught at 
 an answerable phrase. 
 
 " Wild strawberries ? I did not think that there 
 were any so late as this." 
 
 " I found a patch of them near a mossy boulder, but 
 I didn't pick any. I wanted to share them with you." 
 
 " To share them with me ? How generous of you ! "
 
 WILD FRUIT 125 
 
 " How selfish, you mean. Things shared have a 
 savour that solitary pleasures never possess. Don't 
 you think so ? " 
 
 " It all depends on whom you share them with," 
 returned Hildred, with a touch of her mother's 
 directness. 
 
 Dr. Lisle laughed. " There is no question of the 
 added savour in this case, then. I was well justified 
 in my action." 
 
 " How did you know I should come ? " 
 
 " All things come to him who knows how to wait." 
 
 " Do you know how to wait ? " asked Hildred. 
 
 " It is the one art in which I am really proficient," he 
 answered, with a very direct glance. A sense of his inner 
 excitement tingled unaware through the quiet words. 
 
 Hildred followed him in silence as he led the way down 
 the winding path, holding aside bramble and saphng 
 from contact with her until they came to the fallen fir 
 whose rough red trunk lay across a carpet of dry 
 scented needles. 
 
 It was a mute month for birds : only an occasional 
 chirp, or the dropping of leaf or twig broke the wood- 
 stillness. 
 
 " Sit there," commanded Dr. Lisle, " and I will 
 make a feast for you." 
 
 Hildred sat down on the trunk, and folded her hands 
 in her lap. A new spirit of gaiety suddenly seized her. 
 It was good to be young, good to be alive, good to 
 have a friend like this, who cared, as poor Arab had 
 said, whether she came or went. Dr. Lisle was right. 
 A sohtude of two was a sohtude to be appreciated. 
 She felt a wave of agreement with all the old saws
 
 126 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 which proved the point as she looked at him with a 
 Httle smile. 
 
 "I, too, know how to wait." 
 
 He shot a swift glance at her, and shook his head. 
 
 " Not as I do. You're too young yet." 
 
 " We shan't quarrel about it. I bow to your 
 superiority — of years." They both laughed. Dr. 
 Lisle's mood was infectious to-day. 
 
 He moved quickly here and there, vanishing for a 
 moment among the trees, returning to arrange his 
 feast on the far side of the fir. 
 
 " You mustn't look until I give you leave." 
 
 " Not even a peep ? " 
 
 " Not even a peep." He paused and looked at her. 
 " Don't you like my cheek in ordering you about ? " 
 
 " I think I do," she said, her eyes on the pine- 
 needles. " It makes me feel " 
 
 " Feel what ? " he asked, coming closer. 
 
 Hildred drew back slightly. 
 
 " It makes me feel as if I were young again and back 
 with my cousins who exacted implicit obedience." 
 
 " Did you live in your youth with cousins ? " 
 
 " Yes. Didn't you know ? " 
 
 Dr. Lisle shook his head. " You shall tell me later. 
 I'd like to know about the child you, everything 
 
 about you " he stopped abruptly, and turned away. 
 
 In a moment he came back and dropped on one knee 
 before her. 
 
 " Her Majesty is served," he said, bowing his head. 
 
 Hildred rose and went to the other side of the fir- 
 trunk. A broad mossy stone as table bore a yellow 
 frond of bracken heaped high with purple blackberries,
 
 WILD FRUIT 127 
 
 while two fern-leaves, deftly twisted, made a green 
 basket for clusters of rose and white wild strawberries 
 plucked on their own stems. Between the diyad's 
 dishes of fruit stood the narrow silver cup of a flask, 
 brimming with clear water. 
 
 Hildred smiled and drew a breath of joy. 
 
 " It is a feast fit for Titania ! " she cried. 
 
 " It is a feast fit for you, which is more to the point," 
 he returned, sitting lowly at her feet. " What will you 
 begin on ? " 
 
 " That is puzzling. Which do you recommend ? " 
 
 " I should advise the strawberries first," said Marcus 
 Lisle gravely. " The blackberry juice will probably 
 stain your fingers." 
 
 " I can wash them in the stream " 
 
 " And dry them with my silk handkerchief." He 
 drew the corner of a folded white square from his 
 breast-pocket. 
 
 " You must share," she insisted, holding up a stem 
 with two ripe strawberries on it. 
 
 " Yes, if you will feed me with them. Recollect 
 that I had all the trouble of gathering them." 
 
 " I thought you hinted that it was a pleasure." 
 
 " One has to find reasons for unusual requests." 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind feeding you," Hildred laughed. 
 
 " Besides, I have a constitutional objection to soiUng 
 my hands " 
 
 " Enough ! enough ! " cried Hildred, putting a 
 strawberry into his mouth. " One reason is a reason, 
 two or more turn into foolish excuses." 
 
 " Don't scold me, nymph of the almond-tree. Let 
 me eat wild fruit to my undoing."
 
 128 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 "It is of your own plucking, remember," said 
 Hildred. 
 
 He turned sharply. Were the words meant as a 
 warning, or were they only in tune with his ? 
 
 The fair face was soft and smihng, the thick fringe of 
 lashes did not hide the kindness of the grey eyes. 
 Suddenly he realised how much this girl meant to him. 
 The nymph of the almond-tree had stepped from fantasy 
 to solid earth — earth as solid as is ever seen in lover's 
 vision. She had merged from dryad to dream-woman, 
 to the one woman in the world of the real and ideal. 
 
 He looked up at her again, veiling the ardour in his 
 eyes. She sat above him, serenely unconscious of her 
 transformation, j^et with a sweet stirring at her heart 
 which should have warned her. 
 
 " Now it is time for the blackberries," she said, 
 demurely. 
 
 Was ever such a feast ? Every time the pink fingers 
 approached his lips it seemed to Marcus Lisle like the 
 echo of a caress. Sometimes they softly touched 
 him and his spirit soared in ecstasy. Whatever life 
 brought hereafter to these two few joys could have the 
 exquisite evanescence, the uncapturable fragrance 
 of that fugitive hour in the wood. 
 
 When aU the blackberries were finished Lisle handed 
 her the silver cup. When she had drunk from it he 
 drank also. 
 
 " I wish it were of glass that I might break it," he 
 said in an undertone. 
 
 " Why ? " asked Hildred innocently, 
 
 " So that no other Hps than ours should ever touch 
 it," he returned.
 
 WILD FRUIT 120 
 
 Hildrcd blushed deeply and turned away to dal)ble 
 her lingers in the stream. She did nut look at Dr. Lisle, 
 but kept her back to him as she played with the water, 
 letting it trickle over her hands, and shaking the drops 
 in crystal showers from her pink linger-tips. 
 
 A firm step brought him to her side. 
 
 " You must have washed them sufficiently by 
 this," said Marcus Lisle. " Let me diy them for you." 
 
 He shook out the silk handkerchief and caught the 
 half-reluctant hands in its folds, drying them carefully, 
 finger by finger. There was a reverence mingled with 
 the sweet intimacy of the action which touched while 
 it vaguely troubled Hildred. She drew her hands away. 
 
 " What about your own ? " she asked. " Oh, 
 you've scratched yourself." 
 
 Dr. Lisle examined a mark or two. 
 
 " It's nothing. I didn't know the brambles had 
 scratched me. You see, I was gathering the fruit for 
 you," he said, with a sudden smile which Ht up his 
 whole face. 
 
 Hildred turned as if to go. " Perhaps I had 
 better " 
 
 " No. Why ? Have I tired you already ? " 
 
 "Oh, no." 
 
 " Then stay and talk for a little longer. This is my 
 hour. Don't shorten it. Tell me your dreams." 
 
 Hildred sat down again on the fir-tree, while Dr. Lisle 
 stretched himself on the ground at her feet with a sigh 
 of content. She patted and prodded the red flakes 
 of the fir-bark in a sudden access of shyness. 
 
 " My dreams are prosaic enough," she said, turning 
 her face so that he could only see the soft young curve 
 I
 
 130 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 of her cheek. " Don't you want to smoke ? You may 
 if you wish." 
 
 " No, thanks. The dryads wouldn't hke it. You 
 would hear them shiver in their trees if I dared to 
 commit such sacrilege." He touched the hem of her 
 skirt unseen. " Tell me your dreams," he said again, 
 in a voice which trembled a little. 
 
 Hildred did not notice : she was suddenly wrapt 
 in the cloud of her own thoughts. 
 
 " I have wanted to tell you things, not dreams, ever 
 since the day — do you remember it, I wonder ? — when 
 you showed me how to find the fairy paint-brushes in 
 the periwinkles and the doves in the columbines, 
 and told me that it was your mother who had shown 
 them to you when you were a little boy." 
 
 " I remember." 
 
 " No one ever showed me those things when I was 
 a child. Tell me more about vour mother." 
 
 Slowly at first i\Iarcus Lisle opened his heart and 
 spoke, as a man speaks to the one woman, of the things 
 which lay nearest to it. There was nothing new in the 
 simple story he told her : there will never be anything 
 new in it as long as the love of mother for children en- 
 dures, or the spirit of courage, patience and self-sacrifice 
 continues to animate women. He told her how that 
 gay young mother, left with a meagre income, had 
 worked and striven to support and .educate him and 
 his sister : hr)w when the worst of the struggle was 
 over, wlien he was earning enough money by teaching 
 to help himself through college, and when his sister was 
 trained as a nurse, a sudden chill had attacked the 
 delicate frame which had withstood so much at need.
 
 WILD FRUIT 131 
 
 and taken the mother from the two who could now 
 l)egin to repay her in more than love. 
 
 " And your sister ? " asked Hildred softly. 
 
 " She married a Dr. Marston with a big poor practice 
 in Birmingham. When I was quahfied I went to him 
 as assistant, and learned chiefly how little I knew of life 
 or anything else. Then he died, worn out from a 
 typhoid epidemic, poor chap, and left me enough 
 money to buy this practice ; and Marion, who had no 
 children of her own, started a Children's Hospital in 
 Surrey, of which she is still the matron." 
 
 " Ah, but you had a home. You had a happy 
 childhood in spite of poverty," breathed Hildred, 
 answering her own thoughts rather than his words. 
 
 Marcus Lisle looked up startled. 
 
 " Yes, I certainly had. Hadn't you ? " 
 
 " I oh, I don't know. I thought I had at the 
 
 time, but — but that isn't all that matters." She 
 paused for a moment on the edge of confidence, then 
 plunged. " Dr. Lisle, I don't know how much or 
 how little of our affairs is known to you. I don't 
 know what my mother has told people, or what she 
 wishes left unsaid. I never had the courage to ask 
 her, but I don't want to tell anything that she doesn't 
 wish to be known." 
 
 " Your mother has told me that she and your 
 father agreed long ago to separate and live their own 
 lives in their own way, and that you — " his tone 
 changed and softened — " were finishing your education 
 on the Continent in accordance with their wishes." 
 
 " Then I can betray no confidences, for that is all 
 I know myself." Her cheeks burned ; her energy
 
 132 THE FRINGE OE THE DESERT 
 
 quickened ; she plucked flakes from the tree-trunk 
 feverishly. " Dr. Lisle, I never saw my mother that 
 I can remember until I came to Burnaby." 
 
 Dr. Lisle pulled his cap over his eyes, and turned 
 on his elbow. " Yes ? " he returned quietly, as if 
 he heard such startling announcements every day of 
 his life. 
 
 Hildred felt relieved at his calm acceptance of her 
 statement, and continued in jerky, broken sentences 
 which left a good deal to the hearer's imagination. 
 
 " I spent my childhood with two elderly cousins at 
 Wilmerhurst. . . . Such an ordered hfe, placid, 
 conventional. ... I accepted things as they 
 came. I was very incurious. I led the ordinary 
 school-hfe, select and expensive. The cousins were 
 very kind in the hohdays. I — suppose — I missed 
 nothing at the time. I had a year in Germany, in 
 France, in Italy, and last spring an expectation of 
 setthng down for the summer at Wilmerhurst before 
 I — Then came the bombshell." 
 
 " What bombshell ? " 
 
 " Coming here. I was quite frightened beforehand. 
 It shattered aU my plans and hopes for the present." 
 
 " Your plans and hopes, then, had nothing to do 
 with Burnaby ? " 
 
 " Of course not," answered Hildred with unconscious 
 cruelty. " When I leave this " 
 
 " Are you going away ? " He caught the fragment 
 of skirt which brushed across his hand as if with such 
 light capture he could prevent her flight. 
 
 " Yes. Didn't you know ? " 
 
 " No." All the brightness had faded from his Lone.
 
 WILD FRUIT 133 
 
 " When I leave Burnaby next month " 
 
 " So soon ? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered gently, trying to keep out of 
 her words the absurd pang she felt at the thought of 
 going away. " When I leave Burnaby next month 
 I am to prepare to spend the winter in Egypt with 
 my father." 
 
 " And then ? " 
 
 " And then I am to choose what I shaU do." 
 
 " You have a choice ? " 
 
 " Like Portia's suitors, three." She tried to speak 
 lightly, but the tonelessness of Dr. Lisle's voice awoke 
 in her the ridiculous fancy that she had inadvertently 
 killed the joy of the woodland hour. " I am to live 
 with my mother, or my father, or choose a career for 
 myself." 
 
 " Of course you can make no decision as yet." 
 
 " Of course not. If my father really needs me I 
 may feel that I ought to stay with him." 
 
 " Does that mean that Burnaby is out of the 
 running ? " Dr. Lisle's cap blotted out his present 
 surroundings, but it was sufficiently transparent to 
 enable him to see his dreams, one by one, taking flight. 
 
 " Quite," said Hildred with unnecessary emphasis. 
 
 " You couldn't make up your mind to stay here in 
 any case ? " 
 
 " I must go to Egypt first." 
 
 " But afterwards ? " he queried softly. He had 
 gathered together quite a respectable pile of fir-needles. 
 It appeared to be an absorbing occupation : it looked 
 almost as if he were burying something under them. 
 Perhaps he was. Who knows ?
 
 134 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Hildred rushed into unconsidered speech. It seemed 
 as if she were trying to convince herself as well as her 
 hearer, and in consequence she became over-vehement. 
 
 " Oh, Dr. Lisle, can you imagine it ? I should be 
 miserable here. It is all very well to be here as a 
 visitor in the summer, to have people kind enough to 
 help to amuse one, but for one's life ! It would choke 
 me, stifle me ! What could I do ? How could I fill 
 my days ? How keep my mind alive in a place where 
 nobody talks of anything but games, and people's only 
 mental recreation is to criticise their neighbours." 
 
 Dr. Lisle placed a dry little cone on the top of his 
 mound. 
 
 " And so you were miserable here ? " he asserted 
 softly. 
 
 Hildred flushed deeper, half-ashamed of her outburst. 
 " Oh, no, I didn't mean that." 
 
 " And you found no one congenial in Burnaby ? " 
 he persisted. 
 
 " I didn't mean that either. You know I didn't." 
 
 " How do I know ? " he asked, looking up quickly 
 and scattering his mound of fir-needles. 
 
 " Because I found yow," she answered frankly, laying 
 her hand for a moment on his shoulder. " You are 
 my friend." 
 
 Dr. Lisle jumped up. The fir needles fled far 
 and wide, and there was nothing beneath them 
 after all ! 
 
 " Aren't you ? " asked Hildred shyly. 
 
 " Your friend," he repeated with a half-smile. " Well, 
 we'll leave it at that — for the present, I've had my 
 accolade."
 
 WILD FRUIT 135 
 
 " Do you consider it my duty to stay with my 
 mother ? " asked Hildred hurriedly. " She doesn't 
 really need me. She is perfectly happy as long as she 
 can play golf or any kind of game, and Katherine looks 
 after her better than I ever could." 
 
 " No, I don't," answered Dr. Lisle abruptly. " Your 
 duty is to wait until you come to the fork in the roads, 
 and then be sure that you take the right one." 
 
 " How shall I know which is the right one ? " 
 
 " How can I tell ? I can't preach, but — I think 
 one's path lies tolerably clear, even when one comes 
 to a cross-road." 
 
 " I haven't come to mine yet." 
 
 "No. Your road at present goes straight on after 
 the next turning — the October turning. October ! 
 I shall have no one then to share my sylvan feasts. 
 My literal red-letter days will be post days." 
 
 " Post days ? " Hildred echoed. 
 
 " Yes. You write to your friends, don't you ? " 
 he asked quickly. 
 
 " Sometimes." 
 
 " Will you write to me ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you wish." 
 
 " I do wish it," he returned gravely. " Friendship 
 to me means no light thing." 
 
 " Nor to me," she put in quickly. 
 
 "Friendship with you," he began and stopped. 
 " You won't forget to-day, will you ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Nor I." Something stronger than truth, some- 
 thing deeper than sincerity rang through the short 
 sentences. " When you want a friend remember
 
 136 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 that I am here. It's more than words, remember. 
 Just as this hour outweighs empty years." 
 
 " I'll remember." 
 
 " And I shall wait in a sohtude of one." 
 
 " You will have Arab Lebarte," said Hildred, with 
 a sudden wave of loyalty towards her friend. 
 
 Dr. Lisle smiled, and addressing a robin which had 
 just perched, bright-eyed and tentative, on a branch 
 overhead, said: "Bird, it is an odd fact that the best 
 of women, even though they know you crave for bread 
 will oftev you a stone with the smiling assumption 
 that it is a perfectly possible substitute." 
 
 " I " began Hildred. 
 
 " I was speaking to the robin," said Marcus Lisle, 
 tapping the fir-needles from his clothes with his riding 
 switch. 
 
 The bird hopped a Httle nearer, flirted its tail and 
 flew away. 
 
 " Apparently he does not appreciate your conversa- 
 tion." 
 
 " He knows how to give a hint," said Marcus Lisle. 
 " Come. We had better be getting back. My hour 
 is over. ' Nous n'irons plus au bois, les lauriers sont 
 coupes.' I will see you safely to Whitecot and 
 then " he paused. 
 
 " And then ? " 
 
 " Then I shall go home and begin to practise my 
 art." 
 
 " What art ? " asked Hildred thoughtlessly. 
 
 " The art of waiting," he answered with a look 
 which made her pulses race again.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 GHOSTS 
 
 AS the time for Hildred's departure drew near 
 Mrs. Ivors evinced an increased restlessness, 
 which merged on occasions into spurts of 
 crankiness ; not actual outbursts of temper, 
 but a cross tendency to be pleased with nothing. 
 
 The days cooled and shortened : a period of bad 
 weather shook the yellowing leaves from the trees, 
 and hastened the look of autumnal austerity. 
 
 A day's golf generally implied a wetting, and Kath- 
 erine grew weary' of stuffing wet boots with straw to 
 preserve their shape, and of endlessly drying dripping 
 skirts and soaked woollen coats. 
 
 " What pleasure you can find in getting wet to 
 the skin every day beats me ! " she said at last. 
 
 " It isn't the getting wet pleases me," said Mrs. Ivors 
 — " it's the game — the game that's so very well worth 
 the candle." 
 
 " What candle ? " sniffed Katherine. " I think you 
 go out and get wet just to forget that young miss is 
 going away." 
 
 " Katherine, you're a greater idiot even than I thought 
 you, which is saying a good deal," retorted Mrs. Ivors, 
 tramping restlessly about the kitchen. "It will be 
 quite pleasant to have the house to oiurselves again.'' 
 
 137
 
 138 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Pleasant my eye," said Katherine rudely. " 'Twill 
 be like a house of the dead with young miss gone, and 
 you out all day." 
 
 " It was a necessary experiment, Katherine, and we 
 have got to pay whatever it's cost us. It has been a 
 greater success than I, personally, ever anticipated. 
 Hildred is a girl one might be pleased to take any- 
 where." She unfastened her skirt and let it drop on 
 the floor. 
 
 Katherine, who was swinging the water out of her 
 golf-coat, paused at the words with the thick gray 
 twist over her arm. 
 
 " If you're as cold-hearted as you pretend to be 
 you ought to be weU ashamed of yourself," she cried, 
 her hard face working. " You don't deserve to have 
 a daughter ! " 
 
 " I never wanted one," said Mrs. Ivors, abruptly, 
 her lips thinning, while a look of anguish came into 
 her eyes. 
 
 She left the kitchen in her knickerbockers and 
 stocking-feet, and strode upstairs, a figure suddenly 
 touched with tragedy despite the grotesqueness of her 
 attire. 
 
 Hildred, too, was conscious of a sense of impending 
 loss. It would cost her a greater pang to leave Burnaby 
 than she had anticipated. She seemed to have fitted 
 so easily into her little niche. She would be really sorry 
 to leave Whitecot ; to part from Arab Lebarte, who 
 had never stepped outside her normal acceptance of 
 the inevitable since that one wild moment ; from Dr. 
 Lisle, whom she had seen but seldom since that hour in 
 the wood whose memory was hidden deeply in the
 
 GHOSTS 139 
 
 warmest corner of her heart. She dehbcrately avoided 
 probing below the surface for meanings, though his 
 words rang bells of melody in her ears. The future 
 was wrapped in a sun-shot haze, and of course it 
 would be ridiculous to let one's imagination run riot 
 and read shades of sentiment into a hinted capacity 
 for patience. 
 
 Between her and her mother a sort of armed friend- 
 ship had sprung up. Consciously or unconsciously each 
 was on the defensive. The weapons of war were rarely 
 laid aside, or if so, only within easy arm's reach. In 
 tastes and temperament they were jarringly dissimilar, 
 with a dissimilarity set apart at so wide an angle that 
 the meeting-point could only be in eternity. Still, 
 they had something in common, a mutual courage of 
 action and outlook, a frankness, a love of truth and 
 honesty. There was a meeting-ground of charac- 
 teristics if not of actual character. 
 
 Late one evening after dinner, an evening of fire- 
 light, candle-light and drawn curtains which recalled 
 to Hildred her first night at Whitecot, save that scuds 
 of rain pattered at the window for admission instead 
 of the scents and sounds of an April dusk, Mrs. 
 Ivors suddenly shook off her lounging position, sat 
 up straight in her chair, and threw her cigarette into 
 the fire. 
 
 Hildred looked across in some astonishment. Silence 
 had fallen between them, and the girl's fingers had 
 been busy with a strip of Venetian needle-point which 
 had been long doing with its infinitesimal fairy stitches, 
 while her thoughts fled far afield to the future and 
 its strange hidden possibilities, soaring, adventuring,
 
 140 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 retreating, till with a shock Mrs. Ivors' action recalled 
 her vagrant fancies to the inactive present. 
 
 " Hildred, I want to speak to you." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I think it is only fair to tell you something of my 
 married hfe before you leave me. I hate to talk of the 
 past. It's behind me. I've put it behind me, and I 
 don't want to be reminded of it, nor to raise its ghosts." 
 
 Hildred's calm was effectually shaken by her 
 mother's stiff agitation. 
 
 " Please don't tell me anything if you'd rather not." 
 
 " I'd much rather not, but that's not the question. 
 It's a question of right or wrong. It's a question of 
 fairness or unfairness towards yourself. In all justice and 
 honesty it is only right that you should know, as far 
 as I can tell you, why your father and I parted. ' Those 
 
 whom God hath joined together ' " She gave a 
 
 bitter laugh. 
 
 The sound choked Hildred. " Please don't," she 
 murmured, but Mrs. Ivors stared into the fire unheed- 
 ing. Then she spoke as if she were reading from a 
 book long closed. 
 
 " Our marriage was the usual one of propinquity 
 and physical attraction. We met at the Derings, our 
 mutual cousins. That was in their palmy days, before 
 they lost their money. After the fall of their leaves," 
 she continued with a grim humour, " we paid them 
 back by giving them you to look after." 
 
 In a wave of indignation Hildred felt that the tone 
 imphed revenge rather than reward. 
 
 " They were always good to me," she cried. 
 
 " No doubt, no doubt. They were well paid for it,"
 
 GHOSTS 141 
 
 After a pause she went on : " Your father was re- 
 markably handsome. I was considered bright and 
 quite pretty. I was twenty-five and ready to be pleased 
 at his attentions. He — had no one else to distract 
 him, and was probably attracted by my decision of 
 character — a quality in which he himself was sadly 
 deficient. I thought him a demi-god after a little. 
 It's far better to look at a man through the wrong end 
 of the opera-glasses first, for then you'll be surprised 
 if he comes up to the normal height. Ingram didn't. 
 He either soared far above it — in his own estimation, or 
 fell far below it — in mine." 
 
 This was a new woman whom Hildred had never 
 seen before ; a woman far removed from the careless, 
 energetic player of games ; a woman who had suffered, 
 and who had bitterly resented the suffering, on whom 
 ' gnarhng sorrow ' had laid a heavy hand, a touch that 
 bhghted, but neither killed nor healed. She told her 
 story with a certain bitter detachment, yet not so far 
 removed from contact that the recital had lost its power 
 to sting. 
 
 " We were poles apart. We had nothing in common. 
 We didn't even speak the same language. When, just 
 at first, he used to ask my advice, I found that it 
 wasn't advice he wanted, but praise and agreement. 
 He used to get quite angry if I didn't advise him to do 
 exactly as he wished, or approve of everything he had 
 done. Lots of people are like that. It's a common 
 failing. In pictures, music, books and plays it was 
 just the same. We hadn't a thought in common. I 
 liked things one could understand, he raved about the 
 intangible, the incomprehensible, the beautiful, which
 
 142 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 / should often have translated as the silly, the mean- 
 ingless and the hideous. I didn't understand his friends 
 either, nor they me. He was popular in a certain set — 
 in most sets really," she added, with a determination 
 to be honest, " for he had a great personal charm when 
 he chose to exert it. I was popular, too, among my 
 own sort, until marriage disappointed me, and took 
 all the zest and brightness out of my life." 
 
 " What did he — my father do ? " asked Hildred, her 
 voice fallen to a whisper. So far the indictment 
 seemed to her to be directed against temperament 
 rather than the essentials. She had not enough ex- 
 perience of life to realise that a sufficiency of tempera- 
 mental similarity is one of the great essentials of a 
 happy marriage. 
 
 " Nothing," answered Mrs. Ivors, accentuating the 
 word ironically. " At least one could call it nothing, 
 even if it meant everything. He neither hed, stole, 
 swore nor drank, was not unfaithful to me, never laid 
 a hand on me except in kindness, as they say, never 
 reaUy got into tempers, never openly neglected me. 
 Sounds a model husband, doesn't he ? " 
 
 Hildred listened, bewildered by the circling thoughts 
 raised by her mother's terse cutting words — prominent 
 amongst them being an impulse of sympathy towards 
 the errant father whose temperament was at least 
 comprehensible to her. 
 
 " Made quite a success of his painting, too — the 
 handsome popular artist with the dull plain wife. He 
 used to talk a lot of rot about environment. He never 
 saw that he had taken me out of mine and provided me 
 with a cage instead. He was selfish, utterly and
 
 GHOSTS 143 
 
 absolutely selfish. Well .... what's the use 
 of raking up old bitternesses ? By the way, did Lady 
 Waveney ever try and pump you on the subject ? " 
 
 " The first day I met her she asked me if f had seen 
 my father lately ? " 
 
 " And what did you say ? " Mrs. Ivors leaned 
 forward, as if the apparently irrelevant question and 
 answer were of intense interest to her. 
 
 " I said that I was going to spend the winter in 
 Egypt with him." 
 
 " Good girl. You showed discretion. Laura's full 
 of curiosity." 
 
 " Oh, no, I showed no discretion," said Hildred 
 quickly. " I told her the only thing I knew, and I was 
 not sure if you would have Uked me to say anything at 
 all on the subject. You must recollect that until now 
 my knowledge of you both has been a perfect blank." 
 
 " Never mind what I'd have wished you to say," 
 answered Mrs. Ivors, ignoring her last remark. " That 
 doesn't matter. Truth is truth no matter who wants 
 to drape it, or how they'd like it done. No, Ingram 
 never beat me, but he used to say little sarcastic things 
 that made me feel raging and helpless and gave me a 
 sort of squirm inside ; he used to look disapproval at 
 me with his raised eyebrows. I could feel his disap- 
 proving eyes through the back of my head. He — but 
 what's the use ? . . . I suppose we should have 
 jogged along as most couples do, only bumping into 
 each other a little harder now and then, if — if something 
 hadn't happened." 
 
 Mrs. Ivors stopped. Her face looked suddenly wild 
 and white : a great fear was in her eyes. Hildred
 
 144 THE FRINGE (3F THE DESERT 
 
 held her breath. Her heart beat furiously. Tragedy 
 seemed to spread a pall about the room. 
 
 " I had one great wash," Mrs. Ivors continued, in a 
 voice absolutely empty of feehng, flat, dead, toneless. 
 " I longed with all m}' heart for a son. After some 
 years my wish seemed about to be fulfilled. Then you 
 were born. I hated you. I cursed you in my dis- 
 appointment. Still ... a year later my — 
 curses came home to roost. I bore my son. He — I 
 can't. Afterwards your father got ill, chest, lungs. 
 We had to winter in Egypt. The first year I left you 
 behind and took — him. The second — there was an 
 epidemic of plague — the doctor said it would be mad- 
 ness to take a child. Ingram insisted on my going 
 out with him. When I was away he — you both — ^got 
 diphtheria. He — died. He was dead when I came 
 home. I never saw him again. I never saw Ingram 
 again. I never saw you again till last April. . . . 
 Say nothing. Make no comment. Never refer again 
 to what I have told you. ... I was hard, bitter, 
 revengeful. I wanted to curse God and die. But 
 I was too strong. Such as I live far beyond the allotted 
 span. I may have been wrong, I don't know — some- 
 times I think so — but at the time it seemed impossible. 
 . . . Some say that sorrow draws people together. 
 That's a lie. It doesn't. It puts them miles apart. 
 There's a lot of rot talked about things by people who 
 know nothing." 
 
 Hildred sat mute, overcome with the shock of her 
 mother's outburst. The personal note was struck 
 first. She had known herself to be ignored, deserted, 
 but to find that she had been hated, cursed, as well
 
 GHOSTS 145 
 
 . . . poor little, innocent scapegoat of another's 
 desires. Her mother was hard, and bitter, and alien- 
 ative of all sympathy. Yet, through her words rang 
 the appeal of the love pent-up and expended upon the 
 one frail blossom so soon to be plucked, the appeal of 
 suffering, the bitter cry of a broken heart, the aching 
 resentful pride that raised a barrier so high that none 
 might cross it. 
 
 The silence grew intolerable. At first Hildred could 
 have found no words, even if speech had not been 
 forbidden ; then utterance became impossible. 
 
 At last the door was opened with a jerk and 
 Katherine looked in, her white cap-strings falling 
 over her shoulder. 
 
 " I thought you'd all gone to sleep you was so 
 quiet," she said. 
 
 " We've been raising ghosts, Katherine," said Mrs. 
 Ivors in a hard tone. " It's not exactly a lively 
 process. I'm going to lay them now. Go away." 
 
 Katherine disappeared, and shut the door with a 
 bang. 
 
 " We arranged things through lawyers. We decided 
 the question of your future. The usual well-meaning 
 busybodies of relations tried to arrange a meeting — a 
 reconcihation. Another instance of the prating of 
 know-nothings ! If I had seen Ingram I should cer- 
 tainly have tried to kill him." She spoke with a 
 matter-of-fact decisiveness that heightened rather than 
 lessened the horror of the words. " I looked on him 
 as my son's murderer. He would never have died if 
 I had been there." 
 
 " You "
 
 146 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Yes, I do know," cried Mrs. Ivors sharply. " I'd 
 never have left him night or day, I'd have sucked the 
 poison from his throat. How could hirelings do what 
 I would have done to save my son ? What would it 
 have mattered if I died so that my son had his man's 
 life ? " 
 
 There was a tragic simpHcity in the words, a sense 
 as of motherhood thwarted and spent in vain. For 
 her no one else in the world existed. All feehng was 
 drained into that one cup of bitter regret. She could 
 have cried with Hecuba : 
 
 " Hadst thou but fallen fighting, hadst thou known 
 Strong youth and love and all the majesty 
 Of godlike kings, then had we spoken of thee 
 As of one blessed . . . but now . . . 
 Poor little child ! 
 
 He had been robbed of Hfe with all its glorious 
 possibilities, this man-child whom she had brought 
 into the world, and the cruel theft tore from her also 
 some of the essentials of her being and left her warped, 
 wounded and spiritually deformed. 
 
 Hildred covered her eyes. She had no tears, her hds 
 were hot and burning, but she impotently tried to shut 
 out the sight of the soul which lay bare before her. 
 She felt numb, helpless, half-pitying, half-condemning, 
 with the hasty judgment of youth ; longing to flee, yet 
 chained by that compelling force, the voice of a naked 
 self which one hears only in the rare moments of life. 
 She had no personal gauge with which to measure the 
 depths of such feelings, no personal balm to offer for 
 such wounds, no responsive stirring in the waters of 
 her own soul whose deeps were still untroubled ; yet
 
 GHOSTS 147 
 
 the budding womanhood in her stretched out hands to 
 the maimed womanhood in her mother. Because of that 
 she understood a httle : she touched the fringe of the 
 suffering which enwrapped the other, and made of 
 her a figure as moving in its single absorption as any 
 in an old Greek drama. 
 
 After a Uttle the voice which had rung but a moment 
 since with the echo of an eternal sorrow spoke again : 
 this time there was even a httle thrill of satisfaction in 
 its tone. 
 
 " I've cut myself adrift from the past. I've put it 
 all behind me. I've built up a new hfe for myself. I 
 have a place here that is full enough and interesting 
 enough for me. Fortunately, I was always fond of 
 games and outdoor hfe," she went on, unconscious of 
 the tragic bathos of the words. " x\fter all to be a 
 sportsman in the best sense imphes a good deal." 
 
 The sudden change of topic, the unexpected leap 
 from emotion to commonplace was almost too much 
 for Hildred. She could have laughed or cried hysteri- 
 cally. Instead she uncovered her eyes to see her 
 mother, with her everyday mask well adjusted, 
 looking at the dying embers of the fire as if she pon- 
 dered no deeper question than whether it would be 
 worth while to put on fresh coal or not. The woman 
 of sorrows had vanished with the dead flames, but it 
 was a sudden and disturbing withdrawal. 
 
 " Well, have you nothing to say ? " Mrs. Ivors asked, 
 after a pause. 
 
 " You told me to say nothing," answered Hildred. 
 
 " Well, I tell you to speak now." 
 
 " All I have to say is that I am — sorry for you
 
 148 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 and my father, but I think I am still sorrier for 
 myself." 
 
 " The past is past," began Mrs, Ivors. 
 
 " The past is never past," cried Hildred, with a flash 
 of intuition. Words she had once read raced across 
 her mind. " The past can never die : what has been 
 will be again, and the things a man has once suffered 
 he must still endure ! " " It's perfectly true. The past 
 lives in you, and it lives in me, and in what you have 
 done to me." She stopped, ashamed of her outburst 
 when she had meant to hold herself in check. 
 
 " A cheerful theory, upon my soul," said Mrs. Ivors, 
 rising. " I think we'd better go to bed."
 
 PART II 
 
 THE FATHER
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE WISHING CAP 
 
 OUT of the dazed semi-consciousness which is 
 the sea's one boon to her temporary' victims 
 Hildred dreamily recalled the circumstances 
 of her departure from Burnab}'. 
 
 Katherine had cried, yes, actually cried at her 
 going. Great tears had rolled down her cheeks, as 
 she gave the girl a quick, shamefaced embrace, and 
 turned away, mute. 
 
 Mrs. Ivors had requested an occasional letter. 
 
 " You might write to me sometimes, and let me 
 know your movements, and how you are getting along. 
 No need to enthuse about the sunsets or the dirty 
 Arabs, though. I don't appreciate local colour." 
 
 Arab Lebarte had asked for news of the great world 
 in which Hildred would presumably fmd herself. 
 " Tell me about all the interesting people you are sure 
 to meet," she begged. " What they looked like, what 
 they wore, what they said and did, just to make me feel 
 in touch with something outside." 
 
 A quick, firm grip and a low-voiced reminder that 
 the laurels were growing again and that her friend was 
 hers for ever and a daj^ was Dr. Lisle's valediction. 
 Hildred smiled as she thought of it, and of the parcel 
 of books from her friend which she had found awaiting 
 her on board the " Nubia " on her arrival. 
 
 151
 
 152 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERt 
 
 For the first time she felt really aware of her sur- 
 roundings. The horrible motion of the ship seemed 
 to have ceased, and a faint desire to leave her cabin 
 and see what the world of water looked like from the 
 deck stirred her, but not so far as to induce present 
 action. She was still content to lie there, conscious 
 of that curious sense of detachment which assails 
 most people on their first sea voyage, that sense as 
 of permanent separation from the stable element 
 which the venturing upon the unstable one induces. 
 She turned on her side ; through the open porthole 
 she could see that the sun danced upon the waters. 
 It was good to feel better : it was good to see the sun : 
 it was good to be alive. She smiled again. 
 
 " Ah, that's right," said a very charming voice. 
 " You must be feehng better. I am so glad." 
 
 During the nightmare hours which were now 
 happily over Hildred had been conscious of a kind 
 beneficence, a sympathetic presence in her cabin, but 
 she had been too ill to fit it with a personality or to take 
 heed of feature or characteristic. At the warm, gentle 
 words she looked towards the cabin door whence the 
 voice proceeded, and saw fully for the first time the tall 
 figure of her travelling companion, Miss Marlowe, who 
 had apparently just returned from her bath. 
 
 There was something instantly attractive in the 
 vision thrown out vividly against the background of 
 the curtained door — the curve of long hmbs hinted at 
 through a wonderful pale blue dressing-gown embroid- 
 ered in irises, white, lavender and purple, the two plaits 
 of wavy black hair which framed a beautiful ivory- 
 tinted face and fell over her shoulders almost to the
 
 THE WISHING CAP 153 
 
 knee, the black-lashed eyes which looked at the moment 
 blue as the sea itself, but which might possibly change 
 to grey or darken to hyacinth according to surroundings 
 or moods, the full humorous mouth, the firm chin, 
 mitigated by its fascinating dimple. The face fell far 
 below the requisite canons of beauty, the nose was too 
 short, the chin too square, the mouth too big, the eye- 
 brows too straight — but to Hildred it was the loveliest 
 face she had ever seen, and she promptly fell in love 
 with it. A curious inflection in the soft voice went 
 straight to her heart, an inflection that was not exactly 
 cooing, caressing or coaxing, but a little mixture of all 
 three, a soft rising and falling of the melodious voice 
 which was unfamiliar yet not unknown to Hildred, 
 and which she could not as yet place, but which fas- 
 cinated her as it fascinated most other people who 
 came into close contact with Hesper Marlowe. 
 
 " Do you feel well enough to get up ? " asked the 
 coaxing voice. " It would do you all the good in the 
 world if you could see the sun sparkling on the water, 
 and feel the sea-breezes on your face." 
 
 " I am sure it would," Hildred answered, sitting up. 
 " You have been very good to me. I don't think I 
 ever even thanked you." 
 
 " Indeed you did, and even if you didn't, what 
 thanks did I want ? You were very bad, you poor 
 child. I felt dreadfully sorry for you." Miss Mar- 
 lowe's voice lingered a little on the " dreadfully," 
 elongating the first vowel sound in a way that brought 
 swift recognition to Hildred's mind. 
 
 " Now, I know 1 " she cried without thinking. 
 "You're Irish!"
 
 154 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Of course I am ! What else would I be ? " asked 
 ^liss Marlowe, with a twinkle of amusement peeping, 
 elf-like, through her thick lashes. 
 
 Hildred's ready flush raced across her pale cheeks. 
 " I'm sorry if I'm rude," she said, " but your voice 
 puzzled me till I remembered an Irish girl who was at 
 school with me, and then I knew." 
 
 " The cloven hoof, or the uncloven brogue," laughed 
 ]\Iiss Marlowe. Her laugh was melting, like her voice, 
 a heart-whole infectious ripple. 
 
 " I believe I have some relations in Ireland myself," 
 Hildred went on, half-shyly. 
 
 "Of course you have. I've never yet met an English 
 person who was not proud to claim the remotest rela- 
 tionship with an Irish person. Why, there are some 
 who would claim kinship on the strength of their 
 great-grandmother's once having owned an Irish 
 terrier ! " 
 
 Hildred laughed, but her English blood forbade 
 agreement with the absurd statement. She lay back 
 on her pillows again, feeling suddenly tired. 
 
 " Ah, you're weak still, you poor child," said Miss 
 Marlowe. " I'll send you in some breakfast, and then 
 you'll feel better." 
 
 " Thank you very much," the girl answered, looking 
 rather wistfully at Miss Marlowe as she deftly pinned 
 up the masses of her black hair. 
 
 There was something touching to the other woman 
 in the young forlorn regard, and when she had given a 
 final brushing to the heavy waves that framed her 
 forehead, and pulled a curve into a more becoming 
 line, she turned to answer the appeal.
 
 THE WISHING CAP 155 
 
 " Grandmother, grandmother, what big eyes you 
 have ! " she said. " What are you wondering now ? " 
 
 " I am wondering how it is that you should be — 
 mothering me " — Hildred choked a httle on the 
 word, and Hesper, all sympathy, visioned the greatest 
 loss a young girl can know. " While a person I know, 
 who must be years older than you are, looks upon 
 me as a contemporary." 
 
 The odd answer tickled Miss Marlowe's sense of 
 humour. 
 
 " Perhaps your friend doesn't know much about 
 young girls. I do. I have been in intimate touch 
 with a whole generation of them." 
 
 " A generation ! Oh, nonsense " Hildred began, 
 
 and stopped abruptly, flushing. 
 
 " Don't you call ten years a generation of girls ? 
 I taught girls music for ten years. That removes any 
 feeling of equahty, externally, at any rate." 
 
 " Ten years ? " Hildred echoed. The woman before 
 her looked too young, too buoyant to have had her 
 springtime crushed beneath the wheels of routine. 
 
 Miss Marlowe nodded, still with the elfin twinkle. 
 
 " From twenty to thirty I taught ' The Harmonious 
 Blacksmith ' until he was pounded to death by his 
 own variations. I progressed — " her voice put a deli- 
 cately scornful question mark after the word — " from 
 Beethoven to MacDowell and the moderns. Then 
 Fortune sent me a Wishing Cap, and I've been wearing 
 it with dehght for the past three years." She smiled 
 with pleasure at Hildred's incredulous brows. " Yes, 
 I'm thirty-three, nearly thirty-fom". Thank goodness, 
 I don't think I look it ! I'm suffering from a disease,
 
 156 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 though, which I'm afraid is incurable." Her face 
 grew suddenly grave and she veiled her eyes with 
 quickly-dropped lashes. 
 
 Hildred's glance sobered in response, but though she 
 felt a pang she had yet a little chill of distaste at the 
 unsought and to her apparently unnecessary confidence. 
 
 Miss Marlowe lowered her voice. " My complaint 
 is this : that in spirit I am at least ten years younger 
 than my real age ! I've tried to cure it, but in vain." 
 
 Hildred laughed in her rehef. " Oh, don't ! " she 
 cried. " You're so much nicer as you are." 
 
 " You're an odd child," Miss Marlowe returned, 
 with another change of mood. " Don't imagine that I 
 talk to people hke this as a rule, for I don't. But there's 
 something about you — a sort of drawing quaUty — ah, 
 I can't explain, I'm not going to try. I'll send my 
 maid in with some breakfast." 
 
 " Please don't bother. The stewardess will look 
 after me." 
 
 " It will be an act of Christian charity to give Nanno 
 something to do," said Miss Marlowe, with her dis- 
 arming air of candour. "I, personally, have no use 
 for a maid, but irresponsible people who have Wishing 
 Caps and travel round the world must weight them- 
 selves with at least one of the appendages of respecta- 
 bihty, so as Nanno is the least clogging and the most 
 congenial I know I attached her to- me. Besides," 
 continued Miss Marlowe, smiling so that a dimple near 
 the corner of her mouth peeped forth to keep the chin- 
 dimple company, " she's not really a bit respectable 
 either ! In her own way she is just as mad as I am. 
 All really nice people are a little mad, you know ! "
 
 THE WISHING CAP 157 
 
 With this astounding statement she left the cabin, 
 after adjuring Hildred to eat every morsel she sent 
 in to her, leaving the girl stirred, roused, revivified. 
 
 It was as if a breeze off the waves, which wash 
 
 away " all the woes of men " had swept through the 
 
 cabin, bringing with it a tingling caress from 
 
 " The great sweet mother, 
 Mother and lover of men, the sea," 
 
 which left behind as its benediction healing and a 
 sense of quickened life. 
 
 Hildred could not as yet think with calmness of the 
 mother who had cursed her in her bearing. Her pulses 
 throbbed at the remembrance of the words. Melodra- 
 matic as they had sounded there had been none of the 
 mock grandiosity of melodrama in their cold poignance. 
 Still the two days' anodyne of the sea had already 
 dulled the sharpest shock of the pain inflicted by 
 Mrs. Ivors' disclosure, and with that zest of recovery 
 which is one of youth's best boons, she determined to 
 lock its memory into an inner room and hide the key 
 in a secret place. 
 
 She would keep a seal upon her Hps, a check upon 
 her tongue ; she would take thankfully any gifts that 
 each new day might proffer, or bear with equanimity 
 any lawful burden it might inflict. Her spirit rose to 
 adventure's far-off echo. 
 
 It was strange how completely the two Bering cousins, 
 whose hands had once held the unflUed cup of her 
 young life, had receded to a colourless background, 
 blotted almost out of recollection by the more vivid 
 personaUties she had recently encountered. 
 
 When Miss Marlowe's Nanno arrived with a tempting
 
 158 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 breakfast, and proved to be an elderly brown-faced 
 Irishwoman with eyes as bright as a bird's, a Katherine 
 with her mental angles long since rounded into mellow- 
 ness and her physical ones softened into curves, 
 Hildred felt a sense of protection and well-being which 
 she had lacked since the beginning of her voyage. 
 
 To find a deck-chair environed with cushions and 
 rugs awaiting her when she crawled up to the blue 
 freshness of day came as another pleasant surprise. 
 Miss Marlowe was reading when Nanno convoyed her 
 pale young dereUct to these comfortable moorings. 
 She smiled and nodded a welcome, but gave the girl 
 time to rest and take stock of her surroundings before 
 she attempted conversation. 
 
 Afterwards Hildred discovered that this was another 
 of Miss Marlowe's charms ; she knew when to be silent. 
 
 In spite of what she had said it came with more than 
 a tinge of surprise to the girl to find that Miss Marlowe 
 on deck was an entirely different person from Miss 
 Marlowe in her cabin. The upper air seemed to freeze 
 her warm candour into a somewhat princely aloofness. 
 She was charming to all, but friendly to none save Hil- 
 dred. She had a keen eye for a sycophant, and the 
 rich, as rich, did not interest her, unless they were 
 interesting in themselves — " which," as she once said 
 to Hildred, " seldom is the case." 
 
 " I beheve I should find more congenial people in the 
 second saloon," she said another day, " but it's so 
 stuffy, and my Wishing Cap allows me to travel first, 
 a luxury of which I haven't yet tired. Travelling 
 third, with all that it impHes, is a splendid preparation 
 for the enjoyment of riches."
 
 THE WISHING CAP 159 
 
 " I suppose so. I've never travelled third." 
 
 " It's an education." 
 
 " But an unpleasant one." 
 
 " Not necessarily. Besides, education always in- 
 volves discipline. It's only afterwards that we learn 
 to kiss the rod." 
 
 '' Must we ? " asked Hildred wistfully. 
 
 " We must, if we're to make anything of this glorious 
 jumble called life," returned Miss Marlowe with deci- 
 sion. " Look at that fantastic coast-line, with its 
 peaks and pinnacles." 
 
 Hildred looked. It was afternoon, and the day had 
 been mild and calm. The rugged hills cut jaggedly 
 into a pale sky : small brown villages nestled at their 
 feet, and a white-sailed boat here and there tilted hke 
 a butterfly's wing across the blue-grey sea. On the 
 highest, wildest peak stood a monastery which looked 
 as if it had been carved out of the pinnacle on which 
 it rested. Suddenly across the water came the faint, 
 far sound of a bell, evoking the vision of cowled figures 
 at prayer in a dim church in that remote fastness. 
 The stable element and the unstable were swiftly 
 connected by one of the world's great hnks. 
 
 A silence fell, and Hildred's thoughts fled back to 
 that May morning in the wood when she had heard the 
 first echo of the bluebells' chime, and the later magic 
 hour. 
 
 Miss Marlowe's flitted among her memories, perch- 
 ing on none. 
 
 " That's Portugal," she said at last. " I mean to 
 go there some day." 
 
 After that they had many talks, and a friendship
 
 i6o THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 compatible with the gulf of years that stretched between 
 them sprang into being. Hildred's feeling was tinctured 
 with that shy adoration which some girls feel for an 
 older woman who showed sympathy without curiosity 
 and comprehension without exaction. Miss Marlowe 
 felt curiously attracted by the girl and appreciated the 
 delicate reserve in which she veiled herself. 
 
 They bought together little green twisted baskets 
 of fruit at Gibraltar and great branches of flaming 
 poinsettia ; they watched the tinkhng ayahs and 
 swarthy Lascars bargaining for oranges, and the 
 many-coloured boats which clustered round the 
 ship like wasps about a pear, sucking honey of silver 
 from its bored passengers. 
 
 They steamed on a blue dancing day into port at 
 Marseilles, where the gold cross glittered on the domed 
 roof of the Cathedral, while the wide semicircle of the 
 bay curved away to red-roofed villas and a blur 
 of welcome green, and over all the uplifted Notre 
 Dame de la Garde watched beneficently. 
 
 Together they weathered the disagreeabilities of a 
 mistral, and saw a distant waterspout show like a 
 curved black ribbon from sky to sea with a cloud of 
 whirling spray at its base ; together they watched for 
 the first sight of Africa hours before they could have 
 even glimpsed the land. 
 
 Incidentally Hildred learned many things about her 
 own race and Miss Marlowe's. 
 
 She learned, for instance, that between England and 
 Ireland is a great gulf fixed, a gulf of temperament, 
 character and characteristic, that Irish people always 
 speak of English people as " the Enghsh," and that
 
 THE WISHING CAP i6i 
 
 although they may understand one another up to a 
 certain point sooner or later one or other comes up 
 against a high blank wall of noncomprehension ; she 
 learned that " the Enghsh " are more sentimental, 
 less reticent, more prone to give confidences to 
 strangers than the Irish, that their boasted reserve is 
 no more than self-consciousness and conceit, and is as 
 easily pricked as a bubble ; that they are insular and 
 ignorant (of all things Irish !), dull as oxen, tenacious as 
 bulldogs, unscrupulous where the annexation of land 
 is concerned, whether in terms of counties or countries, 
 or even acres. In fact the poor Enghsh had every 
 one of their vaunted quahties plucked remorselessly 
 from them until they stood bare and shivering beneath 
 the lash of Miss Marlowe's scorn. 
 
 In vain Hildred tried to fly the Union Jack, and 
 reclothe John Bull ; Miss Marlowe had a sweeping 
 way with her which would brook no obstacle. She 
 metaphorically stamped on John's low felt hat until a 
 self-respecting scarecrow would have been ashamed to 
 wear it. 
 
 Then she completely took the wind out of Hildred's 
 sails of protest by concluding, with her soft pic- 
 turesque italicism : 
 
 " Of course I'm not talking of the English as 
 individuals. As individuals I consider them perfectly 
 delightful. My best friends are Enghsh." 
 
 "Of what have you been talking then?" asked 
 Hildred, agasp at such a whirling reversal. 
 
 " Of the Enghsh as a nation, of course," returned 
 Miss Marlowe, with the most melodious inflection. 
 "As a nation they are detestable, abominable, 
 
 L
 
 i62 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 altogether impossible — ugh ! But as individuals, 
 charming." 
 
 Hildred was half -vexed, half -amused. " But a 
 nation is composed of individuals," she protested. 
 
 " Not a bit of it, my dear, any more than a crowd 
 is composed of human beings." 
 
 " What else ? " 
 
 " Oh, it's too hot for explanations," said Miss 
 Marlowe, tucking her arm through the girl's. 
 
 " Fancy finding it too hot for anything in December ! 
 Come, let's go look for Africa ! " 
 
 J
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE KEYHOLE OF EGYPT 
 
 LIKE many another patriot Hildred reserved to 
 herself the right of finding fault with her own 
 country, and though her sense of justice 
 told her that she echoed more than one of 
 Miss Marlowe's indictments she nevertheless felt a 
 faint prick of resentment at her candid criticism. 
 If she had only realised that it was her mother in her 
 whose national susceptibihties were being rubbed the 
 wrong way she would have striven to cast the 
 feeling from her ; but who shall undertake and dis- 
 entangle even one of the intertwining threads of which 
 the fabric of every Ufe is spun ? Who can even dimly 
 guess at the complexity of its spinning, of the different 
 fibres which go to its final weaving ? 
 
 And yet, as Hildred leaned over the taffrail, her 
 eyes searching the misty horizon for a ghmpse of land, 
 her arm touching that of Miss Marlowe, she felt a sudden 
 waft of lonehness at the thought that she was so soon 
 to lose this new friend, who had been to her more than 
 the usual chance-found companion of travel. Was 
 life for her to be made up of intervals of marching in 
 the great procession, each time with a new set of com- 
 rades ? She seemed no sooner to have got in touch 
 with one group than she was moved on to another. The 
 
 163
 
 i64 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 quiet inexorability of Fate caught and chilled her. 
 She longed, or thought she longed for permanence, not 
 realising that if she slipped into a groove, however 
 wide, the youth in her, reinforced by her father's 
 vagrant spirit would swiftly cry aloud for change. 
 
 " I feel excited at the very thought of Egypt," said 
 Miss Marlowe's voice in her ear. " Don't you ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered the girl, detaching her thoughts 
 with an effort, and lifting her eyes from the lulling roll 
 of the long burnished water-ripples as they melted from 
 a silver brilliance to a hazy blue with dreamy reiteration. 
 
 " There is a fascination, an enchantment about its 
 very name. That Mark Antony should have called 
 Cleopatra his Royal Egypt always seems to me to sum 
 up the magic of the country and of the woman in one 
 word. Don't you think so ? " 
 
 " I suppose so. Yes. I don't know." 
 
 Miss Marlowe turned to face her. 
 
 " You're dreaming, child. Or is anything the 
 matter ? " 
 
 " I don't think so. Yes, there is," said Hildred, 
 with an impulse towards confidence. " I feel lonely at 
 the thought of losing you, and a Uttle nervous about 
 meeting my father." 
 
 " Why ? Is it long since you've seen him ? " 
 
 " I haven't seen him since I was a child. I was at 
 school, and then abroad, as I've told you, and spent 
 my holidays with two old cousins." 
 
 " And he ? " 
 
 " Oh, he was wandering," answered Hildred, retreat- 
 ing again into her shell. " He didn't want to be 
 bothered with a schoolgirl on his travels."
 
 THE KEYHOLE OF EGYPT 165 
 
 " I see." Miss Marlowe nodded in a wise way, 
 which seemed to convey more comprehension than her 
 actual words. " But now that you are grown up, 
 polished, a finished product, he is eager to show you 
 to his friends and to give you a good time." 
 
 " I suppose so," said Hildred quietly, but her hps 
 curled into a dry little smile. 
 
 " As for losing me," Miss Marlowe continued, " I 
 don't see why that should be at all necessary. We are 
 bound to meet in Egypt, especially if you go up the 
 river. Will you be doing that, do you think ? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 "I'm going as far as Assuan with the Nugents in 
 their dahahieh. Sylvia and Gerda Nugent were both 
 pupils of mine, and Lady Nugent has always been good 
 to me. Sylvia is married now, but Roddy, the eldest 
 son, has been ill, and they want to see what a winter 
 on the Nile will do for him, so they've taken a daha- 
 hieh for the season, and have asked me to join them. 
 It's a dehghtful chance for me, for it makes such a 
 difference going with people one likes. I went to India 
 with them two years ago. They are great travellers." 
 
 " They must be. How did you Uke India ? " 
 
 " Immensely. I had a wonderful time there, but 
 somehow I fancy that Egypt will fascinate me even 
 more. Port Said, dirty little place that it is, was my 
 first peephole into the East, and I have never forgotten 
 it. The country draws me somehow. I can't explain 
 exactly how or why. It seems to me to be naked, yet 
 veiled, bare yet luxuriant, filled with sound and colour, 
 yet empty of sometliing essential, fierce — oh, what 
 fantastic nonsense I'm talking ! "
 
 i66 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 l " No, you're not. Go on. I like it." Hildred 
 touched her arm. " Ah, can that be Egypt ? " She 
 pointed to a blur upon the water. " No, it can't be. 
 It doesn't even look Hke land. It's more like boats 
 — a Noah's Ark just resting on the sea." 
 
 " Yes, it is. It is," cried Miss Marlowe. " Feel my 
 absurd heart, how it's beating at the sight." She 
 caught the girl's hand and pressed it for an instant 
 against the warm softness above her heart which 
 throbbed quickly and irregularly. " Yes, that's Egypt, 
 or at least her postern, Port Said — that cluster of houses 
 apparently floating upon the water. I can hear the 
 voices of Egypt calling me already." 
 
 Her words came breathlessly, a tinge of pale rose, 
 hke the inside of a shell, touched the whiteness of her 
 skin, and hght like some inner flame shone through 
 her eyes. 
 
 With a quick flash of memory and metaphor the 
 vision sprang to Hildred's mind of the evening sun seen 
 shining through the alabaster windows in San Miniato, 
 turning for a magic moment their ivory pallor to a rosy 
 translucence. Such susceptibility to beauty, to intan- 
 gible influences, was another bond between them. 
 
 " The voices of Egypt," Miss Marlowe murmured, 
 " subtle, insistent, irresistible. One should hear them 
 soon with the ears of the body as weU as with the 
 spirit sense. The whisper of dome and murmur of 
 minaret, the caU of colour, hfe, movement, the magic 
 of Egypt — oh, it's wonderful, wonderful I 
 
 Her voice trailed into silence ; she rested her face on 
 her hands and gazed at the land they were nearing ; 
 bright houses looking like those of a new toy village
 
 THE KEYHOLE OF EGYPT 167 
 
 dotted down upon a strip of sand, a picturesque if 
 ineffective huddle, topped beyond by greenish domes. 
 
 " So that's Egypt," said Hildred, with a vague sense 
 of disappointment. After Miss Marlowe's rhapsody she 
 had expected something more tangibly unusual. 
 
 The statue of De Lesseps loomed at the entrance of 
 the Canal, growing in size as the great liner drew slowly 
 nearer. 
 
 " Yes, that's Egypt," answered Miss Marlowe in a 
 tone of dreamy satisfaction, as chin on hand she gazed 
 towards the distant blue-green domes. " Even 
 over the prose of coaling she throws a corner of her 
 magic veil. We stopped here one night to coal on our 
 way to India. I wonder if I could make you see what 
 I see." 
 
 " Try," said Hildred, anxious to hear anything that 
 would help to restore the glamour to her old Eastern 
 visions. 
 
 Miss Marlowe's eyes looked far away : her voice 
 rose and fell melodiously. For a moment the brilliant 
 sunlight was obscured for Hildred, blotted out by the 
 blue dusk evoked by the flowing words — a sudden dark- 
 ness illuminated by a silver shp of moon which revealed 
 a wonderland of glimmering lights, pale radiances and 
 velvet-black shadows, while a forest of slanting masts 
 of Nile-boats bent like a swathe of dry rushes against 
 a faint, yellow horizon. 
 
 " Large flat barges full of dusky shapes were moored 
 against the ship's side," the seductive voice went on. 
 " Great flares of red hght glowed sullenly, and sent 
 up clouds of dun smoke towards the clear sky. Now 
 and again a dim form beat upon a brazier, and the
 
 i68 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 sparks flew out revealing a line of shadowy figures 
 bending beneath their loads, Hke grim shades from 
 some remote under-world. Strange cries broke upon 
 the stillness, weird songs of three notes swelled out and 
 died away ; hoarse calls issued from the haze, and 
 through it all flitted the shades in a kind of ordered 
 disorder. The moon rose higher and shone on those 
 greeny domes and the pillared arches underneath, on 
 that flat-topped city of twinkling lights, on the darting 
 boats whose lanterns shed flakes of orange flame on 
 the dark water ; until at last the flares died out one 
 by one ; the barges were once more crowded with their 
 freight of lost souls, who slowly ferried themselves and 
 their Charons back to the darkness from whence they 
 had come, to the burden of their own monotonous 
 chanting." 
 
 Her voice sank, and Hildred, spellbound, saw that 
 there were tears in her eyes. Then she tilted her chin 
 in a way that Hildred was beginning to know, and 
 continued in a lighter tone : 
 
 " And the next day every one said how dirty it was, 
 and what a bore the coaling had been ! Look up, child, 
 and greet De Lesseps, to whom this wonderful canal 
 is due," 
 
 From that moment the colour and movement on 
 shore engrossed Hildred as the ship steamed slowly to 
 her mooring-place opposite the arched and pillared 
 building with its three blue-green domes, surmounted 
 by the sign of the crescent. 
 
 The varied shipping, the flat-topped, brightly- 
 coloured houses, the gaily-painted boats with striped 
 awnings at the steps on shore made a lit setting for the
 
 THE KEYHOLE OF EGYPT 169 
 
 crowd of blue-robed Arabs, negroes, and donkey- 
 boys running alongside donkeys jingling with chains 
 and gay with scarlet and white saddle-cloths and red- 
 humped native saddles, who, alongshore, accompanied 
 the liner's slow progress, shouting, caUing, laughing, 
 in a shrill indistinguishable babel of sound. 
 
 It was interesting, amusing, if slightly bewildering. 
 
 When farewells had been said and mails distributed, 
 when the liner stopped almost imperceptibly and was 
 boarded by a horde of white-robed importunate Arabs, 
 who settled like locusts upon the luggage of the unresist- 
 ing passengers, a tall stout man in flannels and a 
 Panama hat clove through the surge of humanity 
 with an air of authority, and demanded to see Miss 
 Ivors. 
 
 Puzzled, piqued with a curiosity which was yet tinged 
 with nervousness, Hildred stepped forward. Could it 
 possibly be her father ? She had not expected to see 
 him until she arrived in Cairo. 
 
 She decided as she glanced upwards that it was not 
 he — he could not have grown so big and brown. 
 
 " I am Miss Ivors," she said. The big man held out 
 his hand. 
 
 " My name is Carteret," he replied. " Your father 
 asked me to have an eye to you and see you through 
 the customs here. I'm Chief Inspector, so it will be 
 very difficult to square me." 
 
 " Fortunately I have no need to try," said Hildred, 
 with her quick appealing blush. " I have nothing to 
 declare." 
 
 " No tobacco ? " suggested Mr. Carteret, who seemed 
 fond of a joke.
 
 170 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " I haven't learned how to smoke yet. Here are my 
 keys." 
 
 " Put them back in that nice httle grey bag of yours, 
 and let me take you to my place for a cup of tea. My 
 wife is expecting you." 
 
 " The lady I am traveUing with " began Hildred, 
 
 looking round for Miss Marlowe, 
 
 " I hope she will come too. You will have time for 
 tea, and a look round before the evening train goes. 
 Your ship's late." 
 
 " Is she ? Something broke down once, I believe, 
 and that delayed her." 
 
 " You didn't mind, I dare say. Found plenty to 
 amuse you on board." 
 
 " Yes," answered Hildred. " Ah, here is Miss Mar- 
 lowe." She made the necessary introduction. " Mrs. 
 Carteret has invited us to have tea with her." 
 
 " How delightful ! " said Miss Marlowe, drawing on 
 her white gloves. " Tea on shore sounds quite 
 entrancing." 
 
 " If you will point me out your luggage, I'll see it 
 through, and have it at the station for you with no 
 further trouble." 
 
 " Have we rubbed a magic ring and evoked a bene- 
 ficent genie ? " asked Miss Marlowe, dimpling. 
 
 " The genie in this case is genius," returned Car- 
 teret. " I am a great admirer of Ingram Ivors and all 
 his works, and he has given me a pleasure as well as a 
 privilege in permitting me to be of some use to his 
 daughter as well as to yourself, Miss Marlowe." 
 
 " Is it possible," cried Miss Marlowe, " that you are 
 Irish too ? "
 
 THE KEYHOLE OF EGYPT 171 
 
 " Is it possible, my dear young lady, that I could be 
 anything else ? " 
 
 This animated colloquy brought the party to the 
 gangway, at whose foot Mr. Carteret's boat waited, 
 scarlet-cushioned, and with hveried rowers. They 
 embarked on a wave of obsequious speeding, more 
 important in their departure than they had been on 
 their arrival. 
 
 Hildred felt a httle thrill of pride at the realisation 
 that here her father was a personage who counted. 
 His fame had never touched her before ; it was 
 semi-local. His vogue was greater in Egypt than in 
 England, for whose praise or blame he professed 
 not to care, and whose climate affected him far more 
 intimately than either. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret's hospitahty sped another pleasant 
 hour or two. 
 
 The noise and unfamihar clamour in the street drew 
 the travellers to the window. 
 
 " Would you not hke to come out on the balcony ? " 
 asked Mrs. Carteret. " It must all be so novel to you, 
 Miss Ivors. When I came out here first I could not 
 keep away, but now " She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " You are used to it," said Hildred. 
 
 " Yes, and it means parting from the children," 
 answered Mrs. Carteret, with a sudden sigh. " It's 
 all right when they are little. One can have them here 
 then, but when they grow bigger they must go to 
 school, and it's — it's rather a wrench." She pulled a 
 chair forward for the girl, but Hildred leaned on the 
 balcony rail, looking down at the gay, bustling scene 
 in the street beneath her.
 
 172 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Mingling with the Europeans were black-veiled 
 Arab women, with gold horns down their noses, native 
 policemen standing in the middle of the street, white- 
 robed men driving camels, yelling donkey-boys and 
 peddlers shouting their wares. Here a negro boy in 
 dull yellow carried on his head a flat basket of oranges, 
 ripe amid their own fresh leaves ; there a hawk-eyed 
 brown-faced man in soft blue rags balanced on one 
 hand a basket edged with spikes on which hung rings 
 of bread, large and small ; here came a lad in green 
 with a wicker tray of red mullet, while there another 
 in a dull pink robe sold dates — great reddish-purple 
 clusters on saffron stems. Over all, permeating all, 
 beating and ascending through the quivering heat-rays, 
 was the warm, dry, pungent smell of the East. 
 
 In the cooler room behind Miss Marlowe was eagerly 
 examining her host's collection of scarabs and mummy- 
 beads. It was their colour which chiefly appealed to 
 her — the wonderful blue, which is hke no other blue in 
 the world, the softened greens, the duU rich browns. 
 Colour and mystery, mystery and colour — how they 
 were interwoven, she thought, as she turned a deep 
 azure scarab in her palm. 
 
 " I have never seen any of Mr. Ivors' paintings," 
 she said softly. " Are they good ? " 
 
 " I think them excellent," replied the man, enthu- 
 siastically. " Of course I'm no judge, but those who 
 are agree with me. You must see his pictures if you 
 are interested in Egypt. He catches a certain phase 
 — not that sort," he waved his hand towards the 
 street — " not the market-place and the set pieces — but 
 the more elusive phases of Egypt — he does those
 
 THE KEYHOLE OF EGYPT 173 
 
 as no one else can. I can't afford to buy them, but I 
 assure you that if I only had the money there are 
 certain pictures signed ' Ego ' that I'd rather have on 
 my walls than any Turner or Titian that ever was 
 painted ! " 
 
 " Ego ? " Her brows queried delicately. 
 
 " That's what he signs himself. Ingram Ivors — 1. 1." 
 ' It's flinging myself at them however I do it,' he said 
 long ago, ' so I'U sign myself " Ego " pure and simple.' 
 So he did, and so he's done ever since. His daughter's 
 a Httle hke him, but not so good-looking. She's more 
 like her mother, except for her colouring." 
 
 " Did you know her mother ? She never speaks of 
 her." 
 
 " Ah, she couldn't remember her," said Carteret. 
 " WTiy, she must have been only a child when it 
 happened." 
 
 " When what happened ? Forgive my curiosity, 
 but I am really interested in the girl." 
 
 " Oh, there's no mystery as far as I know — only a 
 tragedy. Poor Ivors lost both wife and son at the 
 same time — diphtheria. It must be fifteen or sixteen 
 years ago. How time flies ! He was out here for 
 his health, he and his wife, and they got a cable to 
 say that the children were ill. She went of^ at once. 
 I saw her when she was going back. Like a woman 
 of stone she was. He went later. He came out again 
 next winter looking like death and told me he had lost 
 both son and wife. I suppose she caught the diph- 
 theria from the children. This little girl was brought 
 up by cousins, he told me the other day, when he 
 ^sked me to look after her,"
 
 174 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Yes, so she said," answered Miss Marlowe. " Thanks 
 for telling me. I understand things better now." 
 
 " I often wonder why he didn't marry again. An 
 attractive fellow, and making pots of money. Just 
 the sort of chap that women adore." 
 
 " Now you've rather prejudiced me," said Miss 
 Marlowe, disappointedly. " The sort of man whom 
 women adore doesn't appeal to me at all." 
 
 " I don't mean — I mean that — well, I'm really not 
 quite sure what I do mean," said Carteret with a big 
 laugh. " But anyhow, Ivors is a decent chap, in spite 
 of his artistic temperament, which often rather puzzles 
 a plain feUow like myself. I'd be sorry if anything I 
 blunderingly said prejudiced you against him." 
 
 " Perhaps we shall not meet. Miss Ivors and I part 
 company in Cairo and we are not very hkely to see 
 much of one another, as I am going with friends 
 on to Assuan, and she will be with her father, wherever 
 he is." 
 
 " That will not be Cairo for long, I fancy. The 
 river's more in his line. He'll probably camp out at 
 Luxor or some Nile haunt of his. Wherever he may 
 intend to go he says he always has to get back to the 
 Nile after a bit. Poor chap, he said once that he'd 
 like to die by the river some day." 
 
 " That sounds rather morbid. Is he ill ? " 
 
 " Oh, no. Chest dehcate, I believe, but he always 
 seems quite fit and fuU of hfe whenever I see him." 
 
 " He has one good friend at any rate," remarked 
 Miss Marlowe, with a smile. 
 
 " He has scores of them, for the matter of that," 
 said Carteret, exaggerating in his enthusiasm.
 
 THE KEYHOLE OF EGYPT 175 
 
 Later, as he walked with Hildred up the platform 
 while his wife and Miss Marlowe went on ahead, he 
 turned to the girl. 
 
 " Do you know that you remind me a little of 
 your mother, Miss Ivors ? " 
 
 Hildred was oddly startled. She had not expected 
 to find remembrance of her mother here, 
 
 " Really ? Did you know her ? " she found words 
 for no more. She shrank from question or comment. 
 
 " I met her here on her way home — that last time," 
 he answered in a low voice. 
 
 " Oh." 
 
 He noted her shrinking and thought what a sensitive 
 little creature she was, so pursued the subject no 
 further. He had not imagined that the memory of 
 such a long-ago loss could still be unapproachable with 
 so young a girl ; yet it might only be the natural 
 withdrawal of youth from tragedy or the shadowed 
 deeps of hfe. 
 
 Hildred more than half expected an enquiry, the 
 usual query or careless hope that her mother was well. 
 Mr. Carteret's tone had been odd, the hushed quiet 
 voice of one who speaks of the dead rather than of the 
 living. Perhaps he was a person who appreciated the 
 tragedy of life — so much more poignant than the trag- 
 edy of death which sometimes holds more of solution 
 than sorrow. Yet she had not thought him so subtle. 
 He was a friend of her father's ; he knew the circum- 
 stances, perhaps he felt bitterly towards her mother. 
 Here was the clue to the riddle. 
 
 It was a rehef to enter the train, to put aside com- 
 plexities for the moment, to face quietly the nearest,
 
 176 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 most imminent fact of her future — the meeting with 
 her father. 
 
 It was Miss Marlowe who gave charming thanks and 
 kindly valedictions, who waved gay farewells which 
 held a hint of future meetings. Hildred only echoed 
 her gratitude, and smiled her thanks to the Carterets 
 as the train rumbled out of the station. She felt sud- 
 denly and oddly tired. The heat, the bustle, the novelty 
 of sights and sounds, and last but supremest factor, 
 the thought of the approaching encounter, wrought 
 upon her nerves and, in the reaction of the new motion, 
 wearied her now that she had time for realisation. 
 
 11 9il >|l ♦ * 
 
 " Quiet little thing, that girl of Ivors'," said Carteret 
 
 to his wife. " Not much to say for herself, like her 
 
 poor mother." 
 " I thought her a very nice girl," returned Mrs. 
 
 Carteret. " She looked at me so wistfully when I 
 
 was talking about the children." 
 
 " The other woman is a beautiful creature." 
 
 " Yes, for those who admire that black and white 
 
 style." 
 
 " My dear NeU, you talk as if she were an etching." 
 Mrs. Carteret smiled. " Oh, no. She's a woman, 
 
 and an unsatisfied one at that." 
 " How on earth do you know ? " 
 " I saw it in her eyes," said Mrs. Carteret.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE PAST CAN NEVER DIE 
 
 LOOK at that clump of palms against the pink 
 evening sk}' ! " cried Miss Marlowe, 
 " Yes," said Hildred tonelessly. 
 Silence fell, and later on the night. The 
 moon rose, and one traveller at least felt a sense of 
 exhilaration in rushing through the desert by its light. 
 
 A train rushing through a desert ! Could anything 
 be more incongruous ? No, Hesper Marlowe decided, 
 not even an electric tramway to the Pyramids. A 
 symbol of the ingenuity of man, puffing defiance at its 
 victory over the immemorial sands, tarnishing the 
 clarity of the sky with its smoky breath for the one 
 puny instant of its passing. 
 
 Once out of the blue dusk came a camel with a dark- 
 cloaked rider, led by a figure in white : once a stretch of 
 water gleamed by the track, its surface covered with 
 water-lilies which shone like blossoms of silver in the 
 moonlight ; here and there loomed a cluster of flat- 
 topped mud-huts, with a group of Arabs round a fire of 
 leaping flames, seen for one vivid moment. 
 
 The name of Tel-el- Kebir on a station lamp-post 
 provoked another piquant contrast between its smug 
 modernity and the vision of blood and battle which it 
 evoked. 
 
 M 177
 
 178 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Hesper Marlowe swam on a wave of enchantment. 
 
 But after a while the wave broke to reality at the 
 silent assertion of loneliness and aloofness made by 
 the figm*e at the other end of the carriage, shrunk in its 
 corner, looking mutely out into the night. 
 
 Hesper longed to comfort but shrank from intrusion. 
 She had spiritual antenna}, she sometimes felt, which 
 could sense an atmosphere, or a change of atmosphere 
 unnoted by the less subtle ; and she felt instinctively 
 that Hildred Ivors was in need of the tangible comfort 
 which a human personality alone could give at the 
 moment. She was not in a mood receptive to influences 
 of the spirit. Sympathy made visible was what she 
 needed. Still, Hesper, protective of her own reticence, 
 hesitated lest in touching she should hurt or even jar. 
 
 " It's onl}' a prick to my pride if she snubs me, 
 after all," she thought. " And I may lose an oppor- 
 tunity of helping her if I don't try." 
 
 Acting on her impulse she rose and went to Hildred's 
 end of the carriage. 
 
 Sitting down opposite her, she plunged with warm 
 abruptness. 
 
 " You're fretting, child. What is it ? Don't tell 
 me if you'd rather not, or unless you think I could 
 help you." She stretched out her hand. 
 
 Hildred clasped it gratefully. 
 
 " That was just what I wanted," she said, with a 
 catch in her breath — " the touch of a nice warm hand 
 like yours. No, I'm not really fretting. I feel a little 
 tired, and rather lonely, and distinctly nervous." 
 
 " Is it at the thought of seeing your father ? " 
 
 Hildred nodded.
 
 THE PAST CAN NEVER DIE 17.5 
 
 " Ah, don't be nervous about that. Sure, the poor 
 man must be longing to see you. If you only 
 heard the way Mr. Carteret was singing his praises 
 this afternoon — saying how charming he was, and how 
 beautiful his pictures were, and how much every one 
 thought of them ! But it's absurd for me to be telling 
 you all this ! " 
 
 " It's not. It's delightful," cried Hildred. " And 
 you are good and kind — a true friend. Go on, I love 
 your voice." 
 
 " And me brogue ? " asked Miss Marlowe, exaggerat- 
 ing it. 
 
 " And your brogue, if you hke to call it so," answered 
 the girl, warmed, comforted, and ready to hear 
 sweetest music in the soft Irish tones. 
 
 " Sure, 'tis flattering me, you are ! " laughed Hesper 
 Marlowe. Then with a sudden change of mood and 
 voice — " Ah, child, I'd give the world itself if I were 
 going to see my own father this night." 
 
 " Is he ? " 
 
 " Yes, he's dead. The only one in the world I had 
 to love." She paused, then continued as though the 
 words were forced from her. " Five years since I was 
 left without one of my very own." 
 
 There was a repressed longing, an undercurrent of 
 hunger in the simple words which more than accounted 
 for that which Mrs. Carteret had read in her eyes. 
 
 " Have you no other relations ? " queried Hildred 
 softly. 
 
 " None nearer than cousins, and not dear at that. 
 I had an aunt, near enough akin to be able to rob me 
 of what I loved best. Yet, poor soul, I don't suppose
 
 i8o THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 she counted it robbing. I suppose she thought she 
 paid for what she had stolen. Paid ? " She gave a 
 httle mirthless laugh, so dry and empty that it was 
 not even an echo of the laughter Hildred knew. 
 
 " Tell me if it doesn't hurt you," said the girl, touched 
 and interested, yet eager to keep at bay the thought of 
 her own impending ordeal. 
 
 " Shall I ? I beheve it would do me good to speak 
 after all these bitter years. It's not much of a story, 
 as a story." She stopped as if she found speech 
 difficult. Then she squeezed the hand she held, and 
 went on, gaining fluency as the scroU of the past 
 unrolled before her. 
 
 " If you don't know your father at all it will be 
 difficult for you to understand what mine was to me. 
 Until I was about seventeen we were all in all to one 
 another. I was all he had, you see, for my mother died 
 soon after I was born. That was why he called me 
 Hesper, his evening star. WeU — " her voice broke a 
 httle — " I shone, I twinkled for him as long as I could. 
 He was very delicate, very dependent on those around 
 him, always immersed in his books and studies. Then 
 the crash came. AH his money went at once, a bank 
 failure and some bad investments : he was no man of 
 business. We hadn't a penny left. That was where 
 my aunt came in. She was his step-sister, years older 
 than he was, and rich. She had reared him from the 
 time he was a baby, and loved him with a sort of fierce 
 jealousy that would have all or nothing. First she 
 hated my mother, then she hated me for taking him 
 from her. Now she came forward, offered him a home 
 with her, promised to see that his hfe was still set in
 
 THE PAST CAN NEVER DIE i8i 
 
 pleasant places, said she would have me trained so that 
 I could earn my own living. ... I was good at 
 music, so I chose that path. If you love music you 
 will know something of the daily grind, the frequent 
 torture it becomes when you teach it to stupid children 
 week in — week out. I often think that those who really 
 care for music should never teach it, but that's neither 
 here nor there. . . . She kept him entirely to her- 
 self. Even in the holidays she would scarcely let me 
 go near him. But he always loved me best. I know, 
 I know he loved me best." It was an exceeding bitter 
 cry, questioning even while it asserted. 
 
 " Of course he did," Hildred murmured. 
 
 " Then when I had been teaching for about eight 
 years he — died. A year later she died also, and left 
 me all her money ; much, much more than any one 
 had suspected. Oh, why had it not come sooner ? 
 
 Why ? " She stopped, drew rein on passionate 
 
 speech and curbed her voice again, " For a whole year I 
 could not bear to touch it. It seemed poison to me : 
 it had bought and sold my youth. Then my health 
 broke down, and on recovery I took a saner view. 
 Call it common-sense or apathy, it doesn't matter. 
 Nothing seemed to matter then. There was no use 
 in letting all that money go to waste, so I took it. I 
 tried to blot out bitter thoughts from it. I call it my 
 Wishing Cap, because it transports me to all the places 
 I've always wanted to see, and — I don't spend it all 
 on myself," she ended simply. 
 
 Hildred could not know the many self-giving charities 
 that the words implied, but the unexpected recital 
 opened up a new vista of thought. Was tragedy hidden
 
 i82 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 under every calm exterior ? Where she had visioned 
 laughing valleys, orchard slopes and sun-swept heights, 
 lo ! a volcano, still smouldering. 
 
 Arab Lebarte, her mother, and now this apparently 
 light-hearted, irresponsible Hesper Marlowe ! 
 
 Did she possess some hidden key with which to 
 unlock confidence, she wondered, or was it only chance 
 which had thrust her unexpectant into the inner cham- 
 bers of these two women's lives ? Of course her own 
 trouble differed from theirs ; it was triangular, inevit- 
 able, it touched her father, her mother and herself. 
 
 The train slackened. The lights of a city shone in 
 orange sparks through the blue dusk. With a start 
 she realised that she had come to another turning- 
 point. 
 
 " Thank you for teUing me this. It has helped," 
 she said in low tones. 
 
 " Yes," answered Hesper Marlowe. " I think it 
 always helps to find that our fellow-creatures are ordin- 
 ary human beings just like ourselves, that they have 
 the same flaws and feelings, the same pricks and balms. 
 And you mustn't run away with the idea, child, that 
 because of what I've said I don't love any one. Indeed, 
 I do. There are always people to love, even if the 
 httle ivory shrine is empty." 
 
 " You, at any rate, have memories," Hildred 
 murmured. 
 
 " Yes, thank God. I try to cherish the good ones, 
 and root out the bad. One has often a lot of weeding 
 to do," she added, with a sudden whimsical smile. 
 
 Hildred rose and tried to see herself in the mirror. 
 " How do I look ? Please don't think me vain, but
 
 THE PAST CAN NEVER DTE 183 
 
 I want the first impression to be a good one." Her 
 hands trembled a httle as she adjusted her veil. 
 
 " I think it will." 
 
 The train stopped. The station seemed full of light 
 and confusion after the monotonous rushing through 
 the night. 
 
 Hildrcd stepped down to the platform in Miss Mar- 
 lowe's wake, shrinking aside from the crowd of Arabs 
 who poured out of the third-class carriages — a crowd 
 so multi-coloured in its blue and white and black 
 draperies, punctuated with the inevitable crimson of 
 the fez, or tarhush, that in her quiet grey attire she 
 looked like a moth who had alighted amid a cloud of 
 butterflies. She scanned the kaleidoscopic bustling 
 throng to see if she could detach any one who resem- 
 bled in the least her faint recollection of her father. 
 
 " Sir George Nugent has come to meet me," said 
 Hesper Marlowe in her ear, " but I won't leave you 
 until " 
 
 " Can this possibly be Hildred ? " asked a voice at 
 her other side. 
 
 With a quick apprehensive leap of heart and pulses, 
 the girl turned to meet her father. There could be no 
 mistake this time. Out of the past flashed that face, 
 the disappointed lips which had ejaculated : 
 
 " She has not even a feature ! " 
 
 He had grown incredibly younger, it appeared. 
 The long intervening years, empty of wife or child 
 had stolen neither his youth nor his air of debonair 
 gaiety. In the flickering light there were no lines 
 visible about the brown appcahng eyes or the clear-cut, 
 handsome mouth, and his wavy hair, apparently
 
 i84 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 untouched by autumn frost, added to his almost 
 boyish appearance. 
 
 . To him the past came back in one instant's poign- 
 ancc. There were the eyes, clear and grey as rain, 
 in which he had once sought to read and solve the 
 great mystery of love — eyes which, in his last vision 
 of them had flashed steel blades of hatred towards 
 his heart. After the moment's vivid memory he saw 
 in this quiet-looking girl the expected daughter ; the 
 amalgam, as he suddenly reahsed, of not only his life 
 and another's, but of the generations beyond, which 
 had contributed to the complexity of his and her 
 making ; a realisation which comes, when it does 
 come to a parent, with a rare and disturbing force. 
 
 There was but a second's mutual reconnoitring before 
 Hildred spoke. 
 
 " Yes, I am Hildred," she answered, turning round 
 to thank Miss Marlowe, who had, however, sUpped 
 quietly away at the moment of encounter. 
 
 " If you wiU describe your boxes to me Moussa 
 will look after them." Mr. Ivors indicated a tall young 
 Arab in a dull lilac-coloured garment bound about 
 the waist with a striped sash of yellow and gold, who, 
 when he heard his name, salaamed to Hildred, and 
 smiled, showing incredibly white teeth. 
 
 Hildred described them. 
 
 She had gained poise and self-control since the 
 beginning of her new life, and her air and manner 
 showed a quiet distinction which pleased her father. 
 On a sudden the twisted humour of the situation 
 appealed to the girl. Here was another meeting 
 in another railway-station of another parent, who
 
 THE PAST CAN NEVER DIE 185 
 
 had to ask his daughter if it were really she ? 
 It was the scene at Burnaby tricked out in 
 altered dress, and brighter colours, with a dark- 
 skinned henchman instead of the sandy Johnny ; so 
 far, neither real welcome nor any warmth of kinship. 
 The light, the unfamiliar crowd, the dark faces, the mul- 
 titudes of appraising eyes, the strangeness of the whole 
 scene, and above all the relaxation of the long tension 
 told on the girl. She craved for rest and quiet. The 
 sudden thought of the rosebud room at Whitecot 
 swam before her eyes with the longing allurement of 
 the known. Swift imbidden tears sprang on her 
 lashes when her father, shpping his hand through her 
 arm, said in a tone of real kindliness : 
 
 " Come along, httle girl. You must be tired and 
 hungry. When had you anything to eat ? " He drew 
 her through the throng, which seemed to melt aside 
 at their approach. 
 
 Outside, the night was cool and blue, the sky a 
 vast wonder lit by moon and stars. By the pavement 
 an arahiyeh, a small victoria drawn by two long-tailed 
 horses and driven by a coachman in red tarbush 
 awaited them. 
 
 " Get in, Hildred, Moussa will follow with the 
 luggage. You will be glad to get to bed. Is 
 everything still going up and down ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, I lost that feehng long ago, but I confess 
 that I am a httle tired." 
 
 " You'll have some supper when we get in and 
 then you can go to bed. To-morrow you'll look out 
 on a new world. Gad, what wouldn't I give to be 
 seeing Egypt for the first time ? And yet I don't
 
 i86 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 know. It doesn't cast its glamour over you quite at 
 first. There's the heat and the noise and the dust and 
 the mosquitoes. It's afterwards that your eyes are 
 opened, or closed." He spoke half to himself. 
 
 " You would lind a fellow enthusiast in Miss 
 Marlowe, my travelling companion. Egypt enchants 
 her, she says." 
 
 " Was that the woman who was talking to you 
 when I came up ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " She's beautiful." He said the phrase in a low 
 hushed voice, as if it were a prayer. Perhaps it was, 
 for him. 
 
 " Isn't she ? " cried Hildred, warming to enthu- 
 siasm. " She is as charming and delightful as she is 
 beautiful, and that's saying a good deal, for I think 
 she is the loveliest person I have ever seen."' 
 
 " I shouldn't go quite so far as that. She is certainly 
 beautiful, but her face is full of irregularities." 
 
 " One doesn't want marble perfection in a human 
 being." 
 
 Ivors looked at his daughter curiously for a moment. 
 Here was no shy bread and butter miss, but a young 
 woman with opinions, and no hesitation in expressing 
 them, despite her surface impression of quietude. 
 
 There was a reminiscent decision in her tone. He 
 sighed involuntarily as he answered ; 
 
 " No. Marble perfection is cold, even in marble." 
 
 " What about the Nike of Samothrace ? " queried 
 Hildred, up in arms for her beloved Winged Victory. 
 
 Her father's eyes twinkled. Here was an opening 
 for a buttoned foil.
 
 THE PAST CAN NEVER DIE 187 
 
 " If my memory doesn't deceive me the Nike is 
 fashioned of grey stone, more human and less chilling 
 than the more perfect whiteness." 
 
 Hildred laughed. In the brilliant moonlight her 
 father noted the fleeting apple-blossom flush. 
 
 " Of course you're right ! How stupid of me ! I 
 had quite forgotten." 
 
 Ivors gave a sigh of relief. " You're not infallible 
 then ? Thank God." 
 
 " Why ? Did you think I should dare to consider 
 myself so ? " 
 
 " Most young people do. It's one of the royal 
 prerogatives of youth." 
 
 As the carriage rolled along through the quiet 
 residential quarters of Cairo, Hildred got an impression 
 of tree-shaded roads and large cream-coloured houses 
 draped and festooned with creepers — an impression of 
 space and dignity very restful to her tired senses. 
 
 Ivors said a few words in Arabic to the driver, and 
 with a cracking of his whip he turned again towards 
 the lights and bustle. 
 
 " Do you use many pins, Hildred ? " her father 
 asked suddenly. 
 
 The question would have seemed irrelevant had not 
 the memory of that other meeting Ungered so persist- 
 ently with the girl. She traced the long-spun connec- 
 tion of the query by the light of her own reminiscence. 
 
 " No," she answered, 
 
 " Not even safety-pins ? " 
 
 She saw in memory the end of one protruding from 
 beneath a patent-leather belt, and shook her head, 
 smihng in spite of herself.
 
 ■< ' 
 
 i88 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Not even safety-pins," she said. 
 
 " Thank God for that 1 " cried Ivors with apparently 
 unnecessary emphasis, as the carriage drew up before 
 a quiet-looking hotel with a pillared portico and red 
 and white striped awnings. 
 
 i
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE NILE-SONG FROM AFAR 
 
 HILDRED awoke next morning to the sound 
 of an intermittent clink-clink, clink-clink, 
 clink-clink, which had something typically 
 Eastern in its metallic monotony. 
 
 She pushed aside the white enveloping mosquito- 
 curtains, crept out of bed and peered through the 
 green laths of the sun-shutters. 
 
 For the moment the shady street seemed empty 
 of all but the acacia-trees, each standing in its hollow 
 earthen well. Then she descried a little farther up 
 two white-robed figures who shrugged, gesticulated, 
 chattered, in an open doorway. At the near side an 
 Arab had spread his prayer-shawl in the blot of shade 
 cast by one of the trees, and removing his shoes, knelt, 
 rose, bent and prostrated himself in the beautiful and 
 varied attitudes of devotion. Arahiyehs rattled by 
 unheeded, the chnk-chnk came nearer and resolved 
 itself into a white-clad lemonade-seller, who cUpped his 
 brass cups together as he went, making a brilliant effect 
 of colour with his scarlet shoes and sash and the 
 twinkling radiance of his vessels of brass and glass. 
 A string of camels laden with great bundles of vivid 
 green clover ambled down the street gurghng and 
 grunting ; an old man drove a rickety donkey-cart 
 
 189
 
 igo THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 with a high open crate full of live pigeons ; a smart 
 white motor-car glided by, adding a touch of incon- 
 gruity to the scene, and still the Arab prayed on, iso- 
 lated in an utter detachment of spirit from the world 
 around him, visioning Mecca perhaps as his forehead 
 touched the dim purples and reds of the shawl on the 
 ground. 
 
 This first real ghmpse of Cairo held Hildred enthralled. 
 She stood there, barefoot, peeping through the green 
 shutters until a tapping at the door and the sound of 
 her father's voice asking if she were ready for breakfast 
 brought her back again to a world of baths and meals. 
 She answered hurriedly. 
 
 " Very well, I will send Moussa for you in twenty 
 minutes," said her father, through the door, " which, 
 being interpreted, means half-an-hour." 
 
 " No, it doesn't," returned Hildred promptly. " It 
 means twenty minutes, and not a second more." 
 
 " How I'll crow if you take twenty-five," said her 
 father boyishly. 
 
 " I shan't take twenty-five." 
 
 " Good God, how like her mother that sounded ! " 
 thought Ivors as he turned down the corridor. " The 
 voice, the very intonation. Poor Harriet was always 
 right." 
 
 So was Hildred upon this occasion, for she was 
 dressed and ready to go down when she opened the 
 door to Moussa's tap. 
 
 " Good-morning," she said. 
 
 " Good-morning, ya Sitt." His teeth flashed in 
 the Arab's ready smile. He held a pink rose in his hand. 
 " From the master," he said in laborious English.
 
 THE NILE-SONG FROM AFAR 191 
 
 Hildred took the flower and fastened it into her 
 belt, flushing at her father's pretty attention as she 
 followed Moussa along the corridor. 
 
 He threw open a door with a flourish, and 
 announced her in Arabic. 
 
 The room was large and lofty. Two high, shaded 
 windows opened on to a balcony. At one end her 
 father sat at a round table, reading letters. 
 
 He looked up, and rose at her entry. Once more the 
 question of greeting puzzled the girl, but only for a 
 moment, as Ivors came forward and taking her hands 
 lightly kissed her cheek. There was a pleasant accept- 
 ance of relationship in the action which contrasted 
 cheeringly with her mother's arm's-length attitude. 
 With a little sigh of relief she realised that for the 
 present at least she might lay down her weapons of 
 defence. 
 
 " Well, did I take longer than the twenty 
 minutes ? " she asked with a little air of triumph 
 which radiated from her becomingly. 
 
 Ivors surveyed the dainty detail of her white attire 
 with satisfaction. 
 
 " No," ho returned. "I see you are wearing the 
 prize for punctuahty. I told Moussa not to give it to 
 you unless you were ready. But don't do it too often." 
 
 " Do what ? " she asked, puzzled. 
 
 " Don't be too often right, or rather don't put me 
 too often in the wrong," he answered with a plaintive 
 whimsicality which brought back to the girl one of her 
 mother's indictments. 
 
 The easiness of his attitude puzzled Hildred. Both 
 he and her mother accepted her as an instant fact in
 
 192 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 their lives to be judged by present knowledge alone. 
 Past thoughts, deeds, aspirations, environment seemed 
 to be taken for granted and left utterly unprobed : 
 it was, as Miss Marlowe had said, with the finished 
 product that they were even temporarily concerned. 
 What had gone to the making, the moulding, the 
 shaping was apparently not to their interest, and the 
 superficiality of such an attitude provoked the girl 
 to a sort of wondering despisal. How could fifteen 
 years be blotted out so utterly ? 
 
 Still, while the waters now seemed so smooth she 
 would do nothing to provoke a storm. It would be 
 pleasant to drift on in a sunny present while she might. 
 Her presence in the big room produced an impression 
 of personal domesticity in Ivors to which he had long 
 been a stranger. It was pleasant to look up from his 
 letters to see her sitting opposite, a quiet and, so far, 
 unobtrusive personality of whom to invite comment or 
 query when the mood prompted him. 
 
 Yes, his daughter was a surprise : her aplomb, her 
 touch of distinction, her lack of schoolgirlishness or 
 primness, and above all the unexpected attractiveness 
 of her appearance charmed and pleased him. 
 
 " We shall not be long in Cairo," he said, holding up 
 a letter. " The idea delights me, though the ancients 
 say that 
 
 ' He ^vho hath not seen Cairo hath not seen the world. 
 Her soil is gold ; 
 Her Nile is a marvel ; 
 
 Her women are as the bright-eyed Houris of Paradise ; 
 Her houses are palaces, and her air is soft, with an odour 
 
 above aloes, refreshing the heart ; 
 And how should Cairo be othenvise when she is the mother 
 
 of the world ? '"
 
 THE NILE-SONG FROM AFAR 193 
 
 " Her houses are palaces certainly," said Hildred. 
 
 " And her Nile is a marvel. Ah, Hildred, wait until 
 the ears of your spirit are opened to hear the Song of 
 the Nile." 
 
 " Miss Marlowe said that she could hear the voices 
 of Egypt with her spirit sense." 
 
 " Miss Marlowe must be a woman of understanding. 
 Yes, there was something rare about that moonlight 
 face in its masses of night-black hair. Those who 
 have ears to hear are generally permitted to hear. I 
 should Hke to know if she will hear it too." 
 
 " Hear what ? " asked Hildred, interested. She 
 saw in the clearer light of day that faint lines were 
 etched at the corners of her father's eyes and about his 
 mouth, and that his fair abundant hair was slightly 
 frosted. Still, the enthusiasm which irradiated his 
 face enhanced his boyish look, and emphasised for the 
 girl the great gulf of temperam.ent which had separated 
 him from her mother. The eternal and piteous con- 
 flict of temperament ! She was dimly beginning to 
 perceive its potentialities. 
 
 " The song of the Nile," answered Ivors. " The 
 great keynote without which all the other voices of 
 Egypt would be mute : the song of the gods, the song 
 of fertihty, the mighty song which in the lost centuries 
 called hfe out of death and order out of chaos, evolving 
 by the necessities it created, a fine civilisation from 
 primitive beginnings." 
 
 " What does it say ? " the girl queried softly. 
 
 " Ah, who can tell that ? Have you ever seen 
 through the mist of an opal a fire flashing that eludes 
 and evades, that is and that is not, that is never the 
 
 N
 
 194 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 same to any in flame or colour, living green to one. 
 leaping blue to another, to a third red as the heart of 
 light itself ? So with the song of the Nile. I try to 
 paint it, pah ! Who could paint a mystery that is 
 compact of colour, of sound, of sunlight and moonlight 
 and starlight, of something that is none yet all — more 
 definite than to-day, more evanescent than yesterday, 
 more unattainable than to-morrow — ineffable, intan- 
 gible ? One might as well try to clip the wings of a 
 dream or use a rainbow as one's paintbox. And yet, 
 I suppose to an artist all things are paintable. I 
 wonder ! I wonder I I am always wondering. Life 
 to me is a pageant of beauty and mystery with an 
 enormous question-mark after each new thing." 
 
 He paced the room. Here spoke the dreamer, the 
 pursuer of visions, the archer of mist-wraiths, whose 
 eager questing feet trod in the footsteps of eternal 
 youth. 
 
 " I should like to see some of your pictures." 
 
 He stopped, and turned with a frown. 
 
 " Now you've touched the bubble of my dreams 
 and it is gone, the beautiful thing ! " he said quite 
 crossly, hearing the clank of the invisible chains which 
 bound him to the stupid necessities of every day. 
 " No, you wouldn't like my pictures. You wouldn't 
 understand them. Half the people who buy them 
 only do so because I happen to be the fashion. I 
 despise them. I loathe them." 
 
 " Yet you sell them your dreams," said Hildred, 
 pricked at his assumption of her ignorance. 
 
 Ivors looked at her with a regard compact of 
 admiration and dislike.
 
 THE NILE-SONG FROM AFAR 195 
 
 " Your remark displays a pleasing lack of practi- 
 cality," he said, " as well as a joy in finding a weak 
 spot in my armour which is disagreeably reminiscent." 
 
 The girl eddened, feeling oddly stung. 
 
 " I don't want to find weak spots," she half 
 whispered, looking down. 
 
 Ivors' brow cleared. " Oh, don't you ? Well, 
 that's a relief. It's worn very thin in places and you 
 would have no difficulty in poking your little fingers 
 through. You've pretty hands. I noticed them last 
 night. They're shaped like mine, so you must have a 
 dash of the artistic temperament in you." 
 
 Hildred looked up. " Oh, more than a dash — 
 a splash." 
 
 " God pity you then, poor child," he said, with a 
 sudden change of tone. " I can never make up my 
 mind as to whether such a gift is not more curse than 
 blessing. And yet — I wonder ! . . . Well, what 
 are you going to do with yourself to-day ? " 
 
 The girl's mind fled back to the first morning at 
 Whitecot. What a curious repetition of events in 
 so different a setting ! Here there was no garden, no 
 Katherine, not even a dog. Was she to be left quite 
 to her own resources in a strange land ? She, too, 
 wondered. Ivors studied her face, and awaited her 
 answer with some curiosity. He was more experi- 
 mentally inchned than her other parent, and if the 
 proper study of mankind be man his curriculum had 
 included a varied course of the subtler portion of 
 the race. 
 
 " I shall unpack first," she answered, feehng more 
 inchned to cry than to laugh, " and then I shall amuse
 
 196 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 myself by sitting on the balcony and watching the 
 people." 
 
 Ivors smiled. " Admirable decision ! In your place 
 half a hundred vaguenesses would have flitted through 
 my mind, and I should not have known either what to 
 do or what to say. I only want you to fill in time 
 until the afternoon, when I shall take you for a 
 drive." 
 
 Her face cleared. " That will be delightful." 
 
 " Moussa will bring you your lunch. Don't unpack 
 too much, for we shall only be a day or two here. I've 
 had an invitation for us both to go up the Nile " 
 
 " Can it possibly be from the Nugents ? " cried 
 Hildred, with a flash of inspiration. 
 
 " Why ? Do you know the Nugents ? " 
 
 " No, no," said the girl eagerly, her quick blushes 
 coming and going, " but Miss Marlowe was going to 
 join them and I wondered if anything so delightful 
 could possibly happen as that you should know them 
 too." 
 
 " The unexpected," said Ivors sententiously, " is 
 what always happens, of course. The invitation is 
 from the Nugents, who happen to be very good friends 
 of mine. We are to join them on Thursday. The 
 Arabs say that is a lucky day and call it ' el-mubarak,' 
 the blessed. Sir George wants me to do two pictures 
 for him — Nile pictures, of course. He wants them for 
 a birthday present for his wife." 
 
 " When is her birthday ? " 
 
 " I haven't the least idea. Besides it doesn't mat- 
 ter. It will be, hke a royal birthday, whenever I 
 choose to finish the pictures : that is, if pictures, lik^
 
 THE NILE-SONG FROM AFAR 197 
 
 anything else in life, ever can be finished. How do you 
 like the notion ? " 
 
 " Which notion ? " 
 
 " Don't be so hteral. I mean the notion of going 
 up the Nile, of course." 
 
 " There's no ' of course,' " Hildred retorted. " You 
 were just descanting on the subject of things in Ufe 
 never being finished. How was I to know that you 
 had leaped back to the Nile trip again ? " 
 
 Ivors laughed. His daughter was beginning to 
 amuse him. " You'll have to get used to my grass- 
 hopper-hke prochvities," he said. "Just watch how 
 I jump and in a httle while you'll learn to know 
 exactly where I aUght." 
 
 " Shall I ? " she returned dubiously. " I doubt it." 
 
 " So do I," said Ivors. " Few people ever do." 
 
 " Do what ? " 
 
 " Know where I aUght," he answered. " Well, I 
 don't much care so long as I land on a dahabieh on 
 the Nile, It's the perfection of motion, a dahabieh 
 towed by a launch. You ghde along as if it 
 were a gondola. There is no throbbing, no jerking, 
 no puffing." 
 
 " It sounds heavenly. And when it includes Miss 
 Marlowe — oh, she is so nice ! " 
 
 " Nice is an odious, much mis-used young-ladylike 
 word. Can't you think of a better one ? It's nearly as 
 bad as sweet." He went to a bookshelf and took do\vn 
 a dictionary. " ' Nice — foohshly simple : over-parti- 
 cular : hard to please : marking or taking notice of 
 very small differences : easily injured : fastidious/ 
 Do any of these terms apply to your friend ? "
 
 igS THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " She is rather fastidious, I think, but has the word 
 no other meanings ? " 
 
 " Well, the dictionary gives dainty, agreeable, 
 delightful, as well," said Ivors, shutting and replacing 
 the book. 
 
 " Won't they do ? I think I shall stick to nice," 
 answered Hildred. "It's comprehensive and she is 
 reaUy nice." 
 
 " Right again," groaned Ivors. " In spite of my 
 warning, I prefer to think of your friend as a beautiful 
 strand of ivory and ebony which Fate is weaving into 
 our Uves." 
 
 " You can't weave ivory and ebony," objected 
 Hildred. 
 
 " Yes, you can, or rather Fate can, if I choose 
 to say so." 
 
 " You had better compile a dictionary for yourself 
 then," she retorted, exhilarated to the point of unusual 
 buoyancy at the prospect before her. 
 
 His face changed, aged and whitened. Out of the 
 past those innocent-sounding and now jesting words 
 stabbed at him like a lance. Once, in white rage, his 
 wife had flung them at him tauntingly. It had been 
 their first quarrel and had owned a sharpness which the 
 recurrence of similar scenes had blunted. Harsh 
 words, loud voices jarred inexpressibly on him, hurt 
 him like a blow. It had been a wounding revelation, 
 never to be forgotten. Was it some vibration echoing 
 through eternity which brought the words to his child's 
 Hps ? He turned away. 
 
 Hildred sat wondering how she had offended. Per- 
 haps her father did not like such freedom of speech.
 
 THE NILE-SONG FROM AFAR 199 
 
 Then she suddenly remembered what her mother had 
 said that morning when Dr. Lisle had found her 
 worshipping the Invisible in the visible almond-tree. 
 
 " In my early days I had much instruction in the 
 nice discrimination of words, their selection, their mean- 
 ing, their shades of meaning " 
 
 Had she pierced through a hole in the armour 
 unawares ? 
 
 " I am sorry," she faltered. 
 
 " 'Tisn't you," he said, forcing a smile. " It's Fate, 
 beating me with a stick of ivory and ebony made out 
 of those strands to which you objected ! Take care of 
 yourself, child. I'll call for you about three." 
 
 He came back and tapped her cheek ; then left her 
 to her own devices for five long hours.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 LIFE S WHEEL 
 
 AS Hildred went to her room she came face to 
 face with her father in the corridor. There 
 was a touch of the picturesque in the brown 
 tie which exactly matched his eyes, and the 
 jaunty angle of his Panama hat, which he removed at 
 sight of her. It struck her that he was the only 
 man she had ever seen who could wear such headgear 
 with any distinction. He owned just the requisite 
 touch of debonair buoyancy for its assumption. He 
 was distinctly a personable companion, this jaunty 
 unknown father who was flitting off she knew not 
 where, to meet she knew not whom, to return — yes, 
 about three. 
 
 Only for the stirring of the blood-tie she would 
 have been shaken by a passion of fear and lonehness. 
 As it was she set herself to practise patience, Dr. 
 Lisle's art, she thought with sudden warmth. 
 
 " I was just coming back," said Ivors, " to tell you 
 that if you care to look at them there is a portfolio of 
 my sketches in the lowest shelf of the bookcase. They 
 are — well, some of the dreams I do not sell," he added 
 in a lower tone. 
 
 " Thank you," she replied in the same key, " I will 
 be very careful — of the olive branch." 
 
 200
 
 LIFE'S WHEEL 201 
 
 He flashed a glance at her : then he smiled. It was 
 a brilliant, humorous, whimsical smile which had won 
 for him manj^ friends and the condonation of many 
 faults. 
 
 " Poor little dove ! It was good of you not to 
 peck." 
 
 He kissed her cheek hghtly and was gone, feehng 
 that he had successfully arranged for the filling of her 
 empty hours. 
 
 After Hildred's temporary unpacking she went back 
 to her father's sitting-room. 
 
 The table was cleared and a great bowl of roses 
 stood in its centre. She went to the bookcase for the 
 portfolio and, laying it on the table, opened it with a 
 feeling of pleasurable excitement, which faded a httle 
 as she took out sketch after sketch. 
 
 They were mere hints of cloud and Ught effects, 
 shadows on desert sands, melting tones of colour in a 
 patch of flowing water, exquisite in their dreamy 
 nuances of pearl, pale rose and amethyst, silver, 
 mist-grey and hyacinth, but vague, intangible as the 
 song of which he had spoken. They were the nearest 
 things to dreams made visible that Hildred had ever 
 seen, but, like most dreams, they were too elusive, 
 too indefinite to produce any effect more real than 
 the echo of a whispered promise. In their lovely 
 opahne mists of colour they reminded her of the 
 Turner sketches but they were even less tangible 
 than they. 
 
 One was an effect of sandstorm — a whirUng, biscuit- 
 coloured cloud of dust. As one gazed, the shadowy 
 figure of a Bedouin on a camel seemed to emerge. Then
 
 202 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 it faded, and one was not certain that one had ever 
 seen it, that it was not a swirl of dun spray. 
 
 Another was a fragment of blue sky across which 
 trailed a scarf of cloud tinged with glowing rose ; 
 another a stretch of peach-coloured sand with white 
 splashes that looked like birds on it. These were the 
 only three in which she could decipher any subject. 
 The rest were faint effects of colour, as if he had cap- 
 tured the rainbow of which he had spoken, dipped it 
 into moonlight to soften its brilliance and then used it 
 as his palette, from which he evoked the dream-shapes 
 which he called sketches. 
 
 She looked at them for a long time ; then closed 
 and replaced the portfolio, and went out on the 
 balcony to see the throbbing colour of the living East. 
 
 There was something attractive about her father, 
 though the sense of estrangement and the gulf of uncon- 
 nected years yawned between them too deeply for 
 the tentative frail bridges of either to span as yet : 
 the fire of resentment still smouldered : through its 
 smoke Hildred looked and tried to judge dispassion- 
 ately. Her father's charm was more difficult to com- 
 bat than her mother's hardness : yet in her desire for 
 fairness she felt the impulses bequeathed by each 
 strugghng within her to the point of bewilderment. 
 With a smile too bitter for her young hps she reflected 
 that her mother had found her too dreamy and 
 romantic, while to her father she appeared to be prosa- 
 ically literal and unimaginative. Was she a negative 
 then, produced by some whimsical inversion of Fate, 
 by these two very distinct affirmatives ? 
 
 A shrill piping and the throbbing of drums caught
 
 LIFE'S WHEEL 203 
 
 her ear and diverted her from her introspection. 
 She leaned farther over the balcony, whose scarlet 
 and white awning shaded her pleasantly, and seemed 
 to throw her English fairness into stronger rehef. 
 
 Down a narrow side-street, which led to one of the 
 native quarters, went an Arab procession of the 
 poorer class. Here were no musicians on camels, 
 red-tufted, and gorgeously trapped, jingUng with 
 adornments of beads and shells, but a few white-robed 
 men on foot playing their squealing pipes and beating 
 small fish-skin-covered drums with all the solemnity 
 that befitted the occasion. Round them little children 
 dressed in single garments of yellow, blue or pink, 
 ran and capered : behind followed rickety carts bearing 
 the household furniture ; on top of the first sat a veiled 
 woman holding a mirror, evidently a precious possession, 
 in her lap. Then came two arabiyehs, crowded with 
 natives, and a closed carriage covered with an em- 
 broidered cloth, whose soft reds and yellows and blues 
 and browns merged into a dull richness of colouring. 
 
 Hildred watched the odd procession with interest 
 until the closed carriage, which contained the bride, 
 had passed out of sight, and pipe-note and drum-tap 
 merged into the mosaic of sounds which helped to 
 create the Egyptian atmosphere. Kites screamed 
 shrilly in the blue overhead, wheeled and circled in 
 swift flight or stopped in sudden watchful pause : spar- 
 rows chirped and chattered busily in the roadway, 
 bringing a touch of familiarity into the strangeness, 
 until a watering-cart clattering down the street 
 dispersed them for a moment, evoking a smell of wet 
 dust as it went onwards towards the humming city.
 
 204 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Then by a curious coincidence Hildred came in touch 
 with the last great fact of mortal life, Death. Far-off 
 sounds of chanting pierced the air, and through the 
 narrow street, which rejoicing feet had so lately 
 trodden, passed now the steps of those who mourned. 
 
 First came grave, bearded, turbaned men, some of 
 them bUnd, who chanted incessantly and monoton- 
 ously on two murmuring notes the profession of their 
 faith — " Lai-la-ha il la-l-Wi." 
 
 Hildred rose and listened breathlessly to the low, 
 harsh voices as the slow-paced men wound into sight 
 and out of it again, followed by little boys bearing 
 green branches, who took up the chant in shriller, 
 livelier strain when the men ceased for a moment. 
 
 Then came the bier, hke a coffin on four poles, carried 
 by friends, who changed places continually. It was 
 draped with a richer covering than the bride's had 
 been, and was hung with garlands of pink roses, while 
 at its head was placed the dead man's tarbush, whose 
 long black tassel hung hmply from the crown. After 
 the bier came the veiled women mourners, in thin 
 fluttering robes of black or darkest indigo, each carrying 
 a scarf of blue muslin which she twirled wildly about 
 her head, her shoulders, or before her face, as she 
 uttered the high thin cries of conventional grief. The 
 wild gestures and waihng abandonment of the women 
 contrasted oddly with the grave demeanour of the 
 men, while their shrill cries, piercing as those of the 
 kites overhead, the chanting of the boys, and the 
 deeper tones of the now distant men resolved them- 
 selves into one of the strange, yet not altogether 
 inharmonious, discords of the Easti
 
 LIFE'S WHEEL 205 
 
 Life and Death, the perpetual allies of Nature, each 
 treading on the other's heels, each standing aside to offer 
 precedence in turn, each taking, each giving eternal toll. 
 
 Death here, despite the shrilhng mourners, owned a 
 gayer, more joyful aspect than Death with its gloomy 
 plumed accessories in England. The dead man 
 had gone to the garden of Paradise, therefore his 
 friends should rejoice, even though the conventions 
 of mourning must be fulfilled. Hildred, like her father, 
 began to wonder. 
 
 Then, when she grew weary of vain pondering, and 
 the desire for action awoke, she got her writing-case 
 and indited letters to her friends — long ones to the 
 Dering cousins and Arab Lebarte, which touched on the 
 incidents and pleasures of the voyage and the happy 
 prospect of the Nile trip, and a brief announcement of 
 her arrival and general well-being to her mother. 
 She felt more than a passing wish to send a word of 
 greeting to Dr. Lisle ; he was a person to whom she 
 could write, she thought, but a certain constraining 
 shyness held her hand, as she had already written to 
 him from Marseilles. If she had only a picture-post- 
 card ! She had sent picture-postcards to her friends 
 from all stopping-places. He would probably expect 
 one from Cairo. But how to procure some ? She 
 did not like to go out alone, nor down into the lounge 
 of the hotel among strangers. The forlorn sensation 
 returned in fuU force. 
 
 She rang the beU, and in a moment Moussa appeared, 
 white-robed and smiling. 
 
 " Sitt want lunch," he suggested. " Aiwa, yess, 
 Moussa bring."
 
 2o6 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Deftly he spread a dainty little meal, deftly he served 
 her, with ever-ready smile and watchful eyes. 
 
 At its conclusion she felt refreshed and invigorated. 
 The desire for action grew. She wondered if she could 
 make Moussa understand that she wanted to go out 
 and buy postcards, but his English was extremely 
 limited and her Arabic non-existent. 
 
 " Moussa, please," she ventured " I want picture- 
 postcards." 
 
 " Sitt want bosta-card," answered Moussa with a 
 delighted smile. " Aiwa, yess, Moussa bring." 
 
 He disappeared, and in a short time returned with a 
 little sheaf of postcards which he presented to the 
 
 girl. 
 
 Hildred took out her purse, but Moussa shook his 
 head. 
 
 " No, no, I want no money," he said in Arabic. 
 
 The girl Ufted bewildered eyebrows, and the youth's 
 smile flashed out in response. 
 
 " Master give," he said. Then he looked round the 
 room to see if anything further were needed, and 
 uttered his best effort in English. " Sitt want, sitt 
 ring, Moussa bring." 
 
 " Aiwa, yes," Hildred answered, determined to 
 tackle Arabic on the earhest opportunity. 
 
 When he had gone she examined the postcards — a 
 motley selection. One was a bare-breasted Nubian 
 girl, another a naked child sitting on a water-buffalo, 
 another a group of Arabs round a vegetable stall, and 
 several highly-coloured representations of veiled and 
 unveiled Eastern females. She selected one of the 
 latter for Katherine and the natives clustering round
 
 LIFE'S WHEEL 207 
 
 the crazy booth for Dr. Lisle, to whom she said — " So 
 far I have not even seen a mango-seed in Egypt." To 
 which he rephed later that she must learn a new accom- 
 phshment, his latest being that of building cages for 
 dreams, a handicraft, he said, in which his original art 
 proved very helpful. 
 
 Meanwhile the minutes ticked slowly. Hildred was 
 ready and waiting from three o'clock, but it was nearer 
 to four when her father arrived, fresh and cheerful, 
 and not at all apologetic. 
 
 " I suppose you had almost given me up," he said 
 lightly. " I lunched with some very amusing people 
 at the Semiramis, and afterwards we smoked and 
 talked, and the hours simply fled." 
 
 " They snailed for me," answered Hildred ruefully. 
 
 " That's rather a good word," laughed Ivors, 
 " although I fear that the dictionary would not 
 sanction it. To snail — did you invent it your- 
 seH ? " 
 
 " It was a school word," Hildred replied briefly. 
 She felt a new and sudden exasperation at the sight 
 of this cool, careless person, and yet the sense of com- 
 panionship was so grateful after her lonely hours that 
 she could not afford to risk its loss again. " Are we 
 going out now ? " 
 
 The slim, erect figure, gloved, and provokingly ready 
 found another weak spot in Ivors' armour. How 
 often in dead days had Harriet so sat and waited ? 
 The sight, so obviously putting him in the wrong, 
 pricked him to a lazy disinchnation for further move- 
 ment. 
 
 " We'll have tea first, I think," he said, " then we
 
 2o8 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 shall go out, and you shall plunge into the seething 
 East." 
 
 " I should like to plunge into something. I am 
 rather tired of sitting still." 
 
 " \\Tiy didn't you practise the can-can ? " asked 
 Ivors, with a twinkhng nonchalance. " I am told 
 it is admirable exercise." 
 
 " I don't know the can-can," Hildred began, but 
 she had to laugh before she had half-finished her stiff 
 little sentence. 
 
 " That's right," said Ivors. " An untold reUef. I 
 know that people cannot be really angry with me 
 when I can make them laugh." 
 
 " Why did you think I was angry with you ? " 
 
 " The way you sat, my dear, and your dreadful air of 
 being ready. You were right too, of course. That 
 was the worst of it. It was unconscionable of me to 
 keep a lady waiting. I'll apologise willingly now that 
 you've laughed, but while you looked so horribly right 
 I couldn't. The words froze on my lips." 
 
 Hildred laughed again. What was the use of being 
 annoyed with so irresponsible a person ? 
 
 " I don't think anything could freeze to-day," she 
 answered, with that touch of literalness which Ivors 
 so deplored. 
 
 " Are you enjoying the sunshine ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Ah, tea, thank goodness. Will you make it, 
 please, Hildred ? " 
 
 " With pleasure." 
 
 She rose and went to the table. Ivors Hked the way 
 her hands busied themselves about the little task.
 
 LIFE'S WHEEL 209 
 
 " Did you look at the sketches ? " he asked 
 suddenly. 
 
 Hildred glanced up and away again. " Yes." 
 
 " How did you hke them ? " 
 
 She met his enquiring gaze frankly. 
 
 " You were right," she said. " I did not understand 
 them. They seemed to me to be very — vague." 
 
 " Dreams are vague as a rule," returned Ivors. Her 
 frankness pleased him, but, despite his previous judg- 
 ment, her lack of comprehension disappointed him 
 faintly. He was one who quested always for the 
 Cr3^stal of Understanding. 
 
 After tea they set out. In the lounge Ivors stopped 
 to speak to one or two people, to whom he introduced 
 Hildred. There was a touch of pride in his tone as he 
 said — " i\Iy daughter — " and the girl was pleased at his 
 evident popularity. 
 
 One lady, a Mrs. Hcrries, said that they should 
 dine at her table to-night, while her daughter made 
 an engagement with Hildred to play tennis on the 
 morrow. 
 
 With their descent from the shaded room they seemed 
 to have plunged into a small whirl of hie and gaiety, 
 which promised no return of empty hours in the future. 
 
 As they drove through the tree-shaded streets with 
 their ever-moving throng Hildred felt stirred and stimu- 
 lated, and when they crossed the Kasr-el-Nil bridge 
 and she got her first glimpse of the Nile with its palm- 
 trees and palaces, its steamers all gaily a-flutter 
 with flags, and a Nile-boat or two with high pointed 
 sails she felt a real thrill of excitement, which a nearer 
 view of the rushing, turbid river slightly abated. 
 o
 
 210 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Still it was strange and new — the crowd of varied 
 colour and nationality, the natives walking calmly in 
 the middle of the road amid the rush of traffic, the 
 hartm-ca.rna.ges with their white-veiled occupants : 
 here a dust-coloured figure against a dust-coloured wall 
 selling oranges, there a string of Arabs, in black, or 
 white, and blue, hurrying along with flat baskets of 
 glowing tomatoes poised upon their heads. 
 
 The vivid life, the unusual sounds and sights, the 
 colour, the movement, enchained the girl to silence, 
 and the last touch of strangeness was added to her 
 impression when, after driving between the orange-trees 
 at Ghezireh, she saw the polo-ponies galloping across a 
 field of grass, from which they sent up clouds of dust 
 with their active hoofs. It was curious to her to see 
 the game played against a background of palms and 
 watched eagerly by groups of squatting Arabs, while 
 a few hundred yards away flocks and herds grazed 
 peacefully under the palm-trees, tended by shepherds 
 with long staffs, 
 
 Ivors watched her with amusement. 
 
 " Have you heard the Nile-Song yet ? " he enquired 
 at last. 
 
 " I haven't had a chance," the girl answered. 
 " Give me time." 
 
 " It would take eternity," said Ivors with a httle 
 bigh.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE LUCKY DAY 
 
 IT was Thursday, called by the Arabs " the blessed," 
 and Lady Nugent and Hesper Marlowe sat on 
 the deck of the dahahieh " Nitocris," which was 
 tied up at El-Wasta to await the arrival of the 
 Ivors. 
 
 The afternoon sun was still high, and bathed the 
 river, the village, and the palm-groves in a golden glow. 
 To the left the spurs of the Arabian hills rose sharply 
 into the haze : down the river came a flotilla of Nile- 
 boats, their high pointed sails showing dark against 
 the glow, and white as a seagull's wing when the sun- 
 Ught fell full on them. 
 
 Lady Nugent belonged to the type of cushion-woman 
 — soft, reposeful, yielding. Borne along by the impet- 
 uous rush of her adventurous family she was always 
 cherished by them as their most precious and com- 
 fortable possession. 
 
 " When they suggested wintering in Egypt," she 
 was saying to Miss ^larlowe, " I thought that I might 
 as well be there as anywhere else." 
 
 That was the keynote of her existence. It did not 
 matter to her where she was so long as her family envir- 
 oned her. If one could venture on so incongruous a 
 comparison one might claim for her some kinship of 
 
 2XX
 
 212 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 inverted circumstance, if not of spirit, with the desert 
 nomad, whose home is wherever he chooses to pitch 
 his tent, and whose family camp or tramp as he and 
 Allah will. 
 
 Kindness to her children bestowed the freedom of 
 the city of Lady Nugent's benevolence on the stranger. 
 Inasmuch as he or she was necessary to the pleasure or 
 happiness of one of the beloved circle, insomuch was 
 he or she necessary to Lady Nugent's well-being. 
 
 Her soft placidity rested Hesper Marlowe. Men- 
 tally the elder woman's horizon was determined by the 
 girdling hills of her own warm valley, while Hesper's 
 stretched towards some far invisible fusion of sea and 
 sky. 
 
 Lady Nugent was conscious of no disparity of out- 
 look between them. She admired Miss Marlowe, 
 thought her clever, even brilliant, loved her for her 
 kindness in the present to her restless Gerda, for her 
 kindness in the past to her pretty Sylvia, for whose 
 first-born her soft white fingers were knitting a soft 
 white woollen jacket. 
 
 The deck of the ' ' Nitocris ' ' was a pleasant place to idle 
 in, with its thick awning overhead which kept the sun- 
 rays at bay : with its green tubs of oleander and hibis- 
 cus ; with its scarlet and white rugs placed gaily here 
 and there ; with its cushioned deck-chairs and lounges ; 
 and now with the glistening tea-table which stood ready 
 to give refreshing welcome to the expected travellers. 
 
 Hesper sat in a long easy chair. Over her thin white 
 gown she had slipped a loose coat of duU Egyptian 
 blue, whose colour deepened the blueness of her eyes. 
 She was not working, although a strip of Irish lace lay
 
 THE LUCKY DAY 213 
 
 upon her lap. Her gaze was fixed upon the flotilla of 
 Nile-boats, now showing white against the biscuit 
 and umber tints of the hills. Nearer they stole and 
 nearer, their high prows painted in chequers of water- 
 worn reds and yellows, while the blue-robed men who 
 worked the big fin-like rudders called guttural greetings 
 to the watchers on the bank as they passed. Their 
 cargoes of shining dead-gold straw or snowy blocks of 
 hmestone added their touch of the unusual to the scene. 
 
 Hesper was absorbed, entranced. 
 
 " You like it ? " said Lady Nugent. 
 
 " I love it ; " she drew a deep breath. " I have no 
 words in which to say how it fascinates me." 
 
 " More than India ? " 
 
 " A thousand times more." 
 
 " Now to me," pursued Lady Nugent, with a soft 
 clicking of her needles, " it is all very flat and uninter- 
 esting. It's hot and dusty, and I can smell the village 
 distinctly." 
 
 " So can I, but I don't mind that." 
 
 " You and Mr. Ivors ought to get on. He is posi- 
 tively rabid on the subject of Egypt in general and the 
 Nile in particular. Now he's a charming man. So 
 pleasant and amusing — says things no one else would 
 ever even think of. Gerda and Roddy think no end of 
 him. We saw a good deal of him in Cairo last year. It 
 was he who fired Sir George \vith enthusiasm to come 
 up the Nile this winter. What I hke about him is that 
 he is the same to all women, more or less — just as nice 
 to me as to Gerda." 
 
 " That sameness must be a trifle monotonous," 
 answered Hesper, fighting against a rising prejudice.
 
 214 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " I said ' more or less,' " returned Lady Nugent. 
 She laid down her knitting and bent confidentially 
 forward. " I only hope that Gerda won't fall in love 
 with him." 
 
 " Why did you ask him if you were afraid of such 
 a contingency ? Besides, if I read Gerda aright, she 
 would look on him as elderly — fatal word ! and con- 
 sider him rather soft because he neither shot, rode, 
 nor hunted. Gerda's ideal at present is the sporting 
 hero. I don't think you need be alarmed." 
 
 " That's all right," said Lady Nugent comfortably. 
 " Besides, if Gerda wanted to fall in love, she'd do it, 
 no matter what precautions I might take. But, dear 
 Miss Marlowe, you couldn't call him elderly. The 
 spirit of youth looks out of his eyes." 
 
 A faint wonder stirred Hesper Marlowe. What sort 
 of personality had aroused this poetic fervour in Lady 
 Nugent, whose vocabulary consisted, as a rule, of 
 phrases echoed from the daily speech of those around 
 her ? 
 
 Aloud she said lightly : " Then he suffers from the 
 same complaint as I do — incurable youth ! Poor 
 man ! " The touch of mockery linked them. 
 
 " I wonder why he has never married," Lady Nugent 
 went on. " Last winter in Cairo a rich American 
 literally flung herself at his head, and pursued him so 
 hotly that he had to flee into the desert to escape 
 from her." 
 
 " Disgusting ! " Scorn curled Hesper's lip. 
 
 " Well, he went into the desert at any rate — * to 
 study the effect of shadows on the sand,' he said." 
 
 There was a pause.
 
 THE LUCKY DAY 215 
 
 " She was very pretty too, in an exotic, flower-like 
 style." 
 
 " Was she ? " 
 
 " Yes, I heard liim say so." 
 
 Ah, Hesper had not recognised from whom Lady 
 Nugent could have culled the phrase " exotic flow- 
 er " 
 
 " I wonder why he didn't ! " 
 
 " Do you think every one must needs marry, dear 
 Lady Nugent ? " 
 
 " I think every one ought to." 
 
 " Even widows and widowers ? " 
 
 " Certainly widowers. It's a heaven-sent chance for 
 the poor female sex. But widows ? That's a different 
 matter. No, I don't think widows should re-marry. 
 It's not fair that any woman should have two men." 
 
 Hesper laughed, then sobered. " Mr. Ivors' tragedy 
 must have cut deep." 
 
 " What tragedy ? " 
 
 Hesper regretted her unconsidered speech. Ab- 
 surdly, she felt as if she had betrayed a confidence, 
 but hesitation would have been equally absurd. 
 
 " He lost his wife and son sixteen years ago. They 
 died of diphtheria." 
 
 " How shocking I Some one told me that his wife 
 died in a lunatic asylum, but they must have made a 
 mistake. Or was it that other man, the one who paints 
 camels so well ? " 
 
 " Probably. It was Mr. Carteret of Port Said 
 who told me. I don't think they ever speak of it, 
 though." 
 
 " Naturally. I must try not to mention diphtheria
 
 2i6 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 while they are here. Fortunately it is not a disease of 
 of the country, and in any case I hate talking about 
 diseases. You like the girl, you said." 
 
 " Yes. She has a charm all her own. I am sure 
 you will like her." 
 
 "I'm sure I shall. It will be so nice for Gerda to 
 have a companion." 
 
 For a moment Hesper wondered if Lady Nugent, in 
 the dual invitation to father and daughter, had cloaked 
 the msdom of the serpent with the innocence of the 
 dove ? The pei"petual presence of a grown-up daughter 
 is likely to clip the wings of a schoolgirlish fancy for 
 the father of such a one — likely to clear the vision to 
 a perception of his paternal authority, the weight of 
 his advancing years. Hesper smiled at the thought, 
 wondering too if Hildred and Gerda would amalgamate ; 
 if Hildred would respond to the irresponsible youth of 
 Gerda, or if Gerda would be repelled by the hint of 
 quiet maturity in Hildred's manner ? 
 
 " Here they are ! " said Lady Nugent. " I see 
 George's grey hat among a crowd of tarhtishes." She 
 waved her knitting in welcome, and Hesper turned to 
 face the land. 
 
 Yes, there they were. Sir George, tall, thin, brown ; 
 Hildred, quaker-like in grey, but with radiant apple- 
 blossom face ; Gerda, tall and fair, waving her sun- 
 umbrella, and the much-discussed Mr. Ivors looking 
 ridiculously young in the distance. Behind them came 
 the Arabs with their luggage, and in a moment the 
 " Nitocris " was seized, boarded, and bombarded with 
 greetings, welcomes, questions and^introductions. 
 
 Hildred, bewildered with the novelty of having her
 
 THE LUCKY DAY 217 
 
 shoes and skirts brushed with an ostrich-feather brush 
 by a tall Nubian the moment she stepped on deck, flew 
 to her friend when Lady Nugent's greetings were over. 
 
 " Isn't this too delightful for words ? " she said, 
 with a quick girlish hug. " I want to introduce my 
 father to you." 
 
 A certain undertone in the words told Hesper that 
 past tremors were merged in present pride of possession. 
 More than that she had not time to read, but her 
 impulses leaped in warm response to the girl's evident 
 reaction from her former lonely apprehensions. 
 
 " It's good to see my travelling-companion again, 
 though I felt that we should meet somewhere." 
 
 " You had vanished the other night when I turned 
 round." 
 
 " I used my fernseed and became invisible when I 
 saw that you needed me no longer. " 
 
 " I want to introduce my father to you. Don't use 
 your fernseed again." 
 
 Some faint premonition touched Hesper, that, as 
 far as the Ivors' family was concerned, the fernseed of 
 invisibility had become unavailable. They had entered 
 into her life for good or ill : they, not only the girl but 
 the man, had preoccupied her thoughts and filled her 
 musings. 
 
 She turned, with an odd sense of meeting Fate. 
 
 " Father." The word fell from Hildred's hps for 
 the first time and stirred a new sensation in Ivors. 
 " You were right when you said that this was a lucky 
 day. I want to introduce you to Miss Marlowe, who 
 was so good to me on the voyage." 
 
 " A lucky day indeed," he murmured, inwardly add-
 
 2i8 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 ing, " I wonder ? " as he came forward to fulfil the 
 destiny which had been wrought for him by the 
 Silent Spinners in the soundless hours. 
 
 He saw Ysolt of Ireland — Ysolt the Fair — \vith 
 " black-blue hair and Irish eyes " — a branch of Evin's 
 apple-tree with " twigs of white silver " upon it and 
 " buds of crystal with blossoms " — a type of alluring 
 remoteness and magic nearness, the nearness and 
 remoteness of the stars and the night. The eternal 
 question in his eyes sought and found the eternal 
 question in hers. In the closed book of Fate lay the 
 answer. 
 
 He bowed, but Hesper Marlowe held out a friendly 
 hand. 
 
 " I scarcely need an introduction," she said, in the 
 low rippling tones that Hildred was so glad to hear 
 again. " I have seen a picture of yours downstairs, 
 which speaks to me like an old friend." 
 
 " Which is that ? " asked Ivors interested. Did 
 he catch the gleam of a crystal ? 
 
 " Nile Dawn," put in Gerda Nugent, coming up. 
 " We can't get Miss Marlowe to be really nautical, no 
 matter how much we try, nor mammy either. They 
 will say ' upstairs and downstairs ' until it nearly brings 
 on a relapse for poor Roddy." 
 
 " You cannot be nautical on the Nile," objected 
 Ivors. " It's absurd ; it's an anachronism. The Nile 
 is not the sea." 
 
 " It's a river," laughed Gerda, " and a ship is a 
 ship ; a river is water and water's the sea, therefore 
 the Nile must be the same as the sea. Isn't that good 
 logic, Smarlie ? "
 
 THE LUCKY DAY 219 
 
 " It may be good logic," Hesper answered, " but 
 it isn't true. The Nile — is — the Nile. It seems absurd, 
 but there is really no word which describes it." 
 
 Ivors' eyes met hers in a sudden flash of under- 
 standing. 
 
 " Why do you call her SmarUe ? " asked Hil- 
 dred. 
 
 " School abbreviation. From Miss Marlowe to 
 Smarlowe and from Smarlowe to Smarhe-for-short 
 is an easy transition." 
 
 " As easy as it is ugly," said Ivors abruptly, turning 
 to greet Roddy, who came wearily on deck with an 
 assumption of perfect health which was cheerily 
 accepted by every one. 
 
 Hildred found herself the centre of the younger 
 group, drawn by their unaffected manners into the 
 quick intimacy of youth. The closeness of the bond 
 which knit the family together was apparent in every 
 word of the easy friendly intercourse, and if perception 
 of it stung the girl with some sense of contrast, she 
 was, for the moment, content with circumstance and 
 the mellowing relations with her father. 
 
 Ivors shpped naturally into his groove of accustomed 
 friendship with the Nugents, and unobtrusively studied 
 Miss Marlowe, who was, to his beauty-loving soul, a 
 type as fascinating as unfamiliar. 
 
 The dahabieh "Nitocris" had started on the arrival 
 of the travellers and ghded with dreamy motion past 
 the flat-topped umber hills, across whose jutting scarps 
 and amethyst-grey clefts blue cloud-shadows fleeted 
 and vanished. Stretches and slips of vivid green from 
 the springing crops alternated, on the Libyan side, with
 
 220 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 patches of wet brown land whose rich mud awaited 
 the seed-scattering of blue-girt fellahtn. 
 
 Along the bank went intermittent silhouettes : 
 strings of laden camels, of camels with cloaked and 
 bearded riders, ambling from the pages of the " Arabian 
 Nights," from old tales of caravans and spice-merchants, 
 coloured with romance, tinctured with mystery, till 
 through the golden dusk one could almost smell 
 aloes and ambergris. Silhouettes of pink-robed child- 
 ren leading grey, lumbering water-buffaloes : of black- 
 draped women, water-jars on head, in poise as beautiful 
 as the captured grace of some Attic frieze. 
 
 Past them all flowed the immemorial Nile, muddy 
 and turbid, but powerful with a spell beyond all 
 telling — the mighty river but for whose rich beneficence 
 Egypt, with all her mystery, her ancient arts and time- 
 defying temples, her wonderful antiquity and fertile 
 modernity, would be but a waste desolation of burning 
 sand and rock. 
 
 Later, when Ivors had removed the dust of travel, 
 he returned to the upper deck and drew a chair close 
 to Miss Marlowe's. 
 
 "I see that it all appeals to you," he said 
 softly. 
 
 She looked up with interest. Her path in youth had 
 lain aloof from men, and it was only the past few years 
 that had brought contact. Of the arts of coquetry 
 or deliberate allurement she knew nothing, and, 
 while it gave her a keen pleasure to meet with any who 
 cared about the things for which she cared, any hint of 
 warmer feeling or tentative promotion of friendship 
 to something closer, froze her back into frightened
 
 THE LUCKY DAY 221 
 
 retreat. The " twigs of wliite silver and buds of crystal 
 with blossoms " were not for any man's plucking. 
 
 All that she had heard of Ivors half-fascinated, 
 half-repelled her. The Eve in her desired personal 
 confirmation of the man's admitted charm, while 
 the Dian-Spirit of her Celtic ancestry rebelled at the 
 thought of capture or capitulation. 
 
 " One need not succumb to such an easy charm," 
 she thought, " such an easy, self-confident, impertinent 
 charm," and she steeled herself against it, thereby 
 unconsciously admitting its power. 
 
 " Yes," she answered aloud. " It appeals to me 
 indescribably." 
 
 " Ah, indescribably. There is no other word. The 
 veil of Egypt " 
 
 " Bhnds one'fe eyes, so that one neither sees the ugly 
 sights, feels the dust, nor smells the odours," put in 
 Hesper quickly. 
 
 " Not every one's, and not so quickly." 
 
 " Yes, at once," she objected. 
 
 " How did you know ? " 
 
 " Ah, I knew," she nodded wisely. " I knew when I 
 saw your picture — the Nile-boats stealing out of the 
 pearly, amethyst mists of dawn — and I knew what I 
 felt myself." 
 
 " What you felt yourself ? Is that sympathy or 
 intuition ? I wonder ? " said Ivors slowly. 
 
 " Perhaps a touch of both. It's wonderful, this 
 Nile-magic," Hesper spoke half to herself. 
 
 " Ah, you haven't really seen it yet. Wait until we 
 get farther up the river, until you have seen the temples, 
 until you have become one with the lotus-life. How it
 
 222 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 maddens me when people talk of its being dirty, or 
 muddy, or uninteresting ! Uninteresting ! Good Lord, 
 they don't deserve to have eyes in their heads ! Don't 
 they know that all flowers have their roots in mud ? 
 Mud ! Can't they look above the mud if they don't 
 like it ? No, they can't. They have the minds of 
 bats. When the pageant of the sky spreads a different 
 brilHance before them night after night they say they 
 are ' fed up with sunsets.' Did you ever hear such a 
 loathly expression ? When they see the wonder of the 
 Nile unfolding day by day they say that they are sick 
 of boats and palms. Sick of the boats that are always 
 so suggestively beautiful, whether they go singly or in 
 groups like clouds of white butterflies in vanishing per- 
 spective ; whether they sail towards the rose of sunset 
 or out of the hyacinth mists of dawn : whether they 
 dazzle in the hot sunshine or lie still at night, with 
 butterfly-wings folded and slender masts slanting Uke 
 wind-swept reeds against a fading saffron sky." 
 
 " Ah, that is how I saw them at Port Said ! I have 
 never forgotten. Did Hildred tell you ? You used 
 almost my very words. The simile is the same — wind- 
 bent rushes." 
 
 " How odd ! No, she did not. Another instance 
 of sympathetic intuition." He smiled at Hesper, who, 
 almost in spite of herself, smiled back again. It was 
 pleasant to have one's moods understood. " Do you 
 paint ? " 
 
 " I used to copy a Httle once, but then, when I grew 
 to see, to appreciate, of course I gave it up." 
 
 " On account of your hmitations ? " 
 
 " Too big a word ! On account of my utter ignor-
 
 THE LUCKY DAY 223 
 
 ance. I loved the art too much to desecrate it with my 
 wretched attempts." 
 
 " Wise woman ! O woman, trebly wise ! But surely 
 those slender fmgers do something besides embroider ? " 
 
 Hesper drew herself up a little, and clasped the slim 
 hands that lay idle on her lap. 
 
 " They play the piano." 
 
 " Forgive me. My tongue is for ever treading on the 
 heels of my thoughts, and I always notice people's 
 hands. I don't mean to be rude." 
 
 "I'm sure you don't, but I happen to dishke 
 personalities." 
 
 " I must err again, then," said Ivors, with his air of 
 eager boyishness, " and get it aU over at once." He 
 spoke quickly to ward off interruption. " You are 
 beautiful. I should hke to paint ^'ou some day. May 
 I ? There, it's out now. Are you angry with me ? " 
 His tone held a careless assumption of the forgiveness 
 which was so rarely denied him. 
 
 " I don't suppose that an}'' woman is ever angry at 
 being called beautiful," returned Hesper slowly, "but 
 I don't think I should care to be painted, somehow." 
 
 " I won't paint you somehow. I'll paint you any- 
 how, or nohow, contrariwise," laughed Ivors. " Your 
 type is new to me. Please be as agreeable as you 
 look." 
 
 Hesper hardened her heart. A new type — that was 
 all. Another butterfly to be added to his collection. 
 
 " I didn't think you painted figures." 
 
 " I don't, as a rule. Besides, your face is all I want. 
 Just think. One httle seventh part of your whole 
 microcosm. Can you really be so disobliging ? 
 
 >>
 
 224 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Once more Hesper smiled in spite of herself. 
 
 " Ah, 3'ou're relenting." 
 
 " I'll think about it." 
 
 " Thank 3'ou. That crumb must content me for the 
 present. I never can wait until the whole loaf is attain- 
 able," he added ruefully. " I must always leap before 
 I look." 
 
 " What happens then ? " 
 
 " I find that I generally alight near the loaf " 
 
 " And that you don't want it when you do," put in 
 Hesper quickly. 
 
 " Now we have come to thought-reading," cried 
 Ivors. " Are you an expert in all the mental sciences ? 
 Sir George does not allow the Black Art to be practised 
 on board the ' Nitocris.' " 
 
 " Doesn't he ? " The wind, which so often springs 
 up on the Nile in the evening, loosened and lifted a 
 black tendril from the waves of hair on her forehead. 
 
 Ivors felt a sudden inclination to touch it and put it 
 softly back in its place. There was something in- 
 stantly attractive to him in this woman, in the direct 
 glance of her changing eyes, in the persuasive melting 
 tones of her voice, in the very absence of conscious 
 effort to charm. The slight touch of aloofness pleased 
 while it piqued him, and he felt instinctively that this 
 elusive Celtic temperament, embodied in the contrast 
 of night-black hair, milk-white skin, and sea-blue 
 e3^es, held among its gifts and graces - the seed of a 
 friendship which would be worth culture. 
 
 " There's nothing personal in the sunset, the Lord be 
 praised ! " he ejaculated suddenly. " Just look at it." 
 
 Hesper, unused to wlia.t he called his grasshopper-
 
 tHE LUCKY DAY 225 
 
 flights, could not follow his train of thought, save that 
 in some way it concerned her. 
 
 " Here's Hildred," she said, with some sense of rehef. 
 " Hildred, come and see your first Nile sunset." She 
 put out a welcoming hand to the girl, who stood hesi- 
 tant at the top of the steps. 
 
 " I had to come. I've unpacked and put away all 
 my things in my dear little cabin. Then I saw a glow 
 which I could not resist, so I came up on deck, and 
 when I heard your voices they drew me." She leaned 
 against the rail and looked across the water, her clear 
 young profile outlined against the sky. 
 
 " You will obhge me greatly by sitting down," said 
 her father. " At present you obscure at least one- 
 third of my horizon." 
 
 " I don't want to obscure anyone's horizon," 
 answered Hildred, taking a cushion from an adjoining 
 lounge and sitting down between the two. She glanced 
 under her lashes at her father. His tone had been dry. 
 Could he be annoyed with her for having interrupted 
 his conversation with Miss Marlowe ? Absurd ! 
 
 With a touch of exhilaration induced by the crisp 
 Egyptian air and the novelty of her surroundings she 
 patted his knee and said : 
 
 " I wonder if I could make you laugh ? " 
 
 His smile flashed out in response. 
 
 " Why, you silly baby ? Do I look obnoxiously 
 right, or ready, or waiting, or what ? " He touched 
 the back of her hand. 
 
 " It's all right now," said the girl happily. " Let us 
 watch the sunset in peace." 
 
 To Hesper the inclusion brought a sudden waft of 
 p
 
 226 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 loneliness. In Ivors it renewed that novel and not 
 unpleasant sense of domesticity : that anchored feehng 
 of having some one even temporarily dependent upon 
 one. 
 
 In silence they watched the pageant of the sky as it 
 flamed in luminous scarlet clouds which melted to gold 
 at their outer edges. Detached from the mass a 
 feather of cloud trailed its rosy length across the blue. 
 The sun sank : the flames burned orange : the cloud- 
 feather turned a filmy brown. The light faded, died, 
 turned silvery. Then the afterglow of saffron flared 
 sombrely behind a black line of palms on the western 
 bank. On the forepart of the deck an Arab boatman 
 prostrated himself in prayer. The land merged 
 gradually into a strip of shadow, and night, blue and 
 star-set, feU with incredible swiftness. 
 
 Hesper drew a long breath. Ivors turned to her. 
 
 " Did you note the curious green where the blue of 
 the sky melted into the horizon colours ? " he asked. 
 
 " I did." 
 
 " How often have I tried to paint it ! It is a colour 
 of the afrits ! I beheve that they alone know how to 
 mix it, for I never can get it to my satisfaction. The 
 nearest thing to it that I have ever seen is the greeny- 
 turquoise shade which you'll see in some of the old 
 temples. The love-colour, the ancient Egyptians used 
 to call it. It's one of the three things I'm always 
 looking for." 
 
 " What are the others ? " 
 
 " The Crystal of Understanding, the little Green Bird 
 -who knows everything, and — the Love-Colour." 
 
 " Perhaps " began Hesper, and then stopped.
 
 THE LUCKY DAY 227 
 
 " Perhaps," he echoed, " I wonder ? " 
 " There's no cage strong enough to hold the Green 
 Bird," said Hildred hastily. " And no human being 
 perfect enough to bear the test of the Crystal of 
 Understanding." 
 
 " Perhaps the Love-Colour would supply the defi- 
 ciencies of both," said Hesper, rising, and looking 
 at the girl with a smile as she moved away.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 " TO-DAY IS SWEET " 
 
 THE Nile journey glided on in fashion as dream- 
 like as the motion of the dahahiyeh " Nitocris." 
 The little group of people who were thrown 
 into such close proximity harmonised pleas- 
 antly. So far, the hours made httle mark, but, as 
 they filtered by, each left its unnoted trace upon the 
 threads of life which Fate, at the moment, wove into 
 one wide web. 
 
 On a windy morning they passed the Bird Mountain, 
 whose high bluffs, dazzlingly white where quarried, 
 honeycombed with holes of unexpected darkness and 
 traceried here and there with fan-hke stalactite effect, 
 rose sheer from the water. At its base were narrow 
 crop-strips of brilliant green, while its summit was 
 crowned with a Coptic monastery and village — small 
 square sun-baked houses topped by four bubble-like 
 white domes — to which a steep flight of roughly-cut 
 steps gave access from the shore. 
 
 It loomed remote and secret on this colourless day, 
 whose sky was streaked with thin white clouds and 
 sudden rifts of blue, while the river shivered in grey 
 and dove-colour where it did not catch the silver of the 
 sun-sparkles. 
 
 On a sandy islet a flock of storks and herons 
 meditated, one-legged, in grey and white repose. 
 
 228
 
 "TO-DAY IS SWEET" 229 
 
 Lady Nugent knitted comfortably, happy in the 
 thought that they were yet some days from action, 
 as exemphfied by donkey-riding and sight-seeing. 
 Roddy, lying in a long deck-chair, laughed over a novel 
 he was reading, from which he now and again read 
 extracts to the two girls, who were arranging snap- 
 shots in an album. 
 
 Hesper Marlowe, curled up on the end of the divan, 
 looked from the mountain to the water and from the 
 water to the deck which Sir George and Ivors paced 
 in pursuance of their morning mile. 
 
 In spite of herself Hesper felt a kinship of spirit with 
 the artist, the dawn of a growing friendship, on which 
 he in no way trespassed. He did not attempt to flirt 
 with her, as she understood the art, and he paid her 
 no more compliments, save occasionally the exquisitely 
 subtle one of a glance that claimed and received an 
 answer of mutual understanding. It was to her he 
 turned for anything which needed a special comprehen- 
 sion — an effect of plumy date-palms purple against the 
 rose of day's after-glow : a vignette of young girls 
 standing on the bank, sUm as reeds, with their backs 
 to the setting sun which shone through their flowing 
 scarlet shawls with strange effect, making their slender 
 bodies look as though they were outUned in flame : 
 a flight of pigeons, fluttering and circHng, pearl- 
 breasted against the blue. For these and other 
 moments his eyes sought hers. 
 
 Hildred admired, was amused and attracted, but 
 for her Egypt lay unveiled, bare of mystery or illusion. 
 For her it was the gay, noisy, vivid, chaffering East, 
 whose novelty contrasted piquantly with her English
 
 230 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 summer. Her clear 3^oung eyes saw more of squalor 
 than picturesqueness in the mud villages plastered like 
 swallows' nests upon the banks from which the Nile 
 took yearly toll, and her young heart felt a pity for 
 those whose crumbUng homes had vanished altogether 
 in last year's flood. 
 
 With all her cosmopolitanism of outlook she did not 
 grasp anything of the Arab's calm acceptance of the 
 inevitable : she had never touched the fatalistic East : 
 she could not hear in fancy the invariable query, 
 " What matter ? " with which the Arab greets fact 
 accomplished ; also, her ears were closed to the Song 
 of the Nile. 
 
 Hesper, with her knowledge of her own race, saw 
 more truly, understood better, and let her senses float 
 on the dreamy enchantment in which Egypt bad 
 enwrapped her from the first moment in which she had 
 peeped through its keyhole. Port Said. 
 
 As the Nitocris neared the great bluff Ivors stopped 
 close to the divan. 
 
 " Isn't it a strange elusive morning ? " he said. 
 " It's a harmony in grey, and white, and amber, with 
 silver ruffles on the water and no real colour except 
 those strong rifts of blue overhead. I want to paint it. 
 I wonder if I could." 
 
 ^- He touched an electric beU which was near at hand. 
 Hesper heard its four sharp trills ring out incongru- 
 ously above the lapping of the water. 
 
 In an instant Moussa, in lilac with a purple waist- 
 band, appeared, and Ivors gave an order in Arabic. 
 Then he knelt on the end of Hesper's divan, leaning his 
 arm on its back and looking upwards at the towering cliff.
 
 " TO-DAY IS SWEET " 231 
 
 " You idle person," he said. " What happens when 
 you are so busy doing nothing ? " 
 
 " I am letting Egypt sink into my soul. I am pre- 
 paring for the strenuous life which lies before us once 
 the sight-seeing begins. I am trying to gird up the 
 loins of my spirit for the donkey-riding. I am thinking 
 over the words of Arabic which I learn daily from 
 Moussa. I am " 
 
 " Inventing a string of excuses for your idleness to 
 supplement the real one which you gave at the begin- 
 ning," retorted Ivors coolly. " Is thy servant a dog 
 that he should be pelted with phrases from thy proper 
 understanding ? " 
 
 Hesper glanced at him, conscious of a quickened 
 interest. " Do you think you understand me ? " 
 
 " Good Lord, no ! I dare advance no such claim, 
 but I think you understand me a little, which is an 
 altogether delightful and unusual experience." 
 
 Her face softened. "Is it ? But remember, even 
 the most simpatica person only touches the fringes of 
 understanding." 
 
 " I intend to keep tight hold of the fringes of yours," 
 returned Ivors, with deliberate lightness. " Besides, 
 I'm not at all sure that I agree with you. Let's have 
 an argument," he said, sitting down suddenly and facing 
 her. 
 
 Hesper laughed, and it seemed to him as if the wind 
 caught up her laughter, and playing with it, lost it 
 in the ripples of the water. Also, it loosened that 
 tantalising tendril of her hair and blew it softly about 
 her forehead. 
 
 " First of 8,11, I wish you'd tidy your hair," he s^id,
 
 232 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 putting his hands in his pockets. " How is one to 
 argue with a person whose hair is blowing about into 
 her eyes, thereby diverting attention from the subject 
 in hand ? " 
 
 " What shall we argue about ? " asked Hesper, 
 amused, as she tucked away the ojffending lock. 
 
 " Call it exploration if you prefer it. Let's explore 
 each other." 
 
 Hesper drew herself up a little. 
 
 " Oh, you can't help it," Ivors went on with his 
 whimsical smile. " Consciously or unconsciously people 
 will explore you whether you like or not. To me, for 
 instance, each new person is an adventure until he or 
 she, like most things in hfe, crystaUises into a common- 
 place." 
 
 " But they do not all become common-places, 
 surely," retorted Hesper, vaguely nettled. 
 
 " No more a common-place than the stars, or the 
 power of sight, or to-day, or sunsets — that is, the few. 
 But the great majority ! One gets used to them so 
 soon ; one ceases to look for possibilities. Don't you 
 know the feeling ? " 
 
 Hesper had nodded admission almost before she 
 was aware. 
 
 " Ah, I thought you did. One feels there are such 
 chances about new people, promises of congeniality, 
 all sorts of possibilities. Then one goes exploring, 
 making discoveries, getting disappointments, finding 
 limitations, until at last the adventure is over, and the 
 person has settled into his (or her) little niche in one's 
 mind, pigeon-holed and put away until wanted." 
 
 " That sounds cold-blooded and calculating."
 
 "TO-DAY IS SWEET" 233 
 
 " Oh, no, it isn't. One knows exactly what one 
 will get, and it is wiser to ask for no more." 
 
 " And that's sheer cynicism." 
 
 " Wrong again," answered Ivors. " It's worldly 
 wisdom." His eyes aided his present explorations ; 
 he had succeeded beyond his expectations. 
 
 A quick sparkle shone from beneath Miss Marlowe's 
 lashes, and a faint flush showed on her white skin. 
 
 " I don't agree with you at all," she began. 
 
 " Splendid ! That is the fine flower of every argu- 
 ment. Let's get to the root of your disagree- 
 ment." 
 
 " I believe that there are unsounded depths in every 
 human being. You can't docket and label people as 
 you would business papers. If the occasion arose, 
 probably, those whom you imagine you know best 
 might one day surprise you." 
 
 " What a comforting theory ! And yet, on second 
 thoughts, rather a disturbing one. Is all my calm 
 classification of my friends to go for nought ? Am I 
 to live, as it were, in all the horrible uncertainty of a 
 mental house-cleaning, not knowing if I shall ever 
 again find anything where I had once put it ? " 
 
 Hesper laughed, but there was a Httle ring of scorn in 
 her mirth. His absurdities had fulfilled their laudable 
 object of ruffling her. 
 
 " Your calm classification, as you call it, savours 
 somewhat of superciliousness to me " 
 
 " By the way," he interrupted delightedly, " did 
 you ever hear why the camel wears his air of super- 
 cihousness ? It is because in addition to the ninety- 
 nine names for Allah, he is aware of yet a hundredth,
 
 234 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 and the possession of this secret, which mere man can 
 never learn, causes him to look down upon the whole 
 race with perpetual scorn." 
 
 " What a delicious story ! " 
 
 " Waive my likeness to the camel, and continue. 
 Are you going to pull down my Castle of Friendship 
 about my ears ? " 
 
 " Oh, you needn't be uneasy. I said that it was the 
 depths which were unsounded. Your classification 
 did not go quite so far, I fancy. Besides, even friend- 
 ship doesn't often trouble the depths. But in friend- 
 ship," she continued in a lighter tone, " it seems to me 
 that the more you ask for the more you get. If you 
 ask for bread you get butter as well, and sometimes 
 jam," 
 
 " You don't believe then, that friends are like fiddle- 
 strings and should not be screwed too tight ? " 
 
 " I would rather say with the French that friendship 
 is love without its wings," she answered, softening 
 suddenly. 
 
 " You have evidently been fortunate in your friends." 
 
 " I have." 
 
 " You would be, naturally. Your ideals of the art 
 are high." He had dropped his cloak of teasing in 
 response to her swift change of mood. 
 
 " Mustn't the ideals of any art be high ? " Her 
 voice broadened in its Irish rise and faU as it always 
 did when she was moved. " Surely you, of all people, 
 ought to know that ! Isn't it better to burn your 
 wings in the fire of the sun than to run a thorn into 
 your knee crawhng along the muddy roads ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Ivors abruptly, stirred as he had
 
 "TO-DAY IS SWEET" 235 
 
 not been for years. " If that's not worldly wisdom 
 at least it's heavenly folly." 
 
 " But I am not at all worldly wise," said Hesper, 
 with a little smile, " and I think that remark verges 
 dangerously on the personal." 
 
 Something wistful in his regard stirred the mother- 
 nature which is latent in most women, and disturbed 
 her poise for the moment. Any need of her woke 
 generous response, and it was with a distinct effort 
 that she steeled herself against appeal. She turned 
 to see Moussa standing near. 
 
 " I don't know how long Moussa has been standing 
 here with your painting things." 
 
 " The mood has passed." He shrugged his shoulders. 
 " The desire has vanished. I hope there has not been 
 Black Magic at work." 
 
 " I hope not." 
 
 " I wonder ? " he said, with a swift glance. " Per- 
 haps I had better fight against it. Here, Moussa." He 
 arranged himself where he could best see his symphon}' 
 of amber and grey, and be out of earshot and eyeshot 
 of this disturbing person who began to occupy his 
 thoughts more than he approved or desired. 
 
 He knew himself ; he knew his temperament, and 
 he saw danger-signals far ahead. In their distance 
 lay his safety. To-day was his. He would enjoy it 
 to the full. On the thought he rose, pushed aside his 
 easel and came back to the divan where Hesper sat 
 warm with a sense of quickened life, of newly-dawning 
 interests. 
 
 " Don't you agree with the Germans," he said with- 
 out preamble, " that To-day is worth ten To-morrows ?
 
 236 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 ' To-morrow, why To-morrow I may be, Myself with 
 Yesterday's sev'n thousand years.' " 
 
 " Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday, 
 
 " Why fret about them if To-day be sweet ? " 
 capped Hesper. 
 
 " Ah, you love the old Pagan too ! " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " And is To-day sweet ? " 
 
 " It is indeed," said Hesper, with convincing sin- 
 cerity. " I love old Omar's rapid transitions, and 
 some of his philosophy." She elongated the " o" in 
 love with a caressing effect with which Ivors, later, 
 came to know and look for. 
 
 " He fits my case so often," said Ivors ruefully. 
 " The Persians give the Rubaiyat a mystical meaning 
 and say that Omar meant by the Tavern the Soul, 
 by the Cup the Universe, and by Wine Truth, but I 
 prefer the more hteral rendering. Haven't you too, 
 sworn repentance before Spring came — * and Rose-in- 
 Hand, My threadbare Penitence to pieces tore ? ' " 
 
 " I — don't know," replied Hesper dubiously. " You 
 see, until lately I have never had a chance of doing 
 anything that called for much repentance." 
 
 " You speak in a dehghtful tone of regret. I hope 
 you made full use of your opportunities when they 
 came." 
 
 " They didn't come. At least — perhaps — only those 
 that wouldn't have been worth repenting for." 
 
 It was a curious remark : an odd regret. Ivors 
 had an impression as of the momentary subsidence 
 of the froth of conversation which showed deep waters 
 flowing beneath.
 
 "TO-DAV IS SWEET'* 237 
 
 He wondered where the depths of this woman's 
 nature ran. Her contradictions of character at once 
 piqued and drew him ; her dehcate aloofness, her warm 
 responsiveness ; her quick sympathy, her power of 
 instant detachment ; her gaiety, her Hght reticence, all 
 combined to form a personality as elusive, and attrac- 
 tive as — he sought for a simile, but found no fitting one. 
 
 Meanwhile Gerda and Hildred, tired of arranging 
 their photographs, strolled up to them. 
 
 The "Nitocris" had emerged from the shadow of the 
 Bird Mountain, which now bulked behind them, almost 
 titanic in that level country. 
 
 " Why is it called the Bird Mountain ? " Gerda 
 demanded. " Smarlie is thirsting for information, but 
 she's too poHte to say so." 
 
 " Study thy Baedeker," answered Ivors lazily. " You 
 will find an invaluable amount of information therein." 
 
 " But have you nothing personal to add ? You, 
 Mr. Ivors, as an old resident should be full of those 
 little odd touches which add — er — human interest to 
 foreign travel." 
 
 " In the days of my younger youth and wilder 
 energy," answered Ivors, " I was drawn in a basket 
 by means of a windlass up a cleft in that mountain. 
 It's a miserable place when you get there, and the only 
 pleasure is to get away. My one personal recollection 
 is of a dim little sanctuary cut out of the sohd rock, and 
 a fine old Byzantine gateway half-buried in the accumu- 
 lations of years. Will that satisfy you, your ladyship ? " 
 
 " It's dull," said Gerda, sitting on a cushion on the 
 deck. " We want to be amused, don't we, Hildred ? " 
 
 " Yes," responded Hildred, perching herself on the
 
 238 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 end of the divan. " Did I hear you talking of Omar 
 Khayyam ? Have you any fresh Hghts to throw on 
 the Rubaiyat ? " 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " cried her father. " We can't 
 have the infallibihty of young England casting its 
 searchhght on our ignorance ! " Then, as he noted 
 Hildred's ready flush, he turned to her and said, 
 " But here's a personal note which may interest you. 
 I've seen the place where Omar was buried." 
 
 " Have you been to Persia ? I never knew," 
 exclaimed the girl. 
 
 " You don't know much about my wanderings." 
 
 " Whose fault is that ? " she cried under her breath, 
 yet not so low but that the words were heard both by 
 Miss Marlowe and Ivors. 
 
 " Whose misfortune, you mean ? " retorted Ivors, 
 quickly continuing: "He was buried, by his own 
 desire, at the foot of a garden wall over which hung 
 the branches of pear and peach-trees, which strewed his 
 tomb with a perfumed rosy snow. Eastern writers 
 call it the snow of Paradise. Now neither wall nor 
 garden remains and only the blossoms of the wild shed 
 their petals where he hes. Still, his desire is fulfilled, 
 for, as he wished, his tomb is in a spot where the 
 north wind may scatter roses over it — roses whose 
 fragrance — what's the matter ? " 
 
 " I've got a cramp," cried Gerda, jumping up and 
 hopping about on one foot. " It's from sitting still 
 so long, I do believe." 
 
 " Stand on your head for a change," Roddy 
 suggested, looking up from his book. 
 
 " Learn step-dancing," said Ivors. " I once knew
 
 "TO-DAY IS SWEET" 239 
 
 the Highland fling. That ought to work off some of 
 your superfluous energy." 
 
 " Or the can-can," put in Hildred, who had not yet 
 quite forgiven her father. 
 
 " I can teach you an Irish jig if you like," said Miss 
 Marlowe quickly. " But I warn you that it's warm 
 work, and I may find some difficulty in playing and 
 dancing at the same time unless I ' jig with me mouth ' 
 as our old gardener used to say." 
 
 " What does that mean ? " 
 
 " Hum, of course, you duffer," said Roddy. " Don't 
 let them bully you, Smarlie. They're well able to 
 amuse themselves." 
 
 " Come along, Hildred, let's get our cameras and snap 
 these Nile-boats coming down," cried Gerda, confiding 
 to the girl as they disappeared that it really was more 
 the poetry than the cramp which had upset her — she 
 couldn't stand poetry at any price !
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BELHASARD 
 
 AT sunset the " Nitocris " moored below Minia. 
 The town showed picturesque in the glowing 
 dusk with its flat-topped houses, its palm- 
 clusters and its three slender minarets which 
 stood clearly outlined against the evening sky. 
 
 To the left the Arabian hills, here rising like a 
 fortress, there bulking like some colossus lying in state, 
 glowed hke deep gold. Their reflection stretched across 
 the Nile, turning it to a river of molten gold, ever 
 burning deeper and more intense until the sun suddenly 
 dipped below the Libyan horizon, leaving the world 
 agasp at the swift change. The golden hills became 
 dun : the golden river a dark flowing mass slashed 
 here and there with silver spears, until the afterglow 
 brightened the sky and faintly flushed the disconsolate 
 mountains with rose. 
 
 A cottage piano was on the upper deck, and every 
 evening after dinner Hesper played. 
 
 Ivors did not know whether he was pleased or 
 disappointed to find that Mildred was not musical. 
 To Hildred it came with a httle shock of distaste to 
 hear her father sing love-songs in a hght and pleasant 
 baritone voice. 
 
 The Nugents declared that they loved music, but it 
 
 240
 
 BKLHASARD 241 
 
 is to be feared that they preferred Gerda's two-steps 
 and one-steps and rag-time rubbish to the more classi- 
 cal expressions of the art which Hesper Marlowe had 
 carefully instilled into her. 
 
 Of them all Hesper and Ivors were the only real 
 music-lovers, and when he discovered this further bond, 
 the slim fingers, which drew such delicious harmony 
 out of the indifferent piano, and which accompanied 
 with such rare sympathy, were seldom left idle. 
 
 Now, out into the blue dusk throbbed the longing 
 notes of a Chopin waltz. It stirred Hildred to a 
 woodland memory : it drew for Roddy a girl's face 
 framed in chestnut hair : it tapped and peered at a 
 locked door in Ivors' heart, and it set alight the fires 
 of youth in Gerda's feet and made her long to dance. 
 
 She rose with a whirl of white skirts and swooped 
 on the player. 
 
 " Play us a real waltz, Smarlie," she cried. " I 
 shall scream or burst if I don't dance. Come, Mr. 
 Ivors, and Roddy, take Hildred. No one plays a waltz 
 like Smarlie. Play ' May Dreams,' like a lamb, and 
 the very deck chairs will get up and dance." 
 
 " How do lambs play waltzes ? " asked Hesper with 
 a smile and a half-smothered sigh, as she turned from 
 Chopin into the swinging melody desired of Gerda. 
 
 One dance followed another. Roddy forgot his 
 invalidism, and he and Gerda vokinteered to teach the 
 Ivors all the newest varieties. 
 
 With flushed cheeks and girhsh zest Hildred entered 
 into the spirit of the moment. So did Ivors, who was 
 quicker to learn and more alert than his daughter. 
 
 " I've had more practice, you see," he said, as she 
 
 Q
 
 242 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 stopped once, breathless. " This is the way it goes." 
 He swung her round hghtly. He was a far better 
 dancer than Roddy. 
 
 At last he stopped near the piano. 
 
 " You have piped long enough for us to dance to," 
 he said. " Come, dance with me for a change. Miss 
 Nugent will play. She looks quite worn out." 
 
 " Worn out ? Well, I like that," said Gerda, sub- 
 siding on the piano stool. " I could dance all-night 
 without turning a hair." 
 
 " Ah, wait until you are my age," Ivors retorted 
 over his shoulder, as he shpped his arm round Hesper's 
 waist and moved, swaying, into the cleared space. 
 
 The refrain rose and fell rhythmically, and though 
 the music lacked the witchery of Hesper's touch it was 
 a loss unfelt by her. She heard, in response to the 
 honey-sweet notes, the beating of the wings of her 
 vanishing youth. It was an exquisite physical joy, 
 and her feet could have woven that measure until 
 Night drew her veil from the face of the waters, and 
 left the world still enough, as in primeval days, to hear 
 the morning-stars sing together. 
 
 Ivors had never danced with such a partner, or one 
 so responsive to the faintest hint of movement. He, 
 too, felt the thrill and zest of youth : he, too, had 
 the sense that but one body moved in such perfect 
 harmony. 
 
 " Where did you learn to dance ? " he asked at last. 
 
 " I never learned. I always knew." 
 
 " The magic of the night is in your feet," he mur- 
 mured. " Black magic, or white magic ? Which is it, 
 I wonder ? "
 
 BELHASARD 243 
 
 " Let's stop," said Hesper, shrinking vaguely from 
 she knew not what. 
 
 Ivors' clasp tightened sHghtly. " Just one more turn 
 and then we'll go and look at the stars." 
 
 Not one more turn but many, till seconds merged 
 into unnoted minutes — a time-forgetful spell woven 
 by pleasure, acknowledged and unacknowledged. 
 
 At last the music stopped, and Hesper drew away 
 from him. She moved towards the raihng and looked 
 into the dark water which slipped mysteriously past 
 the moored vessel. 
 
 Beyond, the minarets in the blue dusk of night were 
 delicate as the silhouette of a seeded flower. The 
 orange lights of the town winked and glimmered. Away 
 from the distance came the howl of a jackal. 
 
 In the circle of light near the piano Sir George was 
 being initiated into the mysteries of the Boston. Lady 
 Nugent knitted placidly, smihng at her thoughts, 
 which were Machiavellian (in her own innocent esti- 
 mation) to a degree undreamed of by those around 
 her ; smiling placidly at the two who had withdrawn 
 themselves into the shadows : over whose heads shone 
 a remote beneficent moon in a sky bejewelled with 
 stars. 
 
 No sound reached them except the lapping and mur- 
 muring of the water and the thin howl of the jackal, 
 prowling perhaps where kings once had trodden. 
 
 " You enjoyed it ? " Ivors whispered. 
 
 " I did." 
 
 He straightened himself with a hard little laugh. 
 
 " Absurd to think that I, the father of a grown-up 
 daughter, should dance with all the zest of a boy ! "
 
 244 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 If the self-accusatory phrase stung Hesper she made 
 no sign. She echoed his laugh. 
 
 " And to think that I, a middle-aged woman " 
 
 " Don't be ridiculous." His tone sounded cross, but 
 it was an ire that warmed rather than chilled the heart 
 of the woman beside him, " You're not middle-aged." 
 
 " Ah, but I am." 
 
 " Ah, but you're not," mocked Ivors. 
 
 " Then neither are you," she retorted. 
 
 " Neither am I ? " he echoed sadly, looking into the 
 vista of empty years, and seeing old Time, the cynic, 
 with his scythe and swelhng sheaf of days. " You've 
 got the true secret, you wonder-worker. Perhaps you 
 could teach me how to be really young." 
 
 " Ah, no. You know yourself." 
 
 " It's a mockery and a delusion," said Ivors. " What 
 paints the semblance of my youth is that I am always 
 wondering, always wanting." 
 
 " What are you wanting ? " she asked half -shyly, 
 fearful of trespassing. 
 
 " I am wanting," he began. Then he stopped and 
 bent towards her in the starlight. " Most of all I am 
 wanting — as you picturesquely put it — to know how 
 you kept your heart and soul unwarped in those 
 dreary days in which you sold the art you love for a 
 miserable pittance ? " 
 
 "Ah, but it wasn't a miserable pittance," answered 
 Hesper, spreading out her fingers and looking at them. 
 Ivors looked at them too, and thought, for one mad 
 moment, how good they would be to have and to hold, 
 to caress, to cling to in an hour of need. " My salary 
 was considered very good,"
 
 BELHASARD 245 
 
 " How much was it ? " 
 
 She told him. 
 
 " Good Lord ! " he said. " What beasts we are ! " 
 
 She made no comment. She did not try to follow 
 his train of thought. 
 
 " And you had a starved life," he continued in a 
 fierce tone. " I know. You've told me that you had 
 no one belonging to you." 
 
 " Yes, I was often lonely," she answered simply. 
 " I had no one of my very own." 
 
 " Nor I." 
 
 " You had Hildred," she said quickly. 
 
 " True. I forgot." He thought for a bitter moment 
 of the full life a man may have who owns wife and 
 children. " But you ? You must have had some- 
 thing or some one." 
 
 " Yes, I had — some one." She turned away with 
 a httle catch in her breath. 
 
 " Who was your friend ? " he asked quickly. 
 
 In the darkness he could not see the sudden red that 
 rushed to her face. Her cheeks were burning. She 
 felt tongue-tied ; shy as a child and yet with a wistful 
 desire that he should understand. 
 
 " Do you know Browning ? " she asked, hesitating. 
 
 " Tolerably well," he ansv/ered, surprised at her 
 irrelevance. 
 
 " Do you remember a poem of his called ' Fears and 
 Scruples ' ? " Timidity fluttered her tones. 
 
 He wondered why. 
 
 " Do you remember the last hne ? ' What if the 
 friend happen to be— God ? ' " she whispered. 
 
 Ivors was silent. He was no frequenter of church or
 
 246 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 chapel, sanctuary or synagogue. It was years since 
 he had heard the sacred Name uttered otherwise than 
 in vain. He cried to himself, " O, you dear woman ! 
 You dear woman ! " but he did not dare to give his 
 cry utterance. 
 
 For one moment, fleet as thought, he touched the 
 hand that lay whitely beside his on the rail, and with- 
 drew it again while he sought mentally for a fitting 
 comparison for her. Rainbow, dawn-mist, moonlight 
 were too ethereal, too unstable. Beneath the surface 
 lay qualities as true and unchanging, as high and pure 
 as any " fixed star." Ah, that was it ! The idea 
 pleased him — " a fixed star." 
 
 " What is 3''our name ? " he asked in his usual 
 impulsive way. 
 
 " Is this a new form of catechism ? " She drew 
 herself up a little, surprised, yet grateful for the 
 unexpected turn of the conversation. 
 
 " No, but I'm odd. I have fancies about people's 
 names. I hke to know what they are — to see if they 
 fit." 
 
 " Your own, for instance ? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. 
 
 " My own is like that of the silliest possible hero of 
 the silhest possible novelette. Ingram Ivors ! Did 
 you ever hear an57thing so absolutely revolting ? For 
 many years my most burning desire has been to choke 
 my godfathers and godmothers." 
 
 " And your nom de brosse ? " she laughed softly- 
 
 " My nom de brosse, as you call it, is I beheve the 
 farthing rushlight which for years I have been pleased 
 to consider my guiding star." He gave his head an
 
 BELHASARD 247 
 
 impatient shake, as if he would have flung from him 
 some accustomed burden. " But yours ? You haven't 
 told me your name yet ? " 
 
 " My name is Hesper Belhasard Marlowe, at your 
 service." 
 
 " Hesper Belhasard. Ah," he said with soft 
 exultance, " I knew it. I knew that you were a star 
 of some sort." 
 
 " How did you know ? Was it intuition or thought- 
 reading ? I begin to suspect that you accuse me of 
 practising the Black Art in order to divert attention 
 from yourself." 
 
 " It's the artistic temperament, I suppose," he 
 answered, ignoring her httle jest. "I feel things: I 
 know things, somehow. I^knew 3'ou were a star." 
 
 The earnestness of his insistence robbed the words 
 of any petty complimentary meaning. 
 
 " I was called Hesper because I was born in the 
 evening. I was called Belhasard because it was the 
 name of the place where my father and mother first 
 met " her voice broke, but Ivors understood. 
 
 " Hesper Belhasard," he repeated half under his 
 breath. " Hesper Belhasard. The beautiful hazard 
 of the evening Star ! It is the loveliest name I have 
 ever heard. It exhales the fine flower of medievalism 
 and the spirit of old romance, and yet it is as much a 
 part of you — I must say it — as is your beautiful hair 
 or your milk-white skin. Hesper Belhasard ! I could 
 repeat it a thousand times for the mere pleasure of the 
 sound of it. It's like — a bell in a forest, or water 
 lapping, or a bird caUing." 
 
 " I am glad you like it," said Hesper simply.
 
 248 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 She turned as if to join the others, then paused for 
 a moment, hesitant on the verge of an impulse. 
 
 " Won't you forget my unconsidered speeches ? " 
 she asked at last, with a low coaxing inflection. 
 
 " No, I won't," answered Ivors bluntly. 
 
 " Please believe," she went on, looking down at the 
 narrow boards of the deck, " please believe that the 
 night, or the dancing, or — the atmosphere, got into my 
 head and bewitched me to the point of a very unusual 
 confidence." 
 
 " Don't regret it," said Ivors without moving. 
 " Perhaps unknown to yourself you've done the best 
 deed you ever did in your life. You've shown me that 
 there is at least one woman in the world who has — a 
 soul." 
 
 " I ? " 
 
 " Yes, you — Hesper Belhasard," he answered softly. 
 
 Her face was in shadow, but the lights near the 
 piano shone upon his, and showed it suddenly tired 
 and worn. 
 
 " Yes, you — Hesper Belhasard," he repeated, and 
 there was something in the smile with which he 
 accompanied the words that brought a swift rush of 
 tears to Hesper's eyes.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 DRIFTING 
 
 EVER again," answered Lady Nugent firmly. 
 " Wild horses " 
 
 " Shall not drag me sight-seeing unless I can 
 go in comfort. I consider that it is positively indecent 
 for a woman of my age and size to ride a donkey." 
 
 " Yes, you did bulge rather over yours, mammy," 
 said the disrespectful Gerda. 
 
 " Don't mind her. Lady Nugent. I believe she 
 picked out the smallest donkey for you and the largest 
 for herself," exclaimed Hesper. 
 
 " Don't flatter yourself, Smarlic. You bulged too." 
 
 " I don't care," answered Hesper, lying back in her 
 deck-chair. " I enjoyed it all." 
 
 Yes, she had enjoyed it all : the peaceful ambling 
 by Lady Nugent's side over the biscuit-coloured sands, 
 whose rocks held httle sand-coloured birds with pink 
 bills, which cheeped and peeped at them as they passed 
 on their way to the famous Tombs at Beni-Hasan. 
 
 Gerda had incited the more energetic spirits to a 
 donkey-race, and the five had vanished in a cloud of dust, 
 halting not until they drew up, breathless, at the foot 
 of the steep crumbling ascent which led to the Tombs, 
 where a knot of Arabs, white-robed, wild-eyed and 
 
 249
 
 250 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 armed with guns — the Guardians of the Tombs — 
 awaited them. 
 
 Ivors, who had been talking to the Arabs, came 
 forward as the slower travellers approached. Roddy 
 liad forestalled him in mounting Hesper, but neither 
 Roddy nor Arab donkey-boy should dismount her. 
 
 It was with an odd dream-like sensation that she 
 had felt the touch of his arms about her again. A 
 dreamlike sensation which lasted through the steep 
 ascent and the opening of the modern iron gates that 
 guarded the many-centuried tombs ; which coloured her 
 subsequent impressions of square chambers arched 
 and pillared and cut out of the hving rock, whose roofs 
 were diapered in faded brown and cream and blue, and 
 whose dim wall-paintings of dancers, fan-bearers, 
 hunters, wrestlers, weavers, potters, in stiff subservience 
 to the mighty dead, gave a faint impression of colour 
 to the big bare place. 
 
 It was the view outside the Tombs which had inter- 
 ested her most, and she left the others to explore further 
 while she stood upon the narrow plateau, and looked 
 from the buff and umber hillside, barren and crumbling, 
 to the winding Nile, which lay beneath in broad blue 
 stretches, its colour enhanced by the vivid green of the 
 springing corn at either side, its hyaline surface reflect- 
 ing, with almost starthng clearness, the snow-peaked 
 sails of the boats upon its bosom. 
 
 She had sighed with pleasure, and then smiled to 
 find Ivors at her side. 
 
 " I hate underground or enclosed places," she said. 
 " I always feel as if I must come out to the air again." 
 
 " So do I," he answered. " That is why the Tombs
 
 DRIFTING 251 
 
 of the Kings and even the perfect temple of Edfu 
 depress me." 
 
 " Which is your favourite temple ? Philae ? " 
 
 " Lord forbid, no ! Poor drowning, mildewing, 
 moribund Phil?e ! Her beauty is the beauty of tears 
 and death now. No, I won't tell you. You'll have 
 to tell me." 
 
 " Will you be disappointed if I am wrong ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " You won't be wrong," he answered with confidence. 
 " I'll give you a hint. It is the temple where the love- 
 colour is found in its greatest perfection. Lord, listen 
 to those bees ! If you shut your eyes to Egypt you 
 could imagine yourself in a garden full of mignonette 
 and roses." 
 
 " Bees ? " she echoed. " I thought I heard them." 
 
 " Yes, the place is full of them. Wild bees and 
 sparrows are the sole inhabitants of the temples these 
 days. You will hear their hum and chirp through the 
 Nile-Song if you hsten." 
 
 " Another note of it, thanks," she said softly, closing 
 her eyes till her lashes lay hke a curved fringe against 
 the warm pallor of her cheek. 
 
 Ivors drew a sharp breath and turned away. But 
 he mounted her before he started with the others on 
 the homeward race, and he was ready to dismount her 
 again when they had passed the clustered mud village, 
 through whose palm-stems the sun shone red, and 
 reached the stage where the " Nitocris " was moored. 
 
 There were no more such intimate moments as in 
 the starhght at Minia. The lotus-hfe, as Ivors called 
 it, added a petal each day towards its full flowering,
 
 252 The fringe of the desert 
 
 and Hesper steeled herself no longer against this man, 
 who, but for his little-known daughter, seemed to be 
 just as lonely at heart as she was. She warmed herself 
 in the sunshine of life as it came, not reaHsing what 
 lilled each day \vith a greater radiance, a more encom- 
 passing brilHance. She floated on the stream of hours 
 without pausing for an instant to conjecture whither 
 she was drifting. 
 
 The ancient magic of the Nile was enforced by the 
 spell which Ivors found therein and imparted hourly 
 to her. It was as new and yet as old as the daedal life 
 which unfolded itself daily upon the banks. It whis- 
 pered in the tracts of tall purple-stemmed sugar-cane, 
 always rusthng, never silent, through whose miniature 
 thickets flitted water-wagtails, bright-eyed, vibrating, 
 and bee-eaters, green as the fires of Spring ; in the palm- 
 groves, in the feathery mimosa, whose scent the warm 
 wind blew across the still waters, or in the dark acacias 
 beneath whose shade sat the village patriarchs in 
 flowing robes. 
 
 He showed her the blue, green and brown which 
 are the prevailing tones in the colour-harmony of pas- 
 toral Egypt, and then, with whimsical insistence, 
 pointed out the value of the variants from the general 
 scheme. She loved to see the creaking water-wheels, 
 whose strings of red earthen pots gleamed like a neck- 
 lace of cornelians as they rose dripping from the water 
 beneath : the bronze-limbed, half-naked men who 
 worked the shadiijs on the bank : the strings of camels 
 silhouetted against grotesque hedges of pale green 
 prickly pear. 
 
 Together they watched the blue-girt fellah, as he
 
 DRIFTING 253 
 
 drove his plough, the primitive implement of past 
 centuries, along the rich brown furrows ; singing, as 
 he guided his fawn-humped cow, a rude primal melody 
 of two or three notes with a sudden turn and an 
 unexpected drop at the end. Together they noted the 
 pylon-shaped pigeon-houses which rose above the fiat- 
 topped huts, ramparted with red earthen pots and 
 serried with horizontal branches for the birds to perch 
 on : while down to the watering-places, in the orange 
 dusk, came black-robed women with grey-green water- 
 jars, mites of red-shawled girls or white-capped urchins 
 drivir^g dun cows or lumbering water-buffaloes : shep- 
 herds, staff in hand, leading their flocks of curly black- 
 horned sheep or piebald, flap-eared goats ; while, 
 squatting on the bank above, men in rolled turbans 
 and rough white draperies shouted out jest or comment 
 as they busily plied little wooden spindles, spinning 
 wool, black or brown. 
 
 Sometimes when the " Nitocris " tied up at night they 
 would see tiny huts made of straw mats sheltering 
 fellahin who watched their crops b}'' leaping fires ; 
 the incessant barking of dogs being the only indication 
 of the proximity of a village, and the querulous howling 
 of jackals reminiscent of the desolation so hardly kept 
 at bay. Above all and through all sounded the insist- 
 ent lapping of the water, as if to tell them that the Nile 
 was Egypt, and Egypt was the Nile. 
 
 " I should hke to die by running water," Ivors said 
 once. 
 
 " I would rather live by running water," Hesper had 
 answered. " \\Tiat does it matter where one dies ? 
 One has to leave it all."
 
 254 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Oh, it does matter," said Ivors with a little shrug. 
 " Dying is the last great adventure. One should 
 set forth on it fittingly. I hope I shall. I often doubt 
 it. I am a coward at heart, I think," he continued 
 after a moment's pause. " I am not fit for the great 
 adventure yet." 
 
 Hesper had no words in which to answer him. She 
 wanted to comfort, but her natural reticence put bonds 
 on speech. How was she to judge another human being, 
 that hieroglyph which no mere mortal can ever hope 
 to read ? 
 
 " Don't think too much about it," she answered at 
 last, smiling at him with her eyes more than her lips. 
 " If one could only live well the rest would be easy 
 enough." 
 
 Live well ! The words echoed and stung. The 
 memory of past foUies, past indulgences, past caprices 
 crowded upon Ivors. An innate fastidiousness had 
 always kept him from the grosser evils, but cut adrift, 
 rudderless, as he had been in the hottest fire of his 
 manhood, what wonder if he had fed the flame with 
 the chaff and tinder of life ? The ashes were, for the 
 most part, dead and ghost-like now, yet they were 
 there, crowding but not extinguishing the embers that 
 still smouldered, ready, if fed, to flare into life again. 
 
 " What do you mean by hving well — purple and 
 fine hnen, or being a good boy and going to church 
 t'^ice on Sundays ? " 
 
 " Neither," answered Hesper shortly. The mockery 
 of his tone ruffled her. 
 
 " Do you mean dropping anchor in some peaceful 
 harbour and never saihng on the troubled waters any
 
 DRIFTING 255 
 
 more ? " He felt a sudden desire to tease her, to prick 
 her into warm retort. 
 
 " You know I don't." She turned sparkhng eyes 
 on him. 
 
 " Marriage is supposed to be an anchor," he went on, 
 looking at a kite which wheeled and screamed with thin 
 petulance as it swooped to snatch some morsel from 
 the water with its strong claws. " Since mine — dragged 
 — I have drifted in strange waters." 
 
 " Is that simile original, Mr. Ivors ? " asked Gerda, 
 joining them. " I fancy I've heard it before." 
 
 " Nothing is original in this time-worn planet, your 
 lad^'ship," he said with forced lightness. " Every 
 phrase and fable can be traced cither to the sun-myth 
 or the story of Eden." 
 
 " Still, I don't see where the anchor metaphor comes 
 in," Gerda persisted. " For my own part I should 
 never like to anchor. I'd like to tie up occasionally, 
 but that's all." 
 
 " Do you speak matrimonially ? What shocking 
 sentiments ! " 
 
 " Matrimonially ? Me ? " cried the girl with em- 
 phatic lack of grammar. " I'm dead off matrimony. 
 So's Hildred. Aren't you, Hildred ? Come here and 
 join the fray." 
 
 Hildred came slowly forward. She had no desire to 
 be forced into a discussion upon such a subject. Her 
 father's eyes met hers with a sort of mocking challenge. 
 A Pan-spirit of impersonal defiance seemed to have 
 seized him. 
 
 " Well, Hildred ? What are your views ? " he asked, 
 swinging his foot against the rail on which he sat.
 
 256 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 He looked boyish, irrelevant, perched there, and 
 a wave of anger at his callous insouciance broke over 
 Hildred. How dared he ? How dared he ask her such 
 a question before these people, who, charming as they 
 were, were strangers yester-year ? 
 
 " I have none," she answered coldly. " How could 
 I, unless you consider me in the position of the on- 
 looker, who is popularly supposed to see most of 
 the game ? " 
 
 For the first time she looked at her father with her 
 mother's eyes, and saw something of the maddening 
 indifference, the careless self-confidence which had 
 driven the older woman to revolt. She felt for the 
 moment that she hated his assumption of youth and 
 the youthful graces that made him so popular, his sing- 
 ing, his dancing, his charm of manner. She would have 
 better understood a more dignified attitude towards 
 life ; a calmer resignation to its buffets would have 
 won her sympathy, but this careless enjoyment of 
 to-day and to-morrow, this almost boyish zest in the 
 triviahties of the moment, alienated rather than drew 
 the spirit of her own youth. Infallible Youth ! Life 
 holds no more pitiless judge. 
 
 In his apparent light-heartedness she read no need 
 of her, no desire to make up for the cast-away years. 
 Between them was a great gulf fixed which only a 
 real affection or a real sympathy could cross, and in 
 Hildred's nature was mingled a sufficiency of her 
 mother's temperament to make the crossing of such 
 frail bridges a difficult venture. 
 
 Still, in spite of herself, she felt and reluctantly 
 acknowledged his charm, and when he put out a hand
 
 DRIFTING 257 
 
 to draw her near she did not resist, but went and stood 
 by his side. 
 
 " Wise child ! " he said, with a sudden softening. 
 " I doubt if even the players of the game are justified 
 in giving an opinion on it." 
 
 " They don't know much about it either," pursued 
 Gerda. " They only see their own hands. For 
 
 instance, if mammy's is full of hearts " she smiled 
 
 across at Lady Nugent, " what help wiU that be to 
 you if yours is full of clubs ? Each person has to play 
 quite a different game, and they've got to play it 
 themselves — just the two of them — like Beggar-my- 
 neighbour." 
 
 " Is the object the same ? " asked Ivors. 
 
 " Oh, you can't pursue a metaphor to its vanishing 
 point like that ! " retorted Gerda airily. " I'm going 
 to write a treatise on marriage some day, and I'll 
 get you to polish my epigrams for me." 
 
 " I might put too fine a point on them." 
 
 " You couldn't, because my object is to prod the — 
 shall I call them victims or imbeciles ? — into common- 
 sense once more." Gerda curled herself up on the divan 
 and clasped her hands around her knees. " The first 
 thing that marriage produces is a softening of the 
 brain almost akin to idiocy. It completely destroys 
 all sense of proportion, and is warranted to deaden 
 the strongest sense of humour." 
 
 " Gerda, my dear, don't talk such hopeless nonsense," 
 begged Lady Nugent. 
 
 " It's hopeless sense if you like, mammy dear. 
 Look at Sylvia, for instance. Before her marriage she 
 was lively, gay, fuU of fun, and on for any sort of lark. 
 
 R
 
 258 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Now, behold ! she is as dull as ditch-water, without a 
 thought beyond Dick and the baby." 
 
 " Quite right and proper." 
 
 " Oh, it's not, mammy. Dick and the baby are all 
 very well in their way, but they make a very narrow 
 boundary." 
 
 " I don't know," said Hesper softly. " I think 
 Sylvia is rather to be envied. A man and a boy of her 
 own. ! ^^^lat possibilities ! " 
 
 " Now, don't you side against me, Smarlie. We 
 bachelor women should stick together. Besides, 
 Sylvia's drivelling. She calls Dick Toots, and he 
 calls her Toots ! The Trent cousins are just the same. 
 They call each other Winkums and Winkums. Now 
 if they called each other Winkums and Blinkums 
 or Toots and Boots one might possiblv understand 
 it " 
 
 " Lord, j'ou are a funny child ! " said Ivors, going 
 into peals of laughter at Gerda's disgusted face. 
 
 " Laugh as much as you like, but all I say is per- 
 fectly true," cried Gerda. " Remarks about pearls are 
 a little obvious, so I'll refrain. Here comes tea, thank 
 goodness, in time to prevent a split in the camp." 
 
 She put her arm round Hesper's neck in passing. 
 " You wouldn't call your husband Toots if you had 
 one, Smarlie dear, would you ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," answered Miss Marlowe. " I 
 should not dream of infringing Sylvia's copyright." 
 
 In a moment Ivors stood before her, bearing her 
 tea on a httle inlaid stool which he placed beside 
 her. 
 
 " In all my wanderings," he said, for her ear alone.
 
 DRIFTING 259 
 
 " I never threw my dreams overboard, no matter 
 how near the vessel came to capsizing." 
 
 " Dreams are hght things," she answered, without a 
 glance. 
 
 " Sometimes they cost a good deal, Hesper Belhas- 
 ard," he murmured. " But how should you know, 
 you white, aloof star ? " 
 
 How should she know indeed ? She raised her eyes 
 to his, and in them he read — more perhaps than she 
 was aware of. Danger-signals loomed near at hand, 
 but as yet Ivors ignored them.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 TEMPLES 
 
 SO the days passed. 
 With such a party there was infrequent 
 opportunity for the dangerous but delightful 
 solitude a deux, and the irrepressible Gerda 
 found outlet in various devices for merrymaking 
 which included each individual. 
 
 As Lady Nugent declined flatly to ride a donkey 
 again, she was left to peaceful somnolence while the 
 rest scampered off to see the Temple of Kathor at 
 Denderah. 
 
 The way led through rolling plains of green vetch 
 starred with tiny purple flowers, and crested here and 
 there with high flat stacks of dry dhurra-std.\ks. 
 
 A string of camels came ambling towards them, led 
 by a keen-eyed man in a white burnouse. On the 
 foremost, which was decorated with woollen tufts 
 and a three-cornered amulet, sat a woman in a loose 
 blue garment with a baby at her breast. Round her 
 neck was a string of gilt beads and her arms were 
 covered with gay glass bangles which made a little 
 tinkle as she drew the corner of her head-shawl 
 forward to conceal her face from the Englishmen. 
 
 As they passed she said something to the man and 
 laughed. 
 
 260
 
 TEMPLES 261 
 
 " What was it ? " asked Gerda. 
 
 " Something not very comphmentary to the English 
 ladies who go about unveiled," answered Ivors. " They 
 consider all of you mad, and most of you bad, I fear." 
 
 " Father ! " cried Hildred, shocked and hurt. 
 
 " Fact, my dear. Fly to the farthest swing of the 
 pendulum from your own outlook, and you may grasp 
 something of their point of view. Otherwise the East 
 must be as a closed book to you." 
 
 " Your metaphors are as mixed as my own, Mr. 
 Ivors," put in Gerda saucily. " I like the ' Curfew- 
 shall-not-ring-to-night ' picture you conjure up of 
 Hildred chnging to the pendulum ! For my part I 
 believe that most men are Turks at heart, at least 
 where their own womenkind are concerned ! " 
 
 " There is perhaps a grain of truth in your chaff," 
 retorted Ivors. " I can understand the idea of those 
 who would seclude their infinitely precious. There is 
 the temple." He pointed with his switch. 
 
 " That mound ? " cried Gerda. 
 
 " Yes, that mound, as you call it. It is not impressive 
 as you approach, I admit, nor does its fascination 
 touch you until you are quite close." 
 
 They cantered over the sand, past the fallen half- 
 buried blocks of stone, and dismounted beneath the 
 great gateway, with its deeply cut figures of gods and 
 goddesses, and the broken outline of its cream cor- 
 nices standing out against an intensely blue sky. 
 
 " Hathor was the Egyptian Venus," said Ivors as 
 he lifted Hesper off her donkey. " And all the pillars 
 are crowned with her head, which some Goths, who 
 called themselves Christians, have mutilated horribly."
 
 262 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 The spirit of the dead centuries laid hold upon Hesper 
 as she entered the great hall. Its vast piUars, crowded 
 together in towering bulk, seemed to shut out the 
 present from the past, out of which looked down the 
 titanic heads of the Goddess of Love, touched with 
 majesty despite their mutilation ; instinct, one could 
 fancy, with a cahn pity for the endless generations of 
 mortals who had had their little day, crowded to do 
 her homage, and passed away to give place to yet 
 another race. In dignified procession they were carved 
 upon the temple walls, gods and goddesses, kings and 
 slaves, in row upon row of high and low relief, up to 
 the very roof which had once been blue and star- 
 studded to represent the sky, but which now loomed 
 brown from the torches of the excavators, whose smoke 
 had also dulled the topmost row of figures to a frieze 
 of bronze, in contrast with the dove-colour of the lower 
 walls. 
 
 Over the portal were enormous winged sun-discs, 
 touched with soft blue, dull faded red, and deep golden 
 yellow. 
 
 Hesper wandered about the great dim hall, detached 
 from the rest, feeling the mystery, the sense of ancient 
 magic which hung hke a cloud about the time-deserted 
 place. Ivors watched her from a little distance. The 
 mighty pillars blotted out the others from sight, but 
 a murmur of voices reached them from where they 
 were seeking knowledge through the Tips of the Arab 
 custodian. 
 
 Always she came back to the portal with the sun- 
 discs, and stood looking upwards with a certain wist- 
 fulness. Was she looking for the love-colour ? Ivors
 
 TEMPLfiS 263 
 
 wondered. Here, in the temple of Hathor, it should 
 surely be found, yet here, save in its inner sense, it was 
 not. 
 
 He emerged from the shadows and stood near her 
 for a moment without speaking. 
 
 " They all came to pay her homage, you see," he 
 said at last, indicating a carven procession. " King 
 and queen, god and goddess, Isis the calm, Horus the 
 majestic, hunter and hunted, worker and slave. Some 
 time or other in their Hves they all passed through the 
 spiced dusk of her temple." 
 
 Hesper did not answer : no words seemed needed. 
 The sense of dream returned, even while she was being 
 swept by the impetuous Gerda from chamber to cham- 
 ber ; even while with beating pulses she crept from the 
 light of day through a narrow crevice, and groped her 
 way down steep steps, vaguely illumined by the flicker- 
 ing candle of the custodian, to the hot dark crypt, 
 whose sparse chambers were floored with fine sand, and 
 whose walls were covered with the richest reliefs of 
 birds, and gods, and lotuses, and kingly symbols. 
 
 The stifling dusk oppressed, half-choked her, and 
 when a fluttering, squeaking noise attracted her atten- 
 tion, and in response to an exclamation the custodian 
 held his light aloft with a laugh, and disclosed hundreds 
 of disturbed bats hitching themselves about the rough 
 ceiling with their wing-hooks, she felt a deadly 
 fear. Clutching at the nearest person, who happened 
 to be Sir George, she buried her head on his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " There, my dear, there," he said kindly, " don't be 
 frightened. We'll come out at once."
 
 264 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Ivors stepped forward. He felt an unreasoning 
 distaste at the contact. He held out his hand. 
 
 " Come with me," he said quickly. " I'll take you 
 out to the air. The others can finish their explorations 
 if they don't mind bats." 
 
 Hesper took the proffered hand, and they groped for 
 the opening and stumbled up the narrow steps once 
 more. Up and up he took her, through dim chambers 
 and empty corridors, up shallow flights of stone steps 
 until, to her vast relief, they came out upon the temple 
 roof. 
 
 " Sit down and breathe the fresh air again." 
 
 He put her gently on a block of stone and turned 
 away to let her recover herself. 
 
 The temple roof, which had various levels reached by 
 rough flights of steps, was paved with great square 
 blocks of buff stone. 
 
 In one corner stood a little columned pavilion, whose 
 Hathor-headed pillars and broken cornice stood open 
 to the sky, against whose intense blue they glowed like 
 beaten gold. Sparrows hopped and twittered in and 
 out, while, in a deep-cut falcon-head of Horus, wild 
 bees had made their nest, round which they hummed 
 with a homely persistence. 
 
 The air, the quiet, and the sense of the familiar 
 quickly restored Hesper's poise. 
 
 " I am sorry I was so foolish," she began. 
 
 Ivors turned quickly at the sound of her voice, and 
 came and sat on the steps at her feet. 
 
 " But you weren't, you were very wise," he inter- 
 rupted. " This is a thousand times better than that 
 bat -haunted abomination."
 
 TEMPLES 265 
 
 " I like that little temple," she said, pointing to the 
 pavilion. " It has the beautiful sun-disc over its 
 portal." 
 
 " That is the emblem of Re the Sun, who was the 
 father of Hathor, Mistress of the Heavens. It is 
 supposed to avert all evil." Ivors smiled suddenly. 
 " Now I know that you will love my favourite temple 
 best." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Don't expect to learn all my secrets, Hesper Belhas- 
 ard," he answered, looking up with the smile that had 
 provoked Hildred before. It irritated her now as she 
 came up the steps with the others. Could she pos- 
 sibly be jealous of her father's friendship for Miss Mar- 
 lowe, she wondered. No, it was not that. She had 
 not a mean or grudging nature. She did not probe 
 deep enough to realise that it was the clanship of sex 
 stirring in her on her mother's behalf : that she uncon- 
 sciously resented his growing friendship for another 
 woman. It did not chime with her sense of the fitness 
 of things. That was all she vaguely acknowledged, 
 and she wondered, as she kept up a desultory conversa- 
 tion with Roddy on the homeward journey, as she had 
 often wondered before, how the tangle of their lives 
 would unravel itself. 
 
 As regarded her own skein, if it knotted, she pos- 
 sessed a knife sharp enough to cut the knot, and she 
 meant to use it too. Through all the novelty, gaiety 
 and colour of this new experience loomed a soUd back- 
 ground of the uses of hfe, an unacknowledged yearning 
 for the purposeful quietude of England and a sphere in 
 which one could use heart and hands as well as brain.
 
 266 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 She, too, drifted on the stream of days, but it was 
 pleasant to think of action, of a niche and its filling 
 when the lotus hours were over. 
 
 As they turned and rode along the broad bank which 
 skirted the Nile a flotilla of boats came towards them, 
 laden \vith the kiildl, or water-jars, which are manu- 
 factured in thousands at Kena, on the Arabian side of 
 the river. The sunlight fell slanting upon them, bring- 
 ing them into strong relief, and accentuating the faint 
 colourings of their cargo — the packed masses of jars, 
 round ends outwards, showing like great deHcately- 
 tinted eggs, pink, grey-green and reddish-cream. One 
 boat had a bright blue mast and rudder ; the bows 
 of another were striped with dull red and orange, and 
 of another with green and white, while in the stern of 
 one whose rudder was chequered with faded red and 
 yellow sat a man in a purple robe and flame-coloured 
 turban playing a reed-pipe. As its notes came shrilly 
 across the water a boy at his feet suddenly struck up an 
 accompaniment on a darabiikkeh, beating its fish-skin- 
 covered end with lithe brown hands. 
 
 Colour and sound mingled in one curious harmony, 
 typical of the East, which only could have produced 
 such a perfect blending of the suave and the bizarre. 
 
 " I should like to paint that," said Ivors suddenly. 
 " All those dehcate colours with the two strong dashes 
 of purple and red. Just look at the exquisite effect of 
 the reflections quivering on the water." 
 
 " Very pretty," commented Gerda. 
 
 He turned towards Hcsper : their eyes met, and she 
 smiled and nodded. 
 
 " Isn't there a pottery at Kena where they make all
 
 TEMPLES 267 
 
 those things ? " Gerda continued. " I'd Hke to go 
 over it." 
 
 Ivors laughed. " What's your idea of a pottery ? 
 Tall chimneys, big rooms, furnaces, the whole mechani- 
 cal process neatly progressing from stage to stage ? " 
 
 " Well, isn't it ? " 
 
 *' Not as represented at Kena. I went there once. 
 The Arabs thought it was only a mad Enghsh freak." 
 
 " Why ? What happened." 
 
 *' First we drove along a pretty road shaded with 
 acacias." 
 
 " We ? " 
 
 " I was with some people. Then we turned into the 
 town — a place of narrow streets, whose houses had high 
 Moorish archways, painted in red and cream, of Httle 
 squares giving one a glimpse of tattered bazaars full of 
 colour — gourds, tomatoes, cheap calico and sticky 
 sweetmeats — of poorer mud houses on whose flat 
 palm-thatched roofs fowls scratched and picked, of a 
 bare plain, dotted with ramshackle shelters and pitted 
 with holes and mounds. This was the pottery. In 
 black hollows the furnaces were stacked, beneath the 
 crazy straw shelters sat the potters at their wheels, 
 turning the wet grey clay into shapes of use and beauty 
 as they have done from time immemorial. Here and 
 there amid the desolation were rubbish-heaps where the 
 broken shards were flung." 
 
 " And was that all ? " asked Gerda. 
 
 " Quite enough too. Isn't it enough to see the vessel 
 swell beneath the potter's fingers like the bulb of a 
 flower, thin out and upwards, and twist over like a 
 petal ? It's exquisite. I love to watch it. We were
 
 268 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 taken to see a special expert who worked in a dark 
 crumbling little house in the street. He squatted 
 before his wheel, pale, impassive as a Buddha, moulding 
 the clay to his desire. The place was full of Arabs, 
 men and children who crowded upon us. Buddha 
 made and destroyed shape after shape, still sitting 
 unmoved, with the only light, a shaft from the ceihng, 
 full on his inscrutable face. At last a smile flickered 
 across his features. 
 
 " Now I will make you something beautiful ! " he 
 said, and made — what do you think ? A common 
 vulgarly-shaped cup and saucer ! I could almost 
 have wept. I expected something rare after what 
 we had seen of lovely curve and line." 
 
 " What it is to have the artistic temperament ! " 
 mocked Gerda. " I'll race you to the landing-stage 
 to work it off." 
 
 " I accept your challenge," said Ivors, and aided by 
 the efforts of the blue-girt, grinning donkey-boys the 
 two galloped off along the highway, raising clouds of 
 dust. 
 
 " Let's all have a gallop," suggested Hesper, flicking 
 her donkey. 
 
 " You're a great old sport, Smariie," cried Roddy 
 admiringly, as he urged on his steed with cries and 
 grunts. 
 
 For the first time Hesper felt a gulf of years. What 
 was a matter of course for the active youngsters 
 became cause for commendation in one of her fuller 
 maturity. It was absurd that such a tiny trifle should 
 prick, but it did. Was her youth really gone ? Must 
 she range herself among the elders ?
 
 TEMPLES 269 
 
 To hear departing footsteps is always sad, and no 
 woman can hear the footsteps of her departing youth 
 without a pang. 
 
 She did not analyse the cause of her regret. She 
 was only conscious of it ; conscious as of something to 
 be shut away in the depths of her heart, while she 
 watched the daily pageant of the river ; while she heard, 
 never without a sharp thrill of unaccountable pleasure, 
 the crude song of the boatmen on the water, the pipe of 
 reed, or the pulsing beat of a darahukkeh ; or watched 
 the black and white kingfishers dart from bank to bank 
 with sweet startled cries, or saw the red-throated 
 swallows skim the surface of the Nile in long sweep 
 and eddy. 
 
 White dome and fretted minaret loomed as they 
 approached palm-fringed Luxor, whose houses, pink, 
 cream and blue, with gay green shutters and brown 
 balconies, gave hints of moving figures and fluttering 
 draperies ; while in the narrow dusty streets life, 
 kaleidoscopic, picturesque, squatted contemplatively 
 in the sun or moved leisurely through the shade, 
 whether in contented cotton rags or dignified silken 
 robes. 
 
 The great brown lotus-columns of the Temple dwarfed 
 the modernity by its side, seeming, by its timeless 
 antiquity, to cheapen the youth of the town which 
 surrounded it. 
 
 "Letters! Letters!" Gerda cried. "We are to 
 get letters here." 
 
 " I'll send Moussa for them," said Ivors. " Let's 
 come to the Temple before the light turns red." 
 
 Impatient to land, Gerda led the way up the
 
 270 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 tree-shaded street with its little shops at one side, 
 and its group of insolent-eyed Arabs sitting 
 smoking, playing dominoes or tric-trac outside the 
 cafes. 
 
 Somewhat to her surprise Hesper found Hildred by 
 her side. She had drifted apart from the girl of late. 
 The companionship of the others had absorbed her, 
 and there were no such moments of confidence between 
 them as had marked their parting. The older woman 
 felt a great tenderness towards the younger, and 
 a rush of regret at the jarring note that seemed 
 occasionally to be struck between her and her father. 
 At other times, oddly enough, the touch of camara- 
 derie in their intercourse caused her a swift pang of 
 loneliness. 
 
 A tincture of suppressed excitement in the girl's air, 
 an unsubdued sparkle in her eyes drew Hesper's 
 notice. The girl's occasional glance over her shoulder 
 gave the clue. 
 
 " Are you looking forward to your post ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes, aren't you ? But how did you know ? " 
 
 "Ah, I knew," answered Hesper, with her little 
 nod. " I don't expect my letters if I get any, to be 
 very exciting." 
 
 Hildred flushed. Even to herself she did not acknow- 
 ledge how much she was looking forward to hearing 
 from Dr. Lisle. She had taken him at his word, and 
 tested him in a matter of friendly service, and she 
 hoped that a reply would reach her here. 
 
 " I have no specially interesting correspondent," 
 Hesper continued. " But somehow one seems to have 
 no need for letters here."
 
 TEMPLES 271 
 
 " Surely this life doesn't content you, Smarlie ? " 
 said the girl, who had dropped into the use of the 
 Nugents' ugly nickname. " Don't you want to be 
 up and doing ? I do." 
 
 " I've been up and doing for so long that I find 
 this land of golden afternoon quite sufficient for the 
 present. Perhaps it is old age creeping on ; perhaps 
 it's only laziness." 
 
 " Old age indeed ! You'll have many years of 
 waiting before you find out what old age is like ! " 
 She gave Miss Marlowe's arm a friendly squeeze, and 
 Hesper felt warmed by the sudden return to the old 
 terms. 
 
 " There's old age," she responded, pointing to the 
 temple. " I only hope that mine will be equally calm 
 and dignified." 
 
 They had passed the little riverside stalls with their 
 clamorous vendors calHng shrill attention to the glitter 
 and colour of their wares ; — the red and green pottery, 
 tinsel scarves, gay bead and shell ornaments, and 
 antelope-skin necklaces threaded with beads of every 
 hue : — and reached the portals of the Temple. 
 
 Hesper had an impression of vast brown lotus- 
 columns, of clustered papyrus-pillars, of sunken pave- 
 ments and mutilated colossi, of sharp black shadows 
 cast by wall and colonnade, of rows of gigantic Rameses 
 clustered about the foot of the great pylon, which stood 
 clear-cut against a luminous sky. 
 
 A crazy mosque and squalid houses pressed above 
 
 and around the echoing emptiness of the Temple. 
 
 Children, goats and fowls scrambled in a rubbish heap 
 
 hat poured over a partly excavated comer. A boy
 
 272 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 on a donkey ambled along a narrow pathway, beating 
 a tambourine and singing a nasal love-song as he went. 
 
 The light grew deeper and redder. On the balcony 
 of the minaret a Muezzin came forth to chant the call 
 to prayer. 
 
 Hesper sat on a tumbled block of granite, and 
 watched and listened. The long-drawn chant, dying 
 and swelling as he paced the creaking balcony, woke 
 a memory of the bell heard from the rock-perched 
 monastery on the Portuguese coast, the voice of prayer 
 which wove an endless chain about a sleeping world. 
 The fancy held her. She listened until the last — 
 " La. ilaha illalldh I " — had droned away into silence, 
 wrapt in content, remote from the world. 
 
 Through the fast-falling shadows came Ivors with 
 the letters and broke the illusion. 
 
 " Three for Hildred, two for her ladyship, none for 
 Miss Marlowe and one for me," he announced. 
 
 He sat down on the block near Hesper without 
 further speech. She was always conscious of his 
 presence. It troubled her with a sweet disturbance 
 which she did not understand. 
 
 " My letters are from school-friends," Gerda 
 announced. " They'll keep till we get back." 
 
 Hildred had opened hers without comment — a curt 
 communication from her mother, hoping that she was 
 well, and announcing that Katherine was horrified at 
 the bareness of the hussies on the picture post-card 
 Hildred had sent her, who seemed to think that the 
 face was the only portion of the body it was necessary 
 for them to cover. " Remember the morals of the 
 post-mistress in future," ended the letter with an
 
 TEMPLES 273 
 
 unwonted touch of humour, from hers sincerely, H. 
 D. Ivors, 
 
 Dr. Lisle's letter was eminently satisfactory. 
 
 " I have done as you requested," he ^vrote. " My 
 sister will send you full particulars." Then later, 
 " Miss Arab tells me that you have a knack of letting 
 dreams out of cages. May I suggest for the new 
 accomplishment that you should learn how to put 
 them back again ? " 
 
 The girl drew a long breath and smiled. Egypt 
 vanished, and once more she feasted on wild fruit in a 
 wood beside a running stream : once more she saw a 
 spare lazy figure with a cap tilted over its eyes : once 
 more she heard a voice telling her to wait until she 
 came to the fork in the road, and then to be sure that 
 she chose the right path — a voice which had said : 
 " This is my hour. Don't shorten it." 
 
 She shut the door quickly on that memory and opened 
 Arab Lebarte's letter, which told her that Mrs. Ivors 
 and " Auntie " had had " words " on the subject 
 of Women's Suffrage ; that the dahhas had been 
 ruined by an early frost (" though I think I must 
 have told you that in my last ! ") ; that Dr. Lisle worked 
 harder than ever, and that she was going in for a new 
 competition in which a prize was to be given to the 
 person who sent in the greatest number of words 
 containing all the vowels. 
 
 " If you were only here I'm sure you could help me, 
 you are so quick at that sort of thing," she ended. 
 
 How far away it all appeared ! What an ccon 
 seemed to have elapsed since that epoch-making 
 journey to Burnaby ! Truly this year of her full age 
 s
 
 274 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 was the strangest and most crowded of any she had 
 as yet experienced. 
 
 Gerda's indignation cut in upon her musings. 
 
 " Just come and look at this ! " she cried. " Here 
 is an ideal marriage according to the ideas of the 
 ancient Egyptians ! Mr. Ivors, Smarhe, you must 
 look." 
 
 She led them excitedly to where a vast unmutilated 
 Rameses stood, calm and colossal, placid and inscrut- 
 ably smiling, with a beautiful little figure of his wife, 
 significantly insignificant, hidden away behind his 
 knee. 
 
 " That just shows their relative positions," she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Admirably," said Ivors. " A perfect example." 
 
 " Of what ? " asked Gerda suspiciously. 
 
 " Of the ideas of the ancient Egyptians," he returned 
 innocently. 
 
 " Of course I know men don't like clever women," 
 Gerda pursued. " If ever I contemplate matrimony 
 I shaU conceal any little brains I have as carefully as 
 I possibly can. They always marry the stupid ones. 
 I wonder why ? But they get deadly tired of them 
 afterwards. Men can't stand being bored, and variety 
 is the salt of hfe." 
 
 " Take care that your husband won't be pickled ! " 
 
 Gerda laughed. " Oh, no, he won't be. I shall wait 
 till I find the right man, and then you'll see that we 
 shall be an ideal couple." 
 
 " What's your idea of an ideal couple ? " 
 
 *' Oh, I don't know," she said, reddening self-con- 
 sciously at the hint of seriousness.
 
 TEMPLES 275 
 
 '• Those who fill each other's chinks," suggested 
 Hesper softly. 
 
 " And don't take hammer and chisel to make the 
 gaps larger, as so many do," exclaimed Hildred, her 
 tone tinged with bitterness. 
 
 Ivors looked at her. The sudden hardening of her 
 young face was painfully reminiscent. Was it his 
 hammer and chisel which had marked those stern 
 lines ? He drew a quick breath. 
 
 " The bats are coming out. Look ! " he said. 
 " We'd better be off."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IVORS FINDS THE LOVE-COLOUR 
 
 LADY NUGENT watched what she called " the 
 affair " with interest, and wondered to Sir 
 George " if anything would come of it ? " 
 To which he had responded : 
 " You women are all alike ! If a fellow pays a 
 pretty woman the least attention you at once hear 
 the sound of wedding-bells ! Ivors isn't a marrying 
 man, my dear, or he'd have been caught long ago." 
 
 Lady Nugent was content. Of course like other 
 matrons she considered it a pity that Miss Marlowe, 
 with her looks, her money, and her charm, should 
 remain unmarried ; but her winter was speeding 
 pleasantly, her party was harmonious, and " the 
 children " were enjoying themselves, while Roddy grew 
 daily stronger and browner. She too, drifted, and saw 
 no rocks ahead, but, in candour, she never was aware 
 of a possible rock until she struck upon it. Fortun- 
 ately her shallop had always floated on easy waters 
 below whose surface the rocks lay deep, otherwise she 
 had never escaped shipwreck. 
 
 Ivors never queried, mentally or verbally, whether 
 his friends were aware that his wife were alive or not. 
 To him, his private affairs were purely personal and 
 no concern of any one save himself. No circum- 
 
 276
 
 IVORS FINDS THE LOVE-COLOUR 277 
 
 stances had hitherto arisen to make disclosure impera- 
 tive. He had trodden in pleasant places and avoided 
 the stony wa3^s, plucking only those flowers which were 
 near at hand. He had never cried for the moon. Now, 
 above the peaks shone a star, and led by its light, he 
 did not note whether the path was smooth or rough, 
 nor whither it led. 
 
 He only knew that Hesper's friendship and sympathy 
 were passing sweet : that her comprehension of his 
 moods and fancies was as delightful as it was unusual ; 
 that he savoured daily a new joy, a new delight. 
 
 He did not monopolise her attention, but he was 
 always at hand to do her service. He did not make 
 love to her in words, but his voice changed subtly 
 when he spoke to her, and her name when he uttered 
 it softly, was tender as a caress. He was the best, the 
 gayest of good compan3^ His verbal flights were as 
 wild as Gerda's own, his spirits as light as Roddy's. 
 He swept Hildrcd, the appraising daughter, into the 
 orbit of his charm and woke something in her heart 
 which loved him even while it disapproved. 
 
 Hesper was conscious of the new magic, the unwonted 
 glamour of life which seemed to her inextricably one 
 with the ancient spell of the Nile. Her teaching days 
 had been almost cloistral as far as contact with men was 
 concerned, and her brief wander-years had brought 
 her only admirers and friends, in the more superficial 
 sense, who had come and gone without leaving visible 
 impress. No one had really knocked, no one to whom 
 she could ever open the door of her heart. Hence she 
 was innocent as a child of the real meaning of the 
 golden haze which enwrapped her days, through which
 
 278 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 she moved content, detached, Hke a dream-figure in a 
 dream world, all unheeding of the fact that in life's 
 dictionary to dream means to awaken. 
 
 Ivors worked fitfully at his pictures. Sometimes 
 he was up in the dim dawn, painting with feverish 
 energy when he had the world to himself. Once Hesper 
 found him there on deck when she came up to watch 
 the rising sun flood the Libyan hills with molten rose. 
 The hand with which he clasped hers was icy, and he 
 shivered slightly as he stood up to greet her. 
 
 " You are very cold," she said, all her motherly 
 instincts awakened. 
 
 " Am I ? I didn't know. It doesn't matter." 
 
 " But it does matter," she persisted. " You ought 
 to take care of yourself." 
 
 " Ought I ? Why ? " 
 
 " Because " she began, and stopped. 
 
 " That's a woman's reason ! Please go away, 
 Hesper Belhasard. I hate being watched while I 
 am at work." The words were accompanied by a 
 smile that robbed them of any sting. 
 
 She only thought how badly he needed someone to 
 take care of him as she moved away and knelt on the 
 divan, looking across the river towards the flushed, 
 towering hills, in which, beyond the amethyst hollows 
 which marked the rock-tombs, the peach-coloured 
 colonnades of the Temple of Deir-el-Bahari were faintly 
 discernible. 
 
 A felukeh full of men who rowed, standing, came 
 down the river. One sang a line of a wild love-song, 
 which the others repeated in rude unison. The dip 
 of the oars, the barbaric quality of the music mingled
 
 IVORS FINDS THE LOVE-COLOUR 279 
 
 with the rush of the river and the querulous complaint 
 of the kites in the air overhead. 
 
 " There's so often a touch of savagery mixed with the 
 beauty, isn't there ? " said Ivors suddenly. " You 
 see it definitely marked at Assuan, and you hear it in 
 the names of some of the places on the Nile-bank. 
 Kom Ombo, Nag-Hamadi, Manfalut ! You can hear 
 the clash of cymbals, the blare of horns, the throb of 
 di*ums in every syllable. It's only a suggestion, though, 
 which finds no real echo in the pillared peace of the one 
 or the superficial modernity of the others." 
 
 He rose and stood beside her. He could work no 
 more ; her presence drew him. 
 
 " You feel it in the valley which leads to the Tombs 
 of the Kings too," she answered. " The burning red 
 rocks and shingle, the blinding white path with its 
 sharp black shadows, tlie blazing blue sky, the silence, 
 and the sense of awful, lifeless desolation terrified and 
 depressed me. There wasn't even a kite to be seen. 
 No sense or sound of fife, except once, when a little 
 brown bird, which I could have kissed, flitted across 
 the path and was lost in an instant among the 
 stones." 
 
 " What a sense of colour you have ! " he exclaimed. 
 " Now you understand why I didn't go. I hate the 
 place. Wasn't I wise ? " 
 
 " That depends." 
 
 " Did you miss me a little ? " 
 
 Hesper looked at him. Her eyes were very blue 
 in the morning light, but she dropped them quickly 
 before his gaze, and a flush, faint reflection of the dawn, 
 glowed through the whiteness of her skin.
 
 28o THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " What do you think ? " she asked softly, answering 
 his question, Irish fashion, with another. 
 
 " I think " he began, then stopped. 
 
 " That's a man's thought," she said, with a little 
 smile, half -mocking, half-shy. " Just as vague as the 
 woman's reason you laughed at a moment ago." 
 
 " It IS a man's thought," he admitted slowly, " but 
 I assure you it is not in the least vague — Hesper 
 Belhasard. Do you want to hear it ? " 
 
 The Eve-spirit vanished, giving place to the Dian- 
 spirit which would fain elude capture. 
 
 " I must postpone the pleasure," she said hastily. 
 " Here comes Moussa to tell us that breakfast is ready." 
 
 She thought of his words weeks later when the first 
 ghmpse of Kom Ombo came in sight : four corniced 
 columns against a sky of deepest sapphire, standing out 
 on a little bluff some forty feet above the river. 
 
 Before her feet touched shore or trod its sunken 
 pavements she knew instinctively that this was Ivors' 
 favourite temple. She had intuitions about him, his 
 tastes, his distastes : she understood him, she felt, 
 as no one else did : as no one else could. At last she 
 realised what had befallen her : realised it with a rush 
 of glorious shame, of golden confusion. That the 
 ivory shrine was filled at last, she scarcely admitted 
 to herself, but she locked and guarded its door lest any 
 should catch a glimpse of its secret. - 
 
 She could fill his chinks, she thought, if — and the if, 
 large as it loomed, melted somewhere into when. She 
 saw his faults, his brief petulances, his occasional 
 selfishnesses, the many accessories of the artistic
 
 IVORS FINDS THE LOVE-COLOUR 281 
 
 temperament, but she regarded them all with a large 
 tenderness. 
 
 The Silent Spinners must have smiled at the tangle 
 they had wTOught in these human threads, for here was 
 Hesper, proud in her ripe womanhood, the " branch 
 of Evin's apple-tree, with twigs of white silver and 
 buds of crystal with blossoms," bent for the plucking 
 of one whose hands were fettered, whose freedom lay 
 in chains. 
 
 The stately Temple crowning the crumbUng height 
 above a wide shimmering stretch of water exhaled an 
 ancient magic which merged into the quality of Hesper's 
 visions. It was not alone the magic of sheer beauty 
 which held her heart in thrall : it was something 
 subtler, less tangible — the exquisite moment of the 
 dream before the awaking : — a spell expressed in sculp- 
 tured columns, ruined but beautiful, where king and 
 god stood out in deUcately-coloured relief ; in double 
 portals over whose square entrances the sun-discs of 
 Re averted all evil with their outspread wings of faded 
 turquoise faintly tipped with red ; in broken cornices, 
 curving like the crest of a wave ; in frieze of sun- 
 crowned serpents, cream, Egyptian-red and golden- 
 yellow ; in colonnade and architrave free to the blue 
 of heaven, in the dim loveliness of vanishing colour, 
 the mere echo of a pageant of past briUiance. 
 
 The spirit of dead centuries seemed to brood over 
 court and columned aisle, which echoed no longer to 
 festal hymn or tread of worshipper. The warm sun- 
 filled silence was only broken by the inconsequent 
 chatter of sparrows, the honeyed hum of wild bees,
 
 
 282 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 and the murmur of voices from a knot of white-robed 
 Arabs who squatted by the entrance gate. 
 
 Hildred " did " her Temples thoroughly and con- 
 scientiously, aided by Roddy, who cared no more for 
 the richly-carved history of the animal-headed gods 
 and goddesses than she did. Gerda flitted from point 
 to point, punctuating discoveries with little shrieks of 
 delight, and dragging her parents hither and thither 
 to share them with her. 
 
 Hesper wandered about, heart and soul responsive 
 to the lightness and delicacy of the ruined loveliness 
 which surrounded her — a joy enhanced by the 
 presence, unobtrusive yet understanding, of the one 
 person in whom the light of Hesper's firmament was 
 fast becoming concentrated. 
 
 At last, as ever, the river drew her, and she sat on 
 the low parapet in the outer courtyard, which over- 
 looks the Nile. Behind her rose the temple : around 
 her broken columns cast deep, clean-cut shadows on 
 the uneven pavements, shadows which lay almost 
 purple upon the biscuit-coloured stones. Away to the 
 North a shimmering blue stretch of water ended 
 in peach-coloured desert and sand-hills, while to 
 the southwards the river-banks were fringed with 
 palms. 
 
 Ivors stood beside her, one foot on the parapet, 
 elbow on knee, chin on hand, gazing towards some 
 unseen distance. 
 
 She looked at him, moved, sighed, spoke, and invoked 
 the interference of the Fates, 
 
 " It's this one, of course," she said, in her softest, 
 most melting tones.
 
 IVORS FINDS THE LOVE-COLOUR 283 
 
 " How did you know ? " He did not need to ask 
 what she meant. 
 
 " Ah, I knew. Of course I knew." 
 
 " But how ? " lie persisted, still without looking at her. 
 
 The fact gave her courage. Speech, which had 
 suddenly become difficult, was easier when his eyes 
 were not upon her. 
 
 " Because — because of the love-colour," she half- 
 whispered. 
 
 " Because of the love-colour," he repeated slowly, 
 
 dully. 
 
 Between the instant of her speech and his echo a 
 strange thing had happened. The scales had fallen 
 from his eyes and he saw in one illuminating flash that 
 to which he now knew he had wilfully blinded himself. 
 He loved her, he desired her, she was the one woman 
 in the world for him, and he could not tell her so. He 
 had had other easier loves : into other ears had he 
 poured fooHsh nonsense (which he had called by the 
 great name, that elastic monosyllable into which one 
 packs so many and such divers meanings), but anything 
 like this irresistible flood of emotion had never before 
 touched him. The sudden rush of feeling caught, 
 enveloped him, swept him off his feet, yet all the time 
 he stood rigid beside her, his hands clasped behind his 
 back, struggling, wTestling with the force of the sudden 
 passion which had him in its grip. 
 
 Hesper looked dreamily across the hyaUne water. 
 She was used to his silences, silences which held com- 
 prehension rather than constraint So 
 
 still were they that a hoopoe alighted among the broken 
 columns with a flash of cinnamon wings, and hopped
 
 284 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 nearer and nearer, spreading its fanlike crest now and 
 then in a flutter. 
 
 " What a pretty bird ! " she said. 
 
 Ivors strove for speech. WTien he found it his words 
 seemed to himself hoarse and choked, but she appar- 
 ently noticed nothing. She did not know : she must 
 never know. For him, his only safety lay in flight, in 
 abstention from sight of that disturbing dearest face, 
 over which shades of emotion fled swiftly as cloud- 
 shadows ; out of hearing of that soft melodious voice 
 which stirred the very deeps of his heart. 
 
 " The — the Persians consider the hoopoes sacred 
 birds as well as lucky," he said. How forced and 
 banal the trite guidebook phrase sounded ! 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Because they were Solomon's messengers to Balkis, 
 queen of Sheba." 
 
 *' Were they ? " The hoopoe hopped nearer and 
 nearer, perking its crested head. " I wonder if he has 
 a message for me ? " 
 
 " From King Solomon ? " Inwardly he thanked 
 the fostered gift of trivial conversation which now 
 enabled him to cloak his pain decently with light 
 words. He wondered dully at the empty years he 
 had spent without Hesper, at the empty years he 
 would have to spend without her, and in his heart he 
 cursed himself for not having demanded legal freedom 
 from his wife when she had thrust bodily separation 
 upon him. He had not dreamed of the need he should 
 feel, the desperate, clutching, aching need. Self had 
 rarely been denied, and now the toll demanded was. 
 heavy beyond words.
 
 IVORS FINDS THE LOVE-COLOUR 285 
 
 " No, not from King Solomon." 
 
 She laughed softly, and the sound smote him like 
 a blow. How could she laugh when he was in tor- 
 ment ? And yet — and yet, he would not have her 
 suffer. 
 
 " A Persian friend told me the legend in his garden 
 near Teheran," Ivors continued. " We were sitting 
 by a little brook which ran between tall banks of white 
 irises ajid yellow narcissi over a bed of turquoise-blue 
 tiles, until it vanished in an orchard of blossoming 
 peach, pear and almond-trees." 
 
 "Turquoise-blue tiles," she repeated in the same low, 
 coaxing tones. " Then the Persians loved the love- 
 colour too." 
 
 He moved abruptly, and thrusting his hands in his 
 pockets, felt something there which he had forgotten. 
 The hoopoe, startled, flew to the top of a column. 
 
 " Perhaps the hoopoe wanted to bring you a bit of 
 it," he said hoarsely, taking a httle flat parcel from his 
 pocket. " He finds he can't now, so it may as well 
 seek refuge in old Nile." He made a gesture as if to 
 throw the little packet into the water. 
 
 " Stop ! " cried Hesper, checking him. " What is 
 it ? Why can't he ? " 
 
 " He — can't," repeated Ivors. 
 
 She looked full at him, startled as the bird had been, 
 touched with a chill sense of fear at the pallor of his 
 face, the brooding hunger of his eyes. She drew her- 
 self up a little. 
 
 " Let me see it," she said gently. " What is it that 
 one cannot take from a friend ? " 
 
 He felt a wild impulse to fall at her feet, to worship.
 
 286 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 and to remain kneeling. Her fine pride had come to 
 his rescue. In justice to her he made an effort to pull 
 himself together. 
 
 " Will you take this, then, from — a friend — Hesper 
 
 Bel ? " his voice failed altogether at her name. 
 
 He slipped the little box into her hand. 
 
 Instinctively she knew that all was over — that the 
 golden haze had departed and left her days glaringly 
 bare, that she had awakened, shivering, from dreams 
 to which she had had no right. What had happened 
 she could not even remotely guess : she only knew 
 that Ivors had awakened too, and that for some reason, 
 inevitable as Fate, the vague half-sensed joy, the rights 
 of her womanhood which she had never claimed, were 
 not to be hers. He did not want her. It amounted 
 baldly to that. And yet, and yet, the hunger in his 
 eyes told a very different story. She thanked God 
 that there had been nothing definite, as far as tangible 
 human relations were concerned, between them, that 
 there was no need for explanation or reproach. She 
 could not understand : she did not even now conjec- 
 ture : she knew. That was enough, and the fire of her 
 Celtic pride set alight a Briinnhild barrier between 
 them. 
 
 Slowly she took the white paper from the little card- 
 board box with fingers which trembled slightly in spite 
 of herself : slowly she removed the cover, and disclosed 
 a finely-enamelled winged sun-disc, the serpent-crowned 
 centre being represented by a great carved turquoise. 
 
 He never took his eyes off her face, the face which 
 had whitened so suddenly, so cruelly. She looked up 
 with a forced smile, but her gaze got no farther than
 
 IVORS FINDS THE LOVE-COLOUR 287 
 
 his chin : she could not meet his eyes again until she 
 had had time to recover her poise. 
 
 " It is really beautiful," she said tonelessly. " How 
 very good of you to think of it ! " 
 
 " It's not good. I — wanted " Absurd that he 
 
 could not control his voice. He cleared his throat and 
 began again : 
 
 " I had it made — some little time ago. I — I — 
 thought you might like it. I — I meant to give it to 
 you here." 
 
 " Here, in your favourite Temple ? How — nice of 
 you ! " She laughed unexpectedly. She felt cold, 
 rigid, a woman of stone. She only hoped that she 
 would be able to retain coherence until this dreadful 
 moment was over, until she could get away by herself 
 for a Uttle, even for an hour. 
 
 " You— like it ? " 
 
 " Of course I hke it. It's my favourite symbol." 
 Oh, God, was she going to faint ? She swayed a little, 
 and steadied herself against the parapet. 
 
 " Are you ill ? " 
 
 " 111 ? No. The sun on the water dazzled me a 
 little. That was all." 
 
 " You're sure it was nothing else ? " he asked 
 miserably. 
 
 " What else could it be ? " she said, with a rush of 
 anger which sent the hot shamed blood to her cheeks, 
 her throat, surging over her whole body. Oh, why 
 had she not steeled herself all the time against him as 
 she had done at first ? Why had she succumbed to his 
 easy charm ? She buttressed her outward pride. At 
 any rate he should never know.
 
 288 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " I must show this lovely thing to the others," she 
 said, turning away. 
 
 " Hesper ! Don't," he whispered. 
 
 " I forgot to thank you," she said, over her shoulder, 
 hastening towards escape. 
 
 " Don't," he said again huskily. 
 
 His eyes followed her as she moved across the 
 courtyard, a white gracious figure, crushing his heart 
 as well as his gift in her two slim hands. 
 
 He railed inwardly at Fate, himself, his wife. Why 
 had Harriet deserted him, cast him, a man of his 
 temperament, adrift on the sea of circumstance ? 
 He had always shirked the disagreeable : here misery 
 gripped him and shook him like a rat. His instinct 
 was all for flight. He could not stand daily contact 
 vsdth Hesper : he would inevitably make a fool of 
 himself and wrong her. 
 
 He must leave the "Nitocris" ; there were many 
 possible doors of exit. Suddenly the vision of Hildred 
 acted as a check. What was he to do with her ? He 
 had brought her out here for the winter : that was the 
 bond. He felt again the gall of shackles of his own 
 forging. Then, with his usual reHance on the willingness 
 of others to make his path smooth, he decided that 
 he would leave her for the present with the Nugents, 
 Afterwards — well, afterwards could take care of itself. 
 Just now his only chance lay in instant separation. 
 
 He would have yielded to a lesser passion. It was 
 the strength and depth of this which made him 
 momentarily strong — strong enough to flee but not to 
 stay. 
 
 He remained on deck that evening long after sunset,
 
 IVORS FINDS THE LOVE-COLOUR 289 
 
 and coughed a little as he came in to dinner, white and 
 apologetic, his natural buoyancy quenched. 
 
 Hesper heard the sound with a pang. "^ Hildred 
 looked up. 
 
 " I hope you haven't caught cold, father," she said. 
 
 " I ? Oh, no," he returned, and coughed again. 
 
 The occasion was festal : it was Lady Nugent's 
 birthday. To Hesper and Ivors the dinner seemed 
 endless. She barely sipped her champagne : he drank 
 an unusual amount, which had no other effect than to 
 make his eyes oddly bright. At the close of the meal 
 he proposed Lady Nugent's health felicitously. He 
 had finished the pictures in time, after all, and they 
 had been duly presented to her. 
 
 " Do you think," he asked, with quite a successful 
 travesty of his old whimsicality, " that you could 
 spare me for a little when we get to Assuan ? " 
 
 " Spare you ? " echoed Lady Nugent, regretfully. 
 " Are you thinking of deserting us ? " 
 
 " Not deserting you, exactly. I have been sent a 
 pressing invitation, with a commission included, by 
 some friends of mine, Austrians, who live on an island 
 near Assuan. With unheard of temerity they caU the 
 place Geziret-el-Saada — the Island of Happiness. 
 They spend the winter there, and they want me to 
 do some pictures for them. I don't quite like to refuse, 
 but " he shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Of course you must not refuse," said Lady Nugent 
 kindly. " We mustn't be too grasping. We'll keep a 
 hostage, though." She laid her hand on Hildred's 
 arm. 
 
 Ivors glanced across at the girl, whose eyes were 
 
 T
 
 290 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 fixed on him. The sudden idea, hurled at her without 
 preparation, woke the old critical spirit, and tinged her 
 look with a coldness which Ivors resented. 
 
 " Well, Hildred, what do you say to Lady Nugent ? " 
 
 " Have I been invited to the other place ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " I thought I was to spend the winter with you," 
 she returned, stung to reprisal. " But, as Lady Nugent 
 is good enough to want me I would far rather stay 
 with her." 
 
 " That's right, my dear," put in Sir George. " Ivors, 
 don't be jealous." 
 
 " Oh, I'm not jealous," he returned. " I'm glad 
 my little girl has found such kind friends." 
 
 Hesper heard of the arrangement with mixed feelings. 
 A pang of regret, sharp and unavailing, pierced through 
 a sense of miserable satisfaction. It was the only 
 thing to do, she felt. He was the one who could flee. 
 She was bound by her former plans. What had she 
 done ? What had she said ? She wondered dully, 
 knowing in her inmost heart that she had given no 
 cause for estrangement. She had only made a mistake, 
 she thought, as she rose in response to Lady Nugent's 
 signal. Many other women had done the same and 
 paid for it, as she was paying now. In her bitterness 
 of spirit she asked herself the old question, why should 
 one seem to pay so much more heavily for a mistake 
 than for an actual sin ? Her wearied mind could find 
 no answer. All she craved was rest and quiet ; she 
 felt exhausted, mentally and physically. Would the 
 evening never end nor the hour come when she might
 
 IVORS FINDS THE LOVE-COLOUR 291 
 
 once more be alone, alone to reconstruct the shattered 
 world which had tumbled to-day about her ears. 
 
 To-morrow she would be normal. It was merely a 
 case of readjustment. So brief an emotion could not 
 colour a whole life, she told herself, knowing in her 
 inmost heart that she was trying to deceive herself 
 with words which signified nothing. Love had come 
 to her late, and she reahsed too well that there was 
 nothing evanescent in his coming.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 " RE WHO IS NOT A FOOL SOMETIMES IS A 
 FOOL ALWAYS " 
 
 THE " Nitocris " drew near to Assuan. 
 All day long she had sailed between hills 
 of golden sand, vivid and glowing, whose 
 high bluffs of brown and purple stone were 
 lightly powdered with silvery sand, blown upwards 
 from the river. 
 
 Hesper's pride had risen gallantly to the spur. She 
 talked and smiled as usual, avoiding Ivors neither 
 with eyes nor speech. 
 
 But he was miserably aware that her glance swept 
 him coldly, that her inclusion of him was delicately 
 frosted. He had no right to resent. He could not 
 claim the friendship which might have meant so much 
 to him. He would have trusted her, but he dared not 
 trust himself. He was reaping now what he had sown 
 in idleness, and the harvest was a bitter one. From the 
 net of the past there was no escape, and he took it for 
 granted that Hesper knew his circumstances. To have 
 questioned her would have indicated an undue assump- 
 tion on his part, even if she had permitted him to 
 approach near enough for query. He took his cue from 
 her and remained aloof. 
 
 The sun sank behind a bank of reddish cloud with 
 
 292
 
 "HE WHO IS NOT A FOOL " 293 
 
 rifts whose edges were dazzlingly bright. When it had 
 vanished the edges were still golden, but the rifts were 
 filled with greenish-blue, the colour that swam per- 
 sistently before Hesper's eyes. She touched the 
 brooch — Ivors' gift — which she had forced herself to 
 wear. 
 
 " It's exactly the same tone, isn't it ? " she asked, 
 smiling coldly. 
 
 , The smile and the question hurt him. He had not 
 the vaguest idea of how very much more they hurt her. 
 They seemed to move on different planes now, these 
 two who had trodden the same path all those magic 
 weeks. They had no common meeting-ground ; the 
 triviahties they uttered could not bridge the distance 
 between them. One broken phrase, one halting 
 explanation would have gone far towards healing the 
 numb ache in Hesper's heart, and would have turned 
 her from stone back to warm, forgiving, understanding 
 womanhood once more, but Ivors never reahsed this. 
 He thought she knew : that she was angry with him for 
 loving her : that she despised him. He did not dream 
 that her attitude was one of intense self-contempt, 
 that she imagined that he had been merely amusing 
 himself with her, not reahsing how far he had gone until 
 he saw or suspected that she cared. She had not been 
 as easy a conquest as some of the others, she told 
 herself bitterly, that was all ; and at least she had not 
 pursued him. He should never have the satisfaction 
 of knowing that he had hurt her, so, womanlike, she 
 set about to see if she could hurt him. It was a poor 
 satisfaction, after all, for she only succeeded in wound- 
 ing herself doubly with the weapons she wielded.
 
 294 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 As the sun vanished, seeming to withdraw all colour 
 from the cloud-bank until it was a dim grey, he turned 
 to her with a last tentative effort. 
 
 " Won't you forgive me ? " he asked hoarsely. 
 " Forgive you ? " she echoed. " For what ? " 
 He made a helpless gesture which touched her in 
 spite of herself, but she hardened her heart against him. 
 " There is nothing to forgive. How could there be ? " 
 She lifted scornful eyebrows. Her words seemed to 
 transport him to a still farther plane. 
 
 " Sorry," he said abruptly. " I made a mistake. I 
 thought you were — a woman. I forgot for the moment 
 that you were a fix^A star, shining remotely above 
 petty humanity." 
 
 His words stung, and her sense of justice rebelled 
 against them. How dared he, the aggressor, try to 
 put her in the wrong ? 
 " No," she said. " No." 
 " What then ? " 
 
 " Oh, I am a. woman," she cried straight from the 
 depths of her sore heart. 
 
 He started and bent towards her, melted by her tone. 
 
 " You are. The dearest " he began. 
 
 In a moment the miserable story would have been 
 out, the faulty confession of poor humanity would have 
 been made, and Hesper, out of the strength and purity 
 of her love, would have helped and healed him, 
 would have given of her best to strengthen his weak- 
 ness, would have striven to aid him to lift his tattered 
 ideals out of the mire, and so doing, would have found 
 double joys of knowledge and service ; for sweeter even 
 than the knowledge of the man's love to the woman
 
 "HE WHO IS NOT A FOOL " 295 
 
 is the sense that she is able to help him in the greater 
 things of hfe if not in the lesser. 
 
 But it was not to be. Through the fast-falling dusk 
 came Gerda and Hildred to point out the nearing 
 Assuan, and the moment had passed for ever into 
 the grey valley where lie the days that were, and the 
 lost moments of life. 
 
 Aftenvards Ivors would have given all he held 
 dear if he could, like the King of Averon, have gone 
 down on his knees and searched among " the dusty 
 heap of forgotten days " to find his yesterday and 
 " certain hours that were gone." He would have 
 invoked the Harper with the golden Harp to whose 
 strings clung " some seconds out of the lost hours 
 and little happenings of the days that were " ; but 
 in vain, for opportunity, if unseized in the instant of 
 passing, is irrecoverable as yesterday and unattainable 
 as to-morrow. 
 
 The sky was deep blue and star-filled, and the 
 town of Assuan a semicircle of twinkhng hghts below 
 it. They glimmered on the palm-fringed Elephantine 
 Island like stray fireflies : and shone on the 
 steamers and dahahiehs in orange clusters, casting 
 quivering reflections in the water. 
 
 " There's Assuan ! " cried Gerda. 
 
 " Yes," answered Ivors, adding under his breath, 
 " thank God ! " 
 
 " We shan't lose sight of you altogether, Mr. Ivors ? 
 You'll come back to us again, won't you ? " 
 
 " If the Fates permit." 
 
 " Can't you coax them a Httle ? They're only women, 
 after aU ? "
 
 296 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " There's nothing in the world more adamantine 
 than a woman, or more incomprehensible." 
 
 " Come, now ! " ■ ■ ,' 
 
 " Proteus, who was supposed by some to have been 
 King of Egypt, was a woman really," Ivors continued, 
 *' Nothing else could have changed so quickly. His 
 favourite metamorphosis was being a man, of course, 
 for he was afraid that if he assumed his true shape 
 the other goddesses might kill him ! " 
 
 " I thought they were all supposed to be im- 
 mortal " 
 
 " Which things are an allegory," said Ivors, looking, 
 unrestrainedly now, thanks to the blue dusk, at the 
 profile beside him, the soft masses of hair, the clear- 
 cut outline of cheek and chin supported by one slim 
 hand. The other hung by her side and tempted him. 
 Unseen he seized it in his own and pressed it passion- 
 ately. At the contact the fire which ran through the 
 veins of both met and mingled. Hesper did not dare 
 to make any violent movement lest it should draw upon 
 her the scrutiny of sharp young eyes, and Ivors 
 knew, and, unpardonably, counted on this. Then as 
 suddenly as he had taken her hand he released it, with 
 a sigh. 
 
 Hesper turned and walked away, despising herself 
 for the mad joy that the moment's contact had roused 
 in her. 
 
 Ivors put his hand unsteadily on Hildred's shoulder. 
 
 " You don't really want me, httle girl, do you ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 She looked up at him, trying to see whether the 
 question held appeal or assertion.
 
 "HE WHO IS NOT A FOOL " ^297 
 
 " Of course not," she answered. " I shall be very 
 happy here." 
 
 " I hope you will," he said, with a sudden and 
 apparently unnecessary emphasis. " Lord ! I hope 
 you will." 
 
 That evening, in spite of all, the strain was lightened 
 for the only two who had felt it. 
 
 Hesper played her emotions through nocturne and 
 caprice into the Pilger-Chor, and Ivors sang some of his 
 unavaihng passion into lyric and love-song. In an 
 odd contradictory way these two illogical beings 
 tasted happiness in those last fast-fleeting hours ; for 
 Ivors knew that he had touched a woman, not a star, 
 and Hesper's heart pulsed quicker with an absurd 
 delight that he had called her " dearest." 
 
 Whether Ivors tried to wheedle the Fates or no the 
 fact remains that Assuan did not see him again that 
 winter, save for a fleeting visit to the " Nitocris " before 
 catching a train which was to take him back to Luxor. 
 
 He found no one on board but Lady Nugent, who 
 begged him to leave Hildred with them until the 
 " Nitocris " returned to Luxor. 
 
 " They are having such a lovely time," she said. 
 " Dances, tennis, camel-rides, desert picnics, all sorts 
 of fun. We have met several old friends and have 
 made many new ones. It would be a thousand pities 
 to take her away, and my young people would be lost 
 without her," 
 
 " I wall gladly leave her for the present, as you 
 are good enough to want her, but you mustn't let her 
 outstay her welcome." 
 
 " There is no fear of that," beamed Lady Nugent.
 
 
 298 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " She is greatly sought after. Indeed, all my girls 
 are, for I may include Miss Marlowe too." She paused. 
 She was not pleased with Ivors for having, as she 
 thought, neglected the chance thrown in his path. 
 She felt that she would like to show him what he had 
 lost. " Miss Marlowe is tremendously admired." 
 
 " Naturally." 
 
 " Her type — so unusual, you know." 
 
 Ivors knew. 
 
 " There are crowds, of course, but one in particular ! " 
 
 Ivors had been waiting for this. 
 
 " A German Count — Graf von Biilitz — very rich, 
 charming, a castle on the Rhine " 
 
 " Take care that it's not a castle in Spain," said 
 Ivors, inwardly consigning Germany in general and 
 Graf von BiiUtz in particular to fiercest flames. 
 
 " Oh, no. He's well accredited, and so handsome. 
 Dances divinely, I believe." 
 
 Ivors thought of that night at Minia when he had 
 danced into love with Hesper, and felt the stored 
 jealousy of hot unreasoning youth surge within him. 
 He rose to go. 
 
 " Please convey my congratulations to her," he said. 
 
 " Oh, nothing's settled at all. It's only " 
 
 " Oh, it's only — is it ? " said Ivors, reheved. 
 
 As he went up the bank towards the palm-shaded 
 railwaj'-station, dispersing wild-haired Bisharin and 
 vociferous sellers of bead-chains and mock antiquities 
 with a few well-chosen Arabic phrases, he pondered 
 long and earnestly upon the fable of the dog in the 
 manger.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE TOLL 
 
 Dahabieh "Nitocris," Assuan. 
 
 " T WANT to come back to you. Please write to 
 
 I Lady Nugent and demand me." 
 
 ^ Such was the gist of a lettei from Hildred 
 
 which Ivors received late in February. It 
 roused an unwonted sensation, and soothed, in a 
 measure, the aching sense of need, of loss which he had 
 felt ever since he left Hesper. She had put to flight 
 his old preconceived ideas of the eternal feminine : 
 she had aroused within him a perception of the ideal, 
 unlike the butterfly caprices which in other women 
 had attracted and amused him. He had, in his easy, 
 selfish way, demanded nothing of life save his art and 
 his amusement. A certain selective fastidiousness 
 had always supplied the demand. He had flitted on, 
 oblivious of duty or responsibility, unaware of the vast 
 net which surrounded him and which would one day 
 imprison him when he really wanted to try his wings. 
 Of the higher beauties of self-sacrifice, of self-denial, 
 he knew nothing. His art, his sense of the beautiful, 
 asserted claims, but there was no unselfishness in 
 satisfying these ; and the divine discontent which is 
 the spur to every artist alone saved him from sinking 
 into the slough of complacency. He was one of Nature's 
 
 299
 
 300 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 spoilt children, and the secret of his retention of youth 
 was his constant demand " I want. I want. I want." 
 Until now he had always received. Of course there 
 had been a void, but he had accepted that as inci- 
 dental to his temperament until Hesper came. By 
 the wonder and generosity of its filling he had suddenly 
 realised the immensity of the vacuum, and almost 
 coincident with the recognition had come its with- 
 drawal. It was as if a " magic casement " had been 
 opened for a moment, and then not only closed, but 
 barred and shuttered in his face. 
 
 He felt an unwonted eagerness to see Hildred again, 
 a swift desire for his own flesh and blood. What had 
 he not wilfully missed all these years ? He must try 
 to make it up to the child now if she would let him. 
 The possibility of doubt peeped at him out of her 
 mother's grey eyes, but with his usual impetuosity, 
 his usual certainty that things must go as he desired 
 them, he swept the idea away. This new revelation 
 of his failure in duty, this awakening to a sense of 
 responsibiUty, had come late, but it had come, and 
 this was indirectly due to Hesper. All these long 
 miserably empty weeks which he had tried to fill 
 with the husks which once had satisfied him, had 
 been productive of thought if nothing else. He 
 had striven to quell the passion which consumed 
 him hke a flame, and found that a certain amount 
 of strength had come with the effort, a strength 
 which he did not dare to put to the test of seeing 
 her again. 
 
 Hildred found him looking thinner and older when 
 they met. She herself radiated health and self-confi-
 
 THE TOLL 301 
 
 dence, and with a sense of apprehension Ivors read 
 purpose in her every movement. 
 
 "It is nice to see you again, Httle girl," he said, 
 tucking his hand through her arm. " You've improved 
 too, or is it a case of absence making the heart grow 
 fonder? " 
 
 Hildred laughed. " Perhaps a little of both," she 
 returned. " Roddy was always telling me that I had 
 grown fat, but I don't think that's possible with all 
 the exercise I took." 
 
 " Let's sit down," he said, " and tell me all about 
 everything. This is my special corner." 
 
 He led her across the lounge of the hotel to a nook 
 containing two luxurious chairs, sheltered by a mush- 
 rahiyeh screen, and a tall palm which gave some sense 
 of seclusion. 
 
 " Let's see," he began. " You are a famous tennis- 
 player, aren't you ? " 
 
 " A champion," she laughed. " And I won the 
 camel race at the last gymkhana, and first prize at the 
 Fancy Dress Ball." 
 
 " How could you tear yourself from these delights ? " 
 
 " I got suddenly tired of it." She grew rather red, 
 and pulled at a leaf of the palm. 
 
 " Hum," said her father. " Was there a masculine 
 reason, by any chance ? " 
 
 Hildred sat up suddenly. " How did you know ? 
 Who told you ? " 
 
 *' No one. A simple process of deduction. It 
 doesn't take acute perceptive power to guess the reasons 
 which would induce flight at the zenith of a successful 
 season. They dwindle rapidly to two — a quarrel or a
 
 302 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 love-affair. I did not think that you would quarrel 
 with our excellent friends, so voild ! " He shrugged 
 his shoulders, and Hildred felt unreasonably annoyed, 
 
 " There was a man," she admitted, " who could not 
 be taught the meaning of the word no." 
 
 ' ' Some men are slow learners. Was he — impossible ? " 
 
 " For me, yes. I don't want to marry," she said 
 suddenly. " I have no place for that sort of thing in 
 my life." 
 
 " Ah, going to play King Canute, are you ? A 
 difficult role, and one in which you will probably be 
 quite as successful as he was ! " 
 
 The light mockery of the tone stung Hildred, and 
 made her feel young and insignificant. After all, she 
 was nearly twenty-one. The moulding of her own life 
 had been thrust on her ; she was not going to let 
 anyone interfere now. She turned his words against 
 himself, 
 
 " Why didyow flee from the ' Nitocris ' ? " she asked 
 unexpectedly. 
 
 He looked at her for a moment with an odd impulse 
 towards confidence, hesitant lest she should misunder- 
 stand. Then he followed her train of reasoning to a 
 different conclusion. 
 
 " I was afraid of being drowned," he answered, with 
 deliberate lightness. " I found that I had assumed 
 the Canute-role unawares, and that if I sat much longer 
 I should have got very wet indeed." 
 
 " You mean ? " she asked, only half under- 
 standing. 
 
 " I mean," he said quietly, " that I found that Miss 
 Marlowe's friendship was becoming too dangerous for
 
 THE TOLL 303 
 
 me, so I sought safety in flight. That's all. Don't 
 comment." 
 
 " I had no intention of doing so." 
 
 It was a strange confession for a father to make to a 
 daughter, and it half drew, half repelled her. She 
 saw in a flash the pitfalls which her mother had avoided 
 while leaving him to skirt them or fall in as best he 
 might. The gulf of temperament loomed before her, 
 made doubly dangerous by the infinite complexities 
 of human nature. For a moment she felt that she 
 hated life with its tanghng threads, that she hated men, 
 that she hated women, that she hated all the artificial 
 complications which hemmed her in ; that she, too, 
 longed for flight. 
 
 "It is better to fill one's life with work and avoid 
 these possibilities," she said, after a pause, 
 
 " Ah, there's the crux. If you can." 
 
 " I mean to try." 
 
 "You?" 
 
 " Yes. That was what I wanted to come and talk 
 to you about." 
 
 Ivors felt jarred, chilled. " Surely we have not 
 come to the parting of the ways yet." 
 
 " In a sense I think we have." 
 
 " But I've seen so httle of you ! " 
 
 " Whose fault was that ? " 
 
 " Horribly right, as usual." 
 
 " I won't talk about it now, if you'd rather not." 
 
 " After all, what's the good of postponement ? We 
 may as well have it out now, and forget it after- 
 wards." 
 
 Yes, that was his attitude towards life, Hildred
 
 304 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 thought, to forget the unpleasant as soon as possible, 
 where actual avoidance was out of the question. 
 " You remember that the agreement was that at the 
 end of the year I was to have a choice." 
 
 Ivors nodded. 
 
 " There were three alternatives. I might live 
 with mother, with you, or choose my own career," 
 Hildred continued, selecting her words carefully. 
 
 " And you've chosen," said Ivors, rising suddenly. 
 •'.No need to tell me. I know which. The eternal 
 ego ! " 
 
 " That's not fair, father," cried Hildred. 
 
 " No, it's not," he said, sitting down again. " I, 
 in my thinnest of glass houses, have no right to cast 
 that particular stone. Tell me more." 
 
 " My mother does not want me. You do not need 
 me " 
 
 " Are you so sure of that ? " 
 
 Her eyes were blind to the appeal in his. They 
 strained towards some distant desired goal. " Oh, 
 you don't really want me. I am in no way necessary 
 to you. We needn't quibble about words. I want — " 
 
 " Yes, I see that." 
 
 *' Father, why will you interrupt and misjudge ? " 
 she cried impatiently. " I have a right to a hearing, 
 at any rate." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, my dear," he returned gently, 
 watching the disappearance of a scarcely-acknowledged 
 hope. " Go on. I won't interrupt again, I promise 
 you." 
 
 " You have your art, your friends, your life, in which 
 I have no place. I want the same for myself. I
 
 THE TOLL 305 
 
 mean independence, the chance of doing the things my 
 heart is set on." 
 
 " You have your art, your friends, your life, in which 
 I have no place." 
 
 The words leaped from the past like a flash of light- 
 ning. The tone was young, eager, impulsive, instead 
 of being tinged bitterly with hatred. 
 
 That was the only difference. This was the toll 
 that the years demanded of him. The careless days 
 which had slipped through his fingers like grains of 
 sand now loomed almost mountainous. The past can 
 never die : its debtor always has to pay. Ivors could 
 not now demand that which he had wilfully, deliber- 
 aXely cast aside. The grey eyes of his daughter, 
 alight with enthusiasm as they were, accused him 
 like conscience. He leaned his elbow on the chair, 
 and, shading his eyes with his hand, sat and listened. 
 
 Hildred's words tumbled out unchecked. Her face 
 was glowing, vivid, as with the splendid selfishness of 
 youth she poured forth her plans, desires, and aims. 
 It appeared that she had long desired to be a hospital 
 nurse, and that, thanks to Dr. Lisle, the very post she 
 would have wished for now awaited her. His sister, 
 who was matron of a Children's Hospital in Surrey, 
 would be delighted to have her as probationer. She 
 wanted her to come in March, and that was why — 
 and so on, round the circle again. She was so tired of 
 doing nothing ; she wanted to be of some use in the 
 world ; she wanted a hfe, a place of her own. 
 
 " Who is this Dr. Lisle ? " 
 
 " He is doctor at Burnaby. He is considered very 
 clever. My mother knows him."
 
 3o6 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Doubtless he has all the virtues," said her father 
 drily. " Does he understand the value and meaning 
 of the simple negative, or is that an art which he has 
 yet to learn ? " 
 
 Hildred's cheeks burned, and the thought of the art 
 which Dr. Lisle professed to practise rose to her mind, 
 and unreasonably sharpened her tongue. 
 
 " Why do you always laugh at things ? " she 
 demanded hotly. " I suppose you disapprove." 
 
 " Isn't it better to laugh than to cry ? " he said with 
 his whimsical smile. " I hate your whiner. And as 
 for disapproving, on the contrar}/, my dear, I think 
 that you have chosen — \\dsely. I quite acknowledge 
 that neither your mother nor I have the slightest 
 right to control your actions ; we forfeited that long 
 ago. I only realise it now. You have a great 
 deal to forgive, Hildred, and I, for one, am sorry." 
 
 The girl was touched, melted. Her heart warmed 
 to her father as it had never done before. She stretched 
 out her hand impulsively. 
 
 " If you ask me I'll stay," she cried. 
 
 He shook his head. How could he ask her now ? 
 " I'll only ask one thing, httle girl," he returned, " and 
 that is that you'll come to me if ever I am in real need 
 of you." 
 
 " I will. Indeed I will," she answered. 
 
 " That's a bargain, then," said Ivors, rising. " We'll 
 go down to Cairo to-morrow, and enjoy ourselves until 
 it is time for you to depart."
 
 PART III 
 
 THE LOV^ERS
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " THERE IS NO ARMOUR AGAINST FATE " 
 
 IVORS drifted about the world like a blown leaf, 
 seeking peace and finding none. The moment 
 that he rested quiescent in some half-forgotten 
 comer a gust of impatient longing would seize, 
 rend, and drive him forth again on his fruitless 
 quest. He lost all joy in his art : the zest of living 
 was quenched for him : he wandered from one sun- 
 filled nook to another, and saw neither the sunshine 
 nor the flowers. Once or twice he caught a glimpse 
 of himself as he was, and the sight shook him — 
 a hollow-cheeked man, wasted by the flame of passion 
 which consumed him. He had never experienced 
 such a devastating influence before, nor one in 
 which the base and the good were so inextricably 
 mixed. At times he felt that he could easily revert 
 to the ancestral beast : at others he felt that he could 
 soar to the potential angel which is in man. He did 
 neither, mentally nor physically. He trod a uniform 
 plane of dulness which had nothing in it to arrest, to 
 grip. He walked a grey world which was only lit by 
 the fire of despair. 
 
 At last Fate, Chance, Destiny — what you will — led 
 him to the Island of Capri. 
 
 The day was blue and sparkling and the scent of 
 flowers filled the air. 
 
 309
 
 310 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 After luncheon the padrona of the vine-wreathed 
 albergo advised him to go into the garden : " The view 
 of the bay and the distant Napoh was superb, but 
 superb in truth." 
 
 Ivors went through the open door, out under a 
 pergola of roses whose summer incense was one with 
 the day and the hour, down the grey stone steps of 
 little terraces over which tumbled torrents of pink 
 geraniums and warm-scented carnations, until he 
 came to the last of all, beneath which an orange-grove 
 and a peach-orchard dipped suddenly to the dancing 
 sapphire of the sea. The broad leaves and green clusters 
 of a vine drooped over a little arbour at one end, in 
 which moved a glimmer of white. 
 
 Ivors walked towards it unseeing, not realising that it 
 was tenanted until he came face to face with its occupant. 
 
 She looked up at his approach and their eyes met. 
 He whitened as if under a great shock. 
 
 " My God ! "he whispered below his breath. " Hes- 
 per ! Hesper Belhasard ! " 
 
 Hesper sat speechless, incapable of word or motion, 
 but her eyes answered him, drew him. He stumbled 
 forward, like one who is bUnded by a sudden Hght, half- 
 fell, half-knelt at her feet, and putting his arms about 
 her hid his face against her breast. 
 
 Time ceased to exist ; the world was emptied of all 
 humanity save the two only, who clung to each other 
 long and desperately, as if to assure themselves by 
 the mere sense of touch that the beloved one was 
 really within grasp after these empty seons. 
 
 At last Ivors moved, and putting up his hands drew 
 Hesper's face towards his own. They kissed,
 
 "NO ARMOUR AGAINST FATE" 311 
 
 " Now you are mine," he said in a whisper. " Now 
 you are mine. How I have wanted you ! " 
 
 The time for query or comment was not yet. The 
 golden moment was to be rounded to completeness 
 before the intrusion of the actual. 
 
 After murmurs and broken phrases came the unsur- 
 passed eloquence of the three magic words " I love you," 
 which vary so wondrously with each repetition. With 
 the oft-rung changes the sense of possession came to 
 Ivors. 
 
 " I'll never let you go again," he murmured, tight- 
 ening his clasp. 
 
 " No," she breathed in soft ecstasy. " No." 
 
 " You have a lot to make up for, Hesper Belhasard." 
 He touched at last the tendril of hair unrebuked. 
 
 " I know. I know." 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " I know that you have led a lonely and unsatisfied 
 life since " 
 
 " Since ? " 
 
 " Since — she died," answered Hesper softly. 
 
 Ivors' clasp slackened. " Since who died ? " 
 
 " Your wife." 
 
 He drew away. The golden moment was shattered. 
 For a brief space he had absolutely and completely 
 forgotten the existence of Harriet Ivors, of any barrier, 
 tangible or intangible, which could exist to separate 
 him from the woman he loved. 
 
 Hesper felt chilled. It had been foolish of her to 
 mention his wife at such a time : she should not have 
 done it. In the reahsation of her own love she had 
 often thought, half-pityingly, half-enviously, of the
 
 312 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 other woman who had shared his life for a time and 
 then been reft away. A cloud had come over their 
 glorious sunshine, and it was she who had evoked it. 
 She bent shyly towards Ivors and touched his cheek 
 lightly with the back of her hand, a fleeting caress 
 whose satin brevity woke a thirst that mocked at denial. 
 
 " I'm sorry," she said. " I love you." She elon- 
 gated the " o " in the way Hildred had Uked. 
 
 This was Ivors' moment : the great opportunity 
 which comes but once. . Destiny held the scales : in 
 one temptation, in the other renunciation. He had 
 to speak now or for ever after hold his peace. He had 
 only to tell Hesper that she had made a mistake, that 
 his wife was not dead, and he would lose her again for 
 ever. The thought that through their mutual pain they 
 might win peace never occurred to him. It was the 
 pang of the moment which pierced him. He -had only 
 to be silent to take what Fate thrust at him, this trans- 
 cendent gift, this exquisite joy. 
 
 The struggle was brief. Swayed by impulse, over- 
 mastered by the rushing wind of his selfish passion, he 
 clutched at the Psyche-wings of happiness, unheeding 
 whether he brushed off their bloom or crushed them in 
 his rough grasp. 
 
 No sense of sin or wrong to Hesper crossed his 
 mind. The knowledge of her ignorance brought too 
 fierce, too subtle a temptation to be wrestled with. 
 
 He took her in his arms and kissed her passionately. 
 
 " You needn't be too sorry for me," he said, " I — 
 she — we didn't get on. I don't want to talk about it. 
 It hurts." 
 
 " My dearest," she breathed, aU warm love and
 
 "NO ARMOUR AGAINST FATE" 313 
 
 desire to heal. She touched his cheek again, and held 
 her own against it in a shy caress. " Why did you 
 run away — from the 'Nitocris' ? " 
 
 " I didn't run away from the ' Nitocris.' I ran away 
 from you." 
 
 " But why ? " 
 
 " I was afraid." 
 
 " Of me ? " 
 
 " Of you." 
 
 " Ah, but you needn't have been." 
 
 " I didn't realise," said Ivors, with a long breath that 
 was half a sigh. Then he shivered. 
 
 " You haven't caught cold ? " 
 
 " No. Oh, no." 
 
 " I am going to take such care of you, such great, 
 great care of you ; I am going to be such a despot 
 that you " 
 
 " You a despot ? " He kissed her fingers. " That 
 I What ? " 
 
 " That you will be sorry you ever married me." 
 Her pulses fluttered. Life was very sweet. 
 
 Ivors shivered again, and strained her closely to him. 
 
 " How could I, how could any man ever be sorry he 
 married you ? My God, Hesper, don't talk such mad 
 nonsense." 
 
 His fierceness did not frighten her. She only laughed 
 out of the fuhiess of her content. " I won't. I'll 
 thank God instead." 
 
 " For what ? " 
 
 " For you," she whispered. 
 
 It was then that the iron began to enter into Ivors' 
 soul ; then that he dimly reahsed the truth which old
 
 314 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Hesiod had discovered some thirty centuries before, 
 that when a man commits a sin at that instant he sows 
 the seed of his own punishment. 
 
 With a great cry he flung himself at her feet, and 
 clasped her knees. 
 
 " Don't," he cried in a choked voice. " Don't. 
 I'm not worthy " 
 
 He would tell her to-morrow, he thought. He 
 could not tell her now. He must have a few hours 
 of happiness before she knew the truth. No one 
 could grudge him that — a few crumbs of joy before he 
 starved again. She had been craving too. It could 
 hurt no one. They must, they must be happy together 
 for a Httle. It was the call of primitive Nature which 
 pierces through the thickest veneer of civilisation, the 
 cry of the man for his woman, his mate. It was the 
 axis upon which the world of creation turned ; it was 
 the Song of the Nile translated into humanity. 
 
 And Hesper was happy. She drank from a full cup 
 for the first time in her life. Even in those first hours 
 he seemed to fulfil every need of her being, the mother- 
 need, the lover-need, the comrade-need. He called 
 and she responded, she cried and he answered. 
 
 They sat there in a dream until the sun disappeared 
 behind the happy Isles to the westward, bathing 
 them in a golden haze, and turning the sea to a faery 
 lake whose molten ripples merged from gold to pale 
 rose and amethyst, while the blue wonder beneath 
 them deepened almost to purple. 
 
 He found that Hesper was staying at the little inn, 
 and said that he would come there too, but she 
 demurred.
 
 "NO ARMOUR AGAINST FATE" 315 
 
 " Better not, perhaps," he said. " Where is your 
 maid ? " 
 
 " Nanno's mother was ill, and wanted to see her 
 before she died, so she has gone back to Ireland. She 
 will be with me again later on." 
 
 " And the Nugents ? " 
 
 " They've gone home to Buckinghamshire. They 
 wanted me to come too, but — I couldn't somehow. I 
 felt that I had to be alone for a httle." 
 
 " Did I make you unhappy ? " Ivors asked in low, 
 strained tones. 
 
 " Very, very unhappy." 
 
 " But you are happy now ? " 
 
 ** Beyond words," she answered simply, turning and 
 smihng at him. 
 
 In the waning light her face seemed transfigured 
 with the sense of that inward spiritual flame which 
 Hildred had once noted. 
 
 " To have made a woman happy, even for an hour, 
 is something to one's credit," he said slowly, as if 
 arguing with an unseen auditor. 
 
 " What will it be for a whole hfe, then ? " asked 
 Hesper. After a moment she whispered, " Do I make 
 you happy ? " 
 
 He crushed her fiercely to him. " Transcendently, 
 gloriously," he cried with defiance. 
 
 Later the padrona came bustling down the steps. 
 
 " Ah ! the signorina has found an acquaintance," 
 she said, scenting intrigue with smiling delight. 
 
 " More than an acquaintance, signora. The signore 
 and I are going to be married." 
 
 " Now may all the saints bless and protect you,"
 
 3i6 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 she cried, " but this is good news. The signore knew 
 you were here ? " 
 
 " But no," replied Hesper smiling. " It was the 
 merest chance." 
 
 " Maccht! " cried the plump padrona, lifting her 
 hands. " Then I was the messenger of Love." 
 
 The solidity of Cupid's emissary tickled Ivors' sense 
 of humour. He pressed a gold coin into her hand. 
 
 " Will you buy yourself a memento of the occasion, 
 signer a," he said with his most winning smile, " and 
 honour me by so doing ? " 
 
 " Milord has a good heart," said the padrona, 
 promptly ennobhng him. " I came to enquire about 
 the signortna's dinner." 
 
 " Prepare a feast for us," Ivors ordered. " Your 
 best dishes, your best wine. Nectar and ambrosia, 
 which are surely to be found in this enchanted spot." 
 
 " Si, signore. It shall be ready in one little half 
 hour. You shall have a frittura — but a frittura ! " 
 UpUfted hands and eyes gave but a faint indication of 
 the delectabiUty of the frittura. 
 
 The little meal might have been composed of nectar 
 and ambrosia or of bread and water : Ivors could not 
 have told : he ate, and drank, and looked at Hesper, 
 and vowed that it was a feast fit for the gods. He 
 toasted her with lips and eyes, tasting for the moment 
 a purer, better feehng than had been his consciously 
 for years. 
 
 There was a sense of intimacy, of domesticity in the 
 little feast. Ivors waited assiduously on Hesper with 
 all the sweet observances of love. His gaiety returned 
 to him in fitful flashes, but for the most part they were
 
 "NO ARMOUR AGAINST FATE" 317 
 
 wrapped in the content of the knowledge of each other's 
 presence. The padrona hovered sympathetically in the 
 background. The maid, Rosina, twinkled eyes and 
 earrings at them with an understanding of which they 
 were only half-conscious. They were absorbed in 
 each other with that happy, isolated absorption in 
 which lovers can envelop themselves as in a cloud. 
 
 After dinner the great bay was flooded with moon- 
 light. The warm air was scented with the essence of 
 carnation and rose ; beyond the plain of silver sparkles 
 loomed mysterious purple outlines of dim isle or misty 
 headland. 
 
 From a peach-tree in the hidden orchard a nightin- 
 gale " her amorous descant sung. Silence was pleased." 
 
 The two who listened heard the music of the spheres, 
 or the beating of their own hearts, or perhaps nothing 
 at all. They talked in murmurs or were silent, while 
 moonlight, melody, and perfume melted into one 
 magic spell. 
 
 When at last Ivors tore himself away he thought as 
 he lingered on the narrow dusty road, " To-monow, 
 to-morrow I must tell her." 
 
 But he felt for the moment like a man who had 
 been through the fires of hell, and who was now 
 restored to the middle world, the clean sweet earth, 
 and given a chance to live and breathe again. He 
 drew in the perfumed air and squared his shoulders. 
 
 '* To-morrow I will try to tell her," he amended.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 " WHERE IS YOUR TO-MORROW ? " 
 
 BUT to-morrow, when it merged into to-day, 
 blue, dancing, sunfilled, did not bring the 
 revelation of the truth to Ivors' lips. 
 Hesper was so radiant when they met, so 
 beautiful, so happy, with gay carnations stuck in her 
 belt, and a holiday air which no man, especially one who 
 loved her as he did, could do anything to spoil, that he 
 was tongue-tied upon the one essential subject. 
 
 Without strenuous effort he cast the thought from 
 him, and made holiday with her. She knew an 
 enchanting nook among the rocks beyond the Piccola 
 Marina — a little cove spread with silver sand and 
 lipped by blue, crested waves. The padrona had put 
 up luncheon for them — chicken, and rolls, and fruit, 
 and wine — they would have a dream-day, she asserted, 
 a day quite good enough to be true. 
 
 Who could have the heart to quench such delicious 
 happiness ? Not a man of Ivors' temperament. 
 
 He laughed, he responded to her hghtest change of 
 mood, as her steps had responded to his in that unfor- 
 gotten dance : he even teased her a little. To think 
 that she was here to-day within touch, that he could 
 have the incredible audacity to tease her, while this 
 time yesterda}'' he had been eating heart and soul out 
 
 318
 
 " WHERE IS YOUR TO-MORROW ? " 319 
 
 for lack of her ! The Fates had provided a feast for 
 him : they should find him no chudish guest. 
 
 Once Hesper spoke of Hildred. 
 
 " Do you think she -will be pleased ? " she asked 
 wistfully. 
 
 Ivors lay on the sand beside her, with his hat tilted 
 over his eyes. - 
 
 •' Pleased at what ? " he enquired unnecessarily. 
 
 " Pleased to hear about — us," she answered. " I 
 think — I hope — she will. I am very fond of Hildred. 
 We drew rather close to each other that last month at 
 Assuan." 
 
 Ivors cleared his throat. " I am sure she would be 
 very pleased," he hed sturdily, " if she knew." 
 
 Hesper looked at him in some surprise. " Why 
 if ? Are you not going to tell her ? " 
 
 Ivors turned over and rested his face against her 
 knee : he did not want to look in her eyes at that 
 moment. 
 
 " I — of course — if you wish it," he began. Then he 
 plunged into halting, awkward speech. 
 
 " Beloved, I — we — I have had so little real happi- 
 ness that I — thought — I hoped — Lord ! why am I so 
 like a stammering schoolboy ? " He stepped, torn 
 with the need of her, knowing his weakness, hating 
 himself for lying to her, yet desiring her above all 
 things in heaven or earth. 
 
 " What is it, dearest ? " she asked softly, caressing 
 his bent head. 
 
 The touch soothed him, as contact with her always 
 did. 
 
 " You have heahng hngers, Hesper Belliasard," he
 
 320 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 said, kissing them. " What I would say is only this. 
 Can we not keep this happiness, this wonderful precious 
 thing to ourselves for the present ? We are rather 
 derelict, you and I. There is no one who really needs 
 us but each other." 
 
 What could she say ? His words touched truth and 
 woke a feeling too deep for speech. They had only 
 each other, but it was a possession that meant happi- 
 ness. Her eyes filled and she pressed Ivors' head closer 
 against her knee. 
 
 At last she found words. 
 
 " Yes," she said very softly. " It shall be as you 
 wish. There is no one who need know. The Nugents 
 are going to Japan ; my relations never write to me. 
 Hildred is busy and happy, but not so happy as I. 
 Oh, no one in the wide world could possibly be as 
 happy as I am ! My dear ! My dearest ! " 
 
 He caught her hand in his and held it over his eyes. 
 He felt humble yet radiant — a king among men, yet 
 a slave who was unworthy to kiss her feet. He made 
 a final tentative effort. 
 
 " Don't think me a conceited ass, Hesper," he said, 
 with some hesitation, " but would it — hurt you very 
 much if — if we had to part again ? " 
 
 Hesper's eyes darkened with pain as fear clutched at 
 her heart. Her face grew white under the pang of 
 the piercing suggestion. She had no conception of 
 the issues involved : she only thought of the past 
 suffering which had merged into these hours of ecstasy, 
 and all her womanhood shrank from the thought of 
 its repetition. It was the flesh which answered rather 
 than the spirit.
 
 " WHERE IS YOUR TO-MORROW ? " 321 
 
 " I think — I should die," she whispered. Then 
 turning away, her voice choked, " Of course if — if 
 you don't want me " 
 
 In a moment Ivors was on his knees beside her, 
 holding her to him with that clasp of fierce defiance. 
 
 " My beloved ! My soul ! My white star ! Of 
 course I want you more than anything in heaven or 
 earth. Every fibre of me cries out for you. My own. 
 My own." 
 
 " You shouldn't frighten me so," she said at last. 
 ' ' Let us be happy while we know we are happy. Don't 
 let us do anything to spoil it. Outside things may 
 happen, but we " 
 
 " Things shan't happen. You are mine and I am 
 yours, and no one shall separate us now." 
 
 The scales went down. Ivors had made his choice. 
 He would carry this through, come what might. He 
 was no murderer to kill the thing he loved : he was 
 never one to deny the joy oi life to any. He persuaded 
 himself that he was doing Harriet no moral wrong ; 
 that she had never been a true wife to him seemed now 
 an inverted reason in favour of his action. He loved, 
 he adored Hesper : in her he found his fullest com- 
 plement. Why should he slay this late-found perfect 
 happiness ? Rapidly his mind ran over the argu- 
 ments with which men in his case have dulled reason 
 and stifled conscience, ending up with the inevitable 
 justification : "In the eyes of God we shall be man 
 and wife." 
 
 He threv/ all qualms behind him, and rose to the 
 crest of this wave of joy. He was his gayest, most 
 charming self, surrounding the woman he loved with 
 w
 
 322 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 little tendernesses, with new felicitous w^ays of making 
 love, with innumerable delicate means of showing her 
 what she really was to him. He soothed her fears and 
 healed the hurts which he himself had made, and 
 through it all asked, asked, asked out of the abundance 
 of Hesper's warm generous nature. He could never 
 ask too much. 
 
 Day by day they discovered new sympathies in each 
 other, new shades of character, new mutual meeting- 
 places. She laughed at him for his petulances, he teased 
 her about her swift withdrawals. 
 
 " Into your shell like a snail the moment I come 
 too near ! " he said once. 
 
 " Ah, 5'ou never come too near really," she answered 
 caressingly. " That was in the dark past. I could say 
 anything, almost, to you now. Isn't it odd how much 
 more intimately one can talk to a man than to a woman 
 about most things ? " 
 
 " Not to a man, to the man," returned Ivors 
 quickly. 
 
 " Ah, yes, that's it. You always express what I feel 
 but can't sav." 
 
 " My gift of words," he said half-lightly, half- 
 bitterly, " has been a useful cloak to me. I now spread 
 it in homage beneath your feet." 
 
 " What did it cover ? " she asked softly. " Tell me, 
 lest I should tread too heavily upon it." 
 
 " Pain and pleasure, disappointment and, lately, 
 misery." 
 
 " Ah, but that was in the dark past," she coaxed. 
 " We have agreed to let that medieval time remain in 
 oblivion."
 
 "WHERE IS YOUR TO-MORROW?" 323 
 
 " As much as we can," he agreed, " but the past, 
 dark or otherwise, has an ugly knack of poking its 
 head up when you least expect it." 
 
 Hesper gave a little shiver. " You make me think 
 of a snake." 
 
 He drew her closer to him. " Was there ever a 
 garden of Eden without its serpent ? We must be 
 historically correct, my Eve. We can't expect every- 
 thing, you know." 
 
 " We have everything, I think," she said with a 
 happy little laugh. " There is no flaw in my ' ship of 
 amber.' It is as clear as — as clear as " 
 
 " Butter," he suggested. " There is a wealth of 
 suggestion in that image if you are only able to delve 
 deep enough for it." 
 
 " One needn't delve deep into butter," she said, 
 crinkling up her eyes at him. " It's the same all the 
 way through ! " 
 
 " That's more than you are," he answered, with a 
 swift flight from the general to the particular. " Every 
 day I discover something new in you. Do you know, 
 Hesper Belhasard, that you are the most absolutely 
 deUcious, exquisite, tantahsing, satisfying, adorable 
 creature that ever trod this unworthy earth ? " 
 
 " Oh, hush, hush ! " It was to be noted that the 
 mild protest came after the assertion. The words rang 
 bells of melody in Hesper's heart. She loved to hear 
 them, but discounted their extravagance as tinged with 
 the glamour of love. 
 
 " You'll find some day that your swan is a goose," 
 she murmured. 
 
 " Oh, no," he returned unexpectedly. " I knew it
 
 324 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 was a goose all the time. No one but a goose would 
 ever have cared so much about me ! " 
 
 They made plans and unmade them, which is an 
 altogether delightful thing to do when only two people 
 in absolute accord are concerned. Ivors was to show 
 her aU his favourite haunts : they were to drift at will 
 to aU the lovely half-forgotten places he knew of : 
 he was to paint dreams and she was to live them. 
 They were to have an idyll without end. They had 
 left out of their quest the httle Green Bird who knows 
 everything and contented themselves with having 
 captured the Blue Bird of Happiness, whose eyes 
 they had dazzled with the Love-colour. 
 
 No beaten track should ring with their tread : they 
 spoke of Dalmatia, and some Uttle-known islands 
 beyond Venice, and one day, to crown their imaginings, 
 came a much-addressed letter to Ivors. 
 
 It was from the Austrian Count with whom he 
 had stayed in Egypt. Its purport was brief. His 
 wife was ill, and Egyptian air was, for her, ana- 
 thema, therefore he offered the use of the island, 
 Geziret-el-Saada, with all the appurtenances thereof, 
 to Ivors for the whole or part of the ensuing 
 winter. 
 
 He handed the letter to Hesper, and watched her 
 face while she read it. 
 
 " Are we living in a fairy-tale ? " she cried. " Or 
 do these things really happen ? " ' 
 
 " Shall I kiss you to see if you're awake ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " I don't think that would wake me." 
 
 " Beloved goose ! I always wanted to show you
 
 " WHERE IS YOUR TO-MORROW ? " 325 
 
 that island. You haunted it when I was there. I was 
 always picturing you in the different places until I 
 was nearly mad. Then I fled again." 
 
 " And all the time you had only to ask " 
 
 Ivors winced. " I — I " he began. 
 
 She touched his cheek with the back of her hand. 
 "I'm sorry. I forgot that we had agreed not to talk 
 of that dreadful time. At any rate we are together 
 now, and incredible doors of delight seem to be opening 
 for us. Oh, my dearest, what a beautiful wedding- 
 present ! " 
 
 Ivors drew her to him in a passion of gratitude for 
 the dehcate reticence which neither peeped nor probed. 
 A lesser woman would have queried and commented, 
 and would have evoked lying with which to parry 
 her : but with Hesper, save for the one great denial, 
 a lie was scarcely ever necessary, and Ivors hated lying . 
 From the depths of her own privacy she respected his, 
 and she took the gift of love as well as gave it with 
 both hands. She wab unquestioningly happy, and 
 this boon of the island, where their idyll might continue 
 in its heaven-sent withdrawal, seemed to set the crown 
 and seal upon their joy. 
 
 " I helped them to design and arrange it," Ivors 
 was saying. "It is an exquisite place, but they 
 were tiring of it even last year. I think the 
 disease from which Madame la Comtesse suffers is 
 boredom — one of the worst diseases, beloved, for it 
 takes all the savour out of life and opens the door to 
 old age." 
 
 " We'll keep it shut as long as we can." 
 
 " If you wish to keep young desire the unattainable.
 
 326 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 When one ceases to want anything one sinks into 
 sluggish age." 
 
 " And you ? " 
 
 " I want you." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " I shall never really have you. Your spirit, some 
 essence, let's call it your soul, will always elude me. 
 That's as it should be, though. Don't give me your 
 soul, Hesper. If you did I believe the little spark of 
 good that may be in me would die." 
 
 " My dearest " 
 
 " You don't understand me. You think I am talking 
 mad nonsense. Perhaps I am, but I mean it," he said 
 half -seriously, half -whimsically. " Remember, Hesper 
 Belhasard, that you are my fixed star. You must never 
 cease to shine or else " 
 
 " Or else ? " 
 
 " I should sit in outer darkness," he answered. 
 Then in a lighter tone : " You see I must at all costs 
 preserve my youth. You have the advantage of me 
 by a decade or so in years, and half a lifetime in light- 
 ness of heart. I am going to school to you presently. 
 Will you teach me some of the heavenly arts you 
 know yourself ? " 
 
 " I can only teach you one thing." 
 
 " What is that ? " 
 
 " How much I love you."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 IT was with a sense of excited anticipation that 
 Ivors found himself on board the steamer which 
 was to take him to Naples to arrange the pre- 
 liminaries for what he euphemistically called 
 their marriage. 
 
 It was a day of glamour — a day of soft sea-mists, 
 which drew away and descended again, giving magical 
 glimpses of blue sea and hill-crested island, of purple 
 headland and rocky coast-line in their sun-shot 
 withdrawals. 
 
 There were several tourists on the steamer, and at 
 first Ivors looked at them with that newly-captured 
 interest in his fellow-creatures which was another of 
 the gifts of Hesper's bestowal. 
 
 He watched with amusement a sharp-eyed, rat-hke 
 vendor of real tortoiseshell and imitation pink coral 
 who squatted at the feet of a comely American lady, 
 and hypnotised her into buying several articles which 
 she did not in the least want. He noted tlie antics of 
 a little brown-faced man who sold postcards and tiny 
 books of views for a penny, and smiled at him as he 
 pranced up and down the deck, spraying out the views 
 like serpentins at Carnival time, crying, " Only 
 penny ! Piccola moncta, signori ! Piccola moneta ! " 
 
 When the band of musicians broke into " Addio, 
 
 3^7
 
 328 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 hella Napoli! " and " Sole mio " he felt that the sweet 
 hackneyed strains were in tune with his mood ; and he 
 almost laughed aloud at the disgusted faces of a party 
 of British tourists (of a type which he had not believed 
 to exist outside the pages of the comic press), at a gay 
 little incident which occurred just after the steamer 
 left the villa-crested, warm-tinted cliffs of Sorrento. 
 
 The musicians struck up a tarantella, and the fat 
 little man who had gaily striven to sell copies of their 
 music to the passengers put down his bundle and began 
 to dance. Opposite to where he pirouetted sat an 
 elderly Italian gentleman with white waxed moustache 
 and dignified mien. His feet began to tap upon the 
 boards, his head to nod in time to the irresistible 
 measure. Finally he could withstand the temptation 
 no longer, and he jumped to his feet, taking off his hat 
 to the dancer with a grandiloquent flourish. Picking up 
 the tails of his frock-coat he pirouetted as merrily and 
 as extravagantly as the other had done, and the white- 
 haired enthusiasts quickened their paces and flung 
 themselves into the abandon of the gradually increasing 
 tempo with the ardour of youth itself, until, with their 
 final bows and flourishes, the music came to its wild 
 climax, and the dancers sank exhausted upon the seats. 
 
 Ivors joined in the applause that followed, thinking 
 how Hesper would have enjoyed the little incident, 
 so typical of the hght-hearted and unselfconscious 
 Southerns. He pressed a coin into the fat man's hand 
 as he walked to the side of the steamer to look back 
 at Capri where his heart was — Capri, now but an ame- 
 thyst blur in the pale sea-mist. On the seat near him 
 sat a young German honeymoon couple. The bride-
 
 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 329 
 
 groom was tall, plain, sandy-haired, and obviously sick 
 with love. The little dark bride was plump and bright- 
 eyed. She was not the one who kissed, Ivors thought ; 
 it was she, rather, who gave the cheek, and would 
 permanently hold the sceptre in the firm little red 
 hands which the bridegroom from time to time openly 
 fondled. They had bought oranges at Capri, which 
 they now shared in childishly unembarrassed fashion. 
 At another time Ivors would have shrugged his 
 shoulders at the little scene, if he had condescended 
 to notice it at all, but to-day, common-place and 
 bourgeois as the couple were, something radiated from 
 them which was neither the one nor the other. Wed- 
 ding rings gleamed upon the hands of each : rings 
 which had a meaning and a symbolism which suddenly 
 sent a sick wave of realisation through Ivors. W'hat 
 these two were to each other Hesper and he could never 
 be in the eyes of the world. 
 
 In a flash of despair some inkling of the baseness of 
 what he contemplated touched him. 
 
 Gone was the gaiety of the life around him ; the 
 fast dispersing mists disclosed no magic city ; the 
 majesty of Vesuvius, brooding like Fate over the 
 circling bay, was lost to his darkened vision. Into his 
 innermost being he peered, and shrank back aghast 
 from what he saw therein. He had never probed the 
 realities of the situation before, had never fully con- 
 sidered it in its truer, deeper aspects. He had but 
 skirted it. Now he stood on the fringe of the desert, 
 as it were — the fringe where the tragedy of lovers 
 begins or ends — the halting-place between the wells and 
 pomegranates oi the oasis and the barren sandy wastes.
 
 330 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 He had to face the fact that he was going to commit 
 a crime in marrying Hesper, a crime for which men were 
 imprisoned for long, bleak, cruel years. It was the 
 personal aspect which at first smote him. Then, as 
 the veil in which he had enwrapped his actions was 
 slowly drawn aside, his imagination, which he had 
 often deemed more foe than friend, painted in vivid 
 colours the wrong he contemplated towards the three 
 women whose hves were entangled with his. 
 
 First, Hesper, Hesper. His heart was wnmg at the 
 very thought of her and all that she meant to him. 
 Now that he knew something of her ideals and aspira- 
 tions, of the heights and the depths of her nature 
 and character, he reahsed what a terrible risk he was 
 running if he carried out this bigamous marriage ; he 
 saw, as he had never seen before, how he was endan- 
 gering her self-respect, her love for him, and her 
 happiness as well as his own. He saw that such a blow 
 would smite the very foundations of her being, and 
 groaned in spirit as he sought for sophistries with 
 which to bandage his eyes from the sight. 
 
 Hesper. No, Hesper did not bear thinking of as 
 yet, for with the vision of her came his own need, 
 crying an exceeding bitter cry, a call from soul to soul. 
 
 He stumbled, unseeing, down the ship's ladder into 
 the boat which took him ashore, giving the boatman a 
 fee which made him open his black eyes in wonder, 
 and strode along the quays, driven by the torments 
 which pursued him. 
 
 He wandered through the steep fishing quarter of 
 the town, up narrow streets where the strings of drying 
 garments fluttered overhead Hke faded banners, where
 
 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 331 
 
 the shaggy fawn goats came in from the country, and 
 climbed to the top of flights of steps to be milked. 
 
 On he wandered, not knowing or caring where he went, 
 heeding nothing save the fact that some power stronger 
 than himself drove him forth, and prevented him from 
 seeking the Consulate until he had for once pondered 
 truly upon the consequences of his action. 
 
 He thought of Hildred and the wrong he contem- 
 plated doing her. He knew that if he did this thing 
 sooner or later his sin must find him out, and the 
 thought of the scorn in those clear grey eyes whipped 
 him like a lash. In a flash of self -exculpation he 
 cried to the accusing vision : 
 
 " It is your fault as well as mine. If you had stayed 
 with me this never could have happened." 
 
 True. Hildred could not cast the first stone. She 
 had left him in his need : she had deserted him when 
 her woman's intuition should have warned her that he 
 wanted her, that she alone could save him. 
 
 But who was he to reproach her ? What had he 
 done for this child of his ? Had he ever loved her, 
 studied her, made her necessary to him, made himself 
 necessary to her as a father should ? How had he ever 
 strengthened this reed that it should not break when 
 he leant upon it ? If, in breaking, it pierced him as 
 well, the fault was not hers but his. 
 
 Oh, Hesper ! Hesper ! 
 
 If he could creep to her feet and cry " Peccavi ! " 
 If he could be hfted up and forgiven, and rest his head 
 upon the softness of her breast ! At the thought a 
 wave of longing shook him. 
 
 People in the street, sauntering along in the easy
 
 332 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Neapolitan fashion, turned to look at the thin, white- 
 faced man who strode past as if he did not know where 
 he was going. 
 
 It was true. He neither knew nor cared, driven as 
 he was by whips of despair, tormented by the conflict 
 within him. Of his wife and his sin against her he 
 thought but little. He owed her nothing, he told 
 himself. She had cast him off for no real reason in the 
 heyday of his manhood, had cut him adrift from aU 
 anchorage of home and wife and child, uncaring 
 whether he lived or died or came to ruin. He owed 
 her nothing. Any fault of his was condoned by the 
 fact that she had sinned against him so deeply. Al- 
 though their wedded life had drifted quickly into the 
 prosaic stage its ending had been none of his doing. 
 He would have gone on as they had been going without 
 a thought of more than the inevitable mental severance. 
 No, it was not for Harriet to cast the first stone either. 
 
 Then, by some subconscious reasoning, he thought 
 of her for whom that kindly plea — " Let him that is 
 without sin among you cast the first stone," — had first 
 been uttered, by Whom it had been said and why, and 
 it came to him that if Hesper should stand one day 
 before such a tribunal it was he who would have dragged 
 her there, without her knowledge. 
 
 Without her knowledge. Ah, there lay the sting. 
 He would smirch her white purity, drag her down in 
 the eyes of men, stab her treacherously in the dark, 
 and all because he loved her. How he loved her, and 
 craved for her and needed her ! If he could believe 
 that she would have the courage to brave convention 
 and come away with him he would tell her all, he would
 
 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 333 
 
 risk her scorn and trust to the warmth of her love. 
 But he could not be sure. That was the crux. For 
 all her maturity she had the innocent heart of a child, 
 and he could picture her wounded wonder at his decep- 
 tion, her hurt surprise at the baseness of his passion. 
 He dared not risk it. 
 
 At last he found that he had stopped on the top of 
 a hill, driven to pause for breath. He looked around 
 him. Far below lay the great semicircle of the bay, 
 shimmering in the sunshine which, in dispersing the 
 mists, had touched the long ripples of the water with 
 a luminous sheen. 
 
 Capri was scarcely visible on the horizon, and gardens 
 rioting with geraniums and roses tumbled precipitously 
 beneath him to the water's edge. Villas, embowered 
 in orchards and olive-trees, were dotted about the hill- 
 side, and a great pine in the grounds of the nearest 
 one was etched darkly against the gleaming bay. The 
 city curved away to the left in a golden haze. 
 
 Above him a building struck an incongruous note 
 in his surroundings. It was a pseudo-Egyptian temple 
 built of rough grey stone, carving and symbol here 
 colourless as his hfe seemed to be at present. 
 
 His lips twisted themselves into a wry smile at 
 the sight. How the Egyptian temples seemed to 
 intrude into the critical moments of his life ! He 
 thought of the delicate colonnades at Kom Ombo, the 
 broken cornices against the blue sky, the shimmering 
 loveliness of the scene from the bluff on that other 
 day when the hoopoe had come like a messenger of 
 Fate. At Kom Ombo he had found and lost the Love- 
 colour and his heart for ever, as he had then thought.
 
 334 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Now the Fates had led his steps to Capri and Hesper. 
 What portent had the rough grey travesty of colour- 
 filled lovehness for him to-day ? 
 
 No one was near at the moment. He tried the gate 
 leading to the mock temple, but it was locked. Stones 
 jutted from the wall here and there. He climbed it 
 easily, and seeking a corner of the steps where he could 
 not be seen from the road he sat down, conscious now 
 of an overpowering weariness, to fight his battle with 
 himself. Here at least he would be undisturbed for 
 the present : here he could think, could break away 
 from the magic of Hesper's presence. 
 
 He pressed his hands over his eyes, and tried to sum- 
 mon his forces. Thoughts, wild and incoherent, 
 rushed in a tumult through his mind. At Kom Ombo 
 he had determined to seek safety in flight. What if 
 that were the only way of redemption here ? Had he 
 the courage to flee from Naples without ever seeing 
 Hesper again ? It seemed as if every drop of blood 
 ebbed from his heart at the thought, as if life slowly 
 left him to the chill of such a death. No, a thousand 
 times no ! He must see Hesper again, he could not 
 live without her. Then why not die ? Of what use 
 was he to any one else ? Ah, there was his reason for 
 not taking the coward's way. The blood ran warmly 
 in his veins again. Hesper had said that she would 
 die if he left her. The dear specious argument rang 
 in his ears once more. She would die : his best 
 beloved, his fixed star, and he would have killed her. 
 How could he slay her late-found joy ? Why should 
 they not take what they had won so hardly ? But 
 what does the body matter if you kill the soul ? Kill
 
 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 335 
 
 the soul ? He was not sure that he had a soul. Kill 
 Hesper's soul ? How could he kill Hesper's soul, 
 if they were man and wife in God's sight ? He was 
 not certain that there was a God. He would cleave 
 only to her, forsaking all other. She wanted no other. 
 He was her world as she was his. They were all in all 
 to each other in a sense attained by few. Why should 
 he fling tliis gift into the sea of obhvion and flee ? 
 He would never let Hesper suffer, he would shield her 
 with his hfe if necessary, but he would not give her up, 
 he could not. The sin would be his alone. How could 
 it mar her whiteness ? A few more lies, and Ivors 
 hated lying, and the deed would be done. It would 
 be his burnt-offering to the Fates ; its smoke would 
 trouble him no more, and they could be happy. Ah, 
 how happy ! 
 
 Hesper ! Hesper ! 
 
 But when she knew some day, as she must inevitably 
 know, what of this rainbow palace of happiness ? 
 Would it not burst like a bubble and leave nothing 
 behind ? Would she not have a thousand-fold more 
 to forgive then than now ? Now the bitterness would 
 be clean save for the mire of his deception, which she 
 could wash away with her tears ; but then — then 
 
 Ivors groaned aloud as the day sank to its close, and 
 the maze of wild tlioughts, weak excuses, pagan im- 
 pulses spun bewilderingly through his tortured mind. 
 The scales moved so rapidly, one weighty reason against 
 another sending the balance up and down \nth so dizzy 
 a motion that all power of judgment seemed suspended. 
 
 When at last he rose he staggered like a man who 
 had been through an illness, and saw to his surprise that
 
 336 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 the sun had sunk below the far horizon and that dusk 
 was coming, velvet-footed, through the orchards. It 
 was too late for action that day, he realised with a sigh 
 of relief, as he walked down the hill towards Naples, 
 
 But in his inmost soul two emotions were paramount, 
 a sick craving for the sight and touch of Hesper and 
 the shamefaced knowledge that, come what might, he 
 would stand on the fiinge of the desert no longer. He 
 had had enough of the sandy wastes, the arid desola- 
 tion. The palm-trees, the wells, and the pomegranates 
 were in sight, within touch. A man were worse than 
 mad if he turned from them to go back to the wilderness 
 to die of thirst and loneliness. He had been there : he 
 knew. In the face of such knowledge was he to thrust 
 Hesper also into the wastes ? Oh, the cooling wells ! 
 
 It was too late to return to Capri that night. She 
 would not be uneasy : he had told her that he might be 
 detained, but the long dull evening gave him a fore- 
 taste of what life would be again \\'ithout her, and his 
 broken sleep was haunted by horrible fragments of 
 dreams — vague, inestimable losses — tragedies that 
 awakened him to find his cheeks wet with tears, and 
 kept him tossing and tumbling until dawn broke, and 
 he arose and went out to inhale the fresh sea air and to 
 listen to the homely jingling noises of the waking city. 
 
 He sent his spirit in longing towards the faint blur 
 that was Capri, and at the earliest possible hour sought 
 out the British Consulate, and made therein his burnt- 
 offering of treachery and sin, bhnding himself deliber- 
 ately to the fact that in its smoke might be consumed 
 Hesper's happiness and his, and those deeper things 
 which are more precious than either.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MAGIC CIRCLE 
 
 WHEN Ivors returned from Naples he 
 brought letters from the poste restante 
 for them both. 
 His was from Hildred, ardent and 
 thought-provoking. She was fired with enthusiasm 
 for her work, found no detail too small, no task too 
 irksome for pleased fulfilment. Mrs. Marston, the 
 matron, was a strict disciplinarian, but so kind, and 
 the nurses were all ladies, and more or less congenial. 
 Her mother had neither approved nor disapproved, 
 but had stated candidly that in her opinion the aim 
 and object of all hospital nurses was to get married, 
 but that she supposed that it was only one of Nature's 
 tricks to enable the world to continue to go round ! 
 However, Hildred did not mind. She had found a 
 niche : she had something to do : she felt that she was 
 of some small use in the world : that here she was 
 really wanted. She did not mention Dr. Lisle. She 
 concluded by asking him to write to her sometimes — 
 •' and remember that if you ever need me I am quite 
 ready and willing to go to you. If you sliould chance 
 to come across Miss Marlowe please give her my love, 
 but I suppose you are not at all likely to be anywhere 
 that she is." 
 
 X 337
 
 338 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Ivors looked at Hesper with a sigh at the thought of 
 what he had been through. They were sitting on the 
 terrace above the peach-orchard : she was in the Httle 
 arbour and he sat on a stool with his back against the 
 vine-trelUs. Not likely to be anywhere that she was ? 
 He looked with yearning at the down-bent head, with 
 its classic waves of soft black hair, at the drooped white 
 lids, at the sweet generous mouth, at the firm chin 
 with its hinted dimples, at the slim hands which held 
 his heart, at the beautiful sweeping line of her figure, 
 and hoped passionately that he was never likely to be 
 anywhere but where she was ! Give her up ? Not for 
 twenty thousand scruples ! Besides, it wa« for her 
 happiness as well as his. Had she not said that to lose 
 him now would kill her ? Yet, as he looked at hei, 
 the essence of her personality stole over him again and 
 whispered that here was no weak thing of apathetic 
 resignation to the blows of circumstance. Some lines 
 he had once read pricked uneasily through his deliber- 
 ately narcotised conscience — 
 
 " Yet each man kills the thing he loves. 
 By each let this be heard ; 
 Some do it with a bitter look. 
 Some with a flattering word. 
 The coward does it with a kiss, 
 The brave man with a sword ! " 
 
 Was his the coward's way of killing ? he wondered. 
 
 He rose suddenly, went to her and kissed her, and 
 the touch of her lips put to flight all considerations 
 but the thought of her desirability and of his great 
 love and need of her. Hildred had spoken of being 
 needed : if that were the claim of womanhood Hesper 
 should have hers fulfilled in good measure, pressed 
 
 ™
 
 THE MAGIC CIRCLE 339 
 
 down and running over. No human being ever needed 
 another as he needed her, he told himself, and she 
 needed him too, in very deed and truth. He kissed 
 her again. 
 
 " Beloved, how I have wanted you ! " he said. 
 
 " Yesterday ? " she asked, leaning back against his 
 shoulder, and letting her letters fall into her lap. 
 
 " Since the beginning of Time." 
 
 " The hours crawled without you. The sun seemed 
 to stand still. I wanted you horribly." 
 
 " We were created for each other, Hesper," he said 
 huskily. " See how we were brought together after all 
 these empty years." 
 
 " These empty years," she echoed, looking back at a 
 barren vista that ended at her eighteenth birthday. 
 
 " The days of fulness are at hand," he continued. 
 " We are meant to have them, clearly meant to have 
 them." 
 
 She did not understand his insistence, but anything 
 that breathed of his love was sweet to her. 
 
 " Surely," she answered. " I often think that things 
 are more equally divided than people imagine. The 
 balance of the scales is always tolerably even, and 
 though the sorrowful side may overbalance some- 
 times, the turn of the joyful is sure to come sooner or 
 later." 
 
 " Oh, sweet heart full of happy and lovely thoughts," 
 he cried. " What have I done to deserve you ? " 
 
 " Don't be foolish," whispered Hesper, turning and 
 kissing the hand that clasped her shoulder. " Haven't 
 you just said that we were created for each other, 
 so that there can be no question of desert or non-
 
 340 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 desert ? " Then, after a little : "I have had a 
 letter from Nanno, who says that her poor old mother is 
 still alive ' although they have had the priest and the 
 doctor to her,' but that when the poor old soul is 
 ' waked ' and buried she wiU come to me, no matter 
 what outlandish place I'm in. Also, she tells me a 
 piece of news — that Belhasard — my godmother" — 
 she put in smiling — " is to be sold, and that she wishes 
 to goodness I'd buy it and marry a nice gentleman and 
 settle down there ! What do you think, Ingram ? " 
 she laughed softly, " It is a dear old place, with quaint 
 rooms and passages, and the sweetest little morning- 
 room down three steps, which opens on to a closed rose- 
 garden with a fountain in the centre where goldfish 
 used to live. Shall we buy it and make it our perman- 
 ent home ? I think my darling daddy would be 
 very happy if he could know that you and I were 
 there." 
 
 Ivors stroked her hair. " It shall be just as you 
 like, beloved." 
 
 " How pleased Nanno will be when she hears that 
 we are going to be married ! She thought you were a 
 darlin' gentleman, God bless you, and too fine a man 
 entirely to be fiddlin' about all day with them paints I 
 Like most people in Ireland, gentle and simple, she 
 considers spinsterhood a stigma. It will deUght her 
 good heart when she hears that it is to be removed 
 from me." 
 
 Ivors thought for a moment. Here was a simple way 
 of pleasing her, and one comparatively unfraught with 
 danger. It was not likely that Nanno's knowledge 
 could make mischief.
 
 THE MAGIC CIRCLE 341 
 
 " You may tell her if you like," he said, " but ask 
 her not to gossip about it." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, dearest," she exclaimed, pleased 
 as a child. " Nanno won't gossip. She can keep her 
 counsel as well as any one I know. Now if we could 
 only tell Hildred and the Nugents I should be perfectly 
 happy." 
 
 Ivors frowned a little, and moved uneasily. " I 
 did not think that you were the conventional woman 
 who wants all her friends to know of her capture," he 
 said petulantly. 
 
 " But I'm not, you misunderstand me," she answered, 
 drawing back slightly. A faint colour flushed her 
 cheeks. " I confess, Ingram, that I did not think 
 you were capable of such a — such a — yes, I will say it 
 — vulgar insinuation." 
 
 Ivors laughed, and caught her hands, all his irritation 
 banished by the sparkle of her eyes. " Forgive me, 
 dearest of all things. I love teasing you." 
 
 " Are you sure you were only teasing ? Are you 
 sure that you didn't mean that horrid thing ? " 
 
 " Of course I didn't, goose." Then he added with a 
 sigh that melted the last icicle of Hesper's aloofness, 
 " Do you think for an instant that I am so fatuous as 
 to imagine myself a capture of whom any woman could 
 be proud ? " 
 
 " That's fishing," she said, " and all your life long 
 you've had more compliments than were good for 
 you." 
 
 " They were Dead Sea fruit. Give me a bite of your 
 Apple of Common-Sense." 
 
 "I'm afraid I can't spare any. Besides, if I did,
 
 342 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 you'd probably turn round later on, like Adam, and 
 say that I tempted you." 
 
 " And haven't you ? " 
 
 " To what have I tempted you, may I ask ? " 
 
 " To loving you more than is good for my soul, I'm 
 afraid," he said, walking to the edge of the terrace and 
 looking down at the amazing blueness of the sea. 
 
 She rose too and followed him, slipping her hand 
 through his arm. 
 
 " No, beloved. No, Ingram. You mustn't say 
 that. You must unsay it now this very moment." 
 
 " How can one unsay what one has already said ? 
 Scientists tell us that sound never dies, so, according 
 to them, my careless words will go echoing through aeons 
 of time, if not eternity." 
 
 " Were they careless ? " 
 
 " Execrably so." 
 
 " Did you mean them ? " 
 
 " Sweetest heart ! " 
 
 " Did you mean them at all, Ingram ? " She rubbed 
 her cheek cocLxingly against his shoulder, and her tone 
 rang wistfully. 
 
 He answered her with the fierceness to which some- 
 thing in the high mettle of her nature responded. 
 " How could I mean them ? How could my love for 
 you be anything but the best part of me, the one spark 
 of hght in my whole caieless, selfish hfe ? " He kissed 
 her hair and eyes. 
 
 " The coward does it with a kiss, 
 The brave man with a sword." 
 
 The words rang through his brain, but he only held 
 her the closer.
 
 THE MAGIC CIRCLE 343 
 
 " Now tell me your reasons for letting the world into 
 oui seciet, Hesper Belhasard." 
 
 " It's not the woild, it's only the Nugents and 
 Hildred." 
 
 " Let's take the Nugents first." 
 
 " They are my very good friends, and I would like 
 them to share my happiness. Besides, I've just had a 
 letter from Gerda, who, in her usual frank way, criti- 
 cised you ! She would not dare to do that if she knew 
 what we were to each other." 
 
 Ivors laughed. " What did she say ? " 
 
 "Oh, I don't think she'd hke me to tell." 
 
 " Very well, then, goose. But don't imagine for an 
 instant that I care a centesimo what any one but you 
 thinks or says about me. That disposes of the 
 Nugents." 
 
 " Does it ? " 
 
 " Now for Hildred." 
 
 She drew his face closer to hers and spoke very 
 low. " It's only, it's only that we two are so happy, 
 and she is outside. There are only the three of us, 
 you and she and I. Why shouldn't we bind our little 
 circle as closely together as possible ? I don't think 
 she'd resent it," Hesper continued diffidently. Ivors' 
 clasp tightened. " I think she really liked me, and I 
 am very fond of her. We got to know each other 
 better that last month at Assuan. I wish you would 
 tell her." 
 
 " By the way, who was the young man who wouldn't 
 take no for an answer ? " 
 
 '* It was Roddy. Didn't you know ? Foolish boy, 
 his persistence drove her away."
 
 344 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " What do these children know of love ? " 
 
 " Ah, what ? " sighed Hesper, with the inevitable 
 assurance of all lovers since the world began that they, 
 the man and woman in the eternal love-cycle, are the 
 only two who know the real meaning of that encyclo- 
 paedic monosyllable. 
 
 " And what about your Baron ? " Ivors asked after 
 a pause. 
 
 "Ah, he was a pleasant creature, but very senti- 
 mental." 
 
 " How I wish I had known ! " 
 
 " Known what ? " 
 
 " Your opinion of him. I should never have been 
 jealous of a pleasant creature." 
 
 " And were you jealous ? " 
 
 '♦ Fiendishly." 
 
 " You needn't have been. There was never any one 
 else," she said simply. 
 
 " Since Time began ? " 
 
 "Since Time began." Then: "Well, what about 
 Hildred ? " 
 
 Ivors was brought back to the present with a jar. 
 Her insistence fretted him, but he was ashamed of his 
 former irritabihty. He could have laughed aloud at 
 the bitter irony of life. Here he had to deny her the 
 one thing he most wished for himself. He would 
 have given a great deal if he could have stood forth and 
 boldly proclaimed Hesper his wife in the face of the 
 world. He gloried in her love for him, in his for her, 
 and yet he had, perforce, to deny her, to hide her away 
 in the forgotten corners of the world. He had deliber- 
 ately shut his eyes to any other alternative ; their feet
 
 THE MAGIC CIRCLE 345 
 
 were set now on a path from which there must be no 
 turning back. They were leaving the fringe of the 
 desert : the cool wells and the pomegranates were 
 before them, the wastes lay behind. He could not 
 close his ears to the clanking of his fetters, but he would 
 do his best to prevent Hesper from hearing it too. He 
 scarcely realised how oblivious she was of the mundane 
 just now, how closely attuned were all her senses to the 
 hearing of the music of the spheres. 
 
 " We're in a magic circle of our own, beloved," he 
 whispered. " I don't want to let any one else in just 
 yet. Won't you wait ? Some day " 
 
 " Some day,'' she echoed, "is no day. But never 
 mind ! I don't want any one but you, I assure you. 
 I am looking forward with all my heart to our wander- 
 ings, and then to our winter in that Arabian-Nights-hke 
 island." 
 
 " It is like the Arabian Nights. You \vill love it, 
 with its silent-footed servants, and its garden and its 
 big, cool rooms full of beauty and mystery, and the 
 flat roof on which you can sleep if you hke, with nothing 
 but the whispering wind between you and the stars." 
 
 " It sounds enchanting," she murmured. 
 
 " You won't be lonely there ? We don't want people, 
 do we ? " 
 
 " People ? ' And thou beside me singing in the 
 wilderness ' ? " she quoted with a fine scorn. 
 
 Ivors was silent. Sometimes the fire of joy burns 
 fiercely and scorches those who come too near. 
 
 " The only thing about it that I don't like," continued 
 Hesper, " is its name. It seems like tempting Fate to 
 call a place the Island of Happiness."
 
 346 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " It was their naming, not ours," said Ivors quickly. 
 
 *' I know, but I feel as if we have had too much our- 
 selves already, somehow ; as if we ought to do some- 
 thing to propitiate the gods, like that king of old who 
 threw his ring into the sea." 
 
 " Don't worry. I've made a burnt-offering already," 
 Ivors said, unthinking. Then in a lighter tone : 
 " You little pagan, are you superstitious ? " 
 
 Hesper laughed. " Not really, though I suppose all 
 Irish people are tinged with superstition, more or less. 
 What's your burnt-offering ? " 
 
 Ivors evaded answering. " Hildred told me that 
 you once enUghtened her on the great differences 
 between English and Irish people. I wish you'd tell 
 me some." 
 
 " Well, the EngHsh pronounce grass " she began. 
 
 " I don't mean differences in pronunciation, you 
 find those in every English county, but something 
 more fundamental, more racial." 
 
 Hesper pondered. " Well, really at the moment the 
 only thing I can think of is that the English never say 
 ' God bless you ' when you sneeze ! " 
 
 Ivors burst out laughing. " Oh, you dearest ! " he 
 cried. " Life with you should be one long delight." 
 
 " And why not ? " asked Hesper Belhasard, as she 
 winked away a tear of happiness which fell on Ivors' 
 coat.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 GEZIRET-EL-SAADA 
 
 AFTER their marriage, which no thunderbolt 
 of circumstance prevented, they journeyed 
 to Egypt by circuitous ways. Indeed, no 
 one who noted the involutions of their 
 wanderings would ever have imagined that their faces 
 were set, even in thought, towards that land of dead 
 kings and living peasants. 
 
 Avoiding the beaten track, they met no old acquaint- 
 ances and made few new ones. They were content 
 with one another, and as each day progressed to its 
 close they drew more closely together in sympathy and 
 spirit, their need of each other increasing rather than 
 diminishing with time. 
 
 Hesper's beauty grew and deepened. It lost the 
 touch of coldness which had appeared a flaw to some, 
 a charm to others. The inner radiance which before 
 had been but evanescent now shone through her every 
 look. 
 
 Ivors changed too, but with a difference. He grew 
 thinner, and his temples were touched with grey. 
 Hesper thought it added to his look of distinction. 
 She liked men to be of " the lean kine," she said, 
 imwitting of what had worn him. It seemed almost 
 as if the fire of happiness which irradiated her were 
 
 347
 
 348 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 slowly consuming him, as if his overmastering passion 
 were too strong for the frame which leashed it. He 
 alternated fitful outbursts of energy with periods of 
 inactive reaction, and although he determinedly never 
 looked back, the daily revelation of the depths and 
 heights of Hesper's love, her inner purity and the 
 sweetness of her soul, stung him from time to time with 
 a burning sense of the wrong which he had done her. 
 Still, he tasted happiness, holding what he had taken 
 with all the defiance of conscious possession, and 
 striving daily with every art in his power to grapple 
 her to him " with hooks of steel " which should hold 
 fast when the inevitable cataclysm came. For that 
 it was inevitable, sooner or later, Ivors knew in the 
 depths of his being ; and he wrought to make himself 
 so necessary to Hesper that no knowledge, however 
 bitter or shameful, could bring about separation. 
 That was what he dreaded most of all — that she should 
 leave him. He could not face the loneHness of life 
 •without her again. These two solitary creatures whom 
 Destiny had brought together clung all the more closely 
 on account of the long empty years they had spent 
 apart. The Hesper whom Ivors knew was a being no 
 one else had ever seen, and the Ingram of her love 
 was a man whom neither friend nor enemy would have 
 even dimly recognised, for he, like most men, boasted, 
 
 " . . . two soul-sides, one to face the world with, 
 One to show a woman when he loves her 1 " 
 
 It was with a sense of home-coming that Hesper 
 saw Egypt again, though anything which opposed more 
 contrast to that sun-baked country than her own land
 
 GEzfRET-EL-SAADA 349 
 
 of mist-haunted hills and purple heather could scarcely 
 be imagined. Its indefinable charm drew her, envel- 
 oped her as it had done before, and Ivors was content 
 in her content. 
 
 They did not linger on the way : they were anxious 
 to get to El-Saada ; and the faithful Moussa, who met 
 them in Cairo, and kissed Hesper's hand with the 
 grace of a courtier, had made all the necessary arrange- 
 ments for their arrival. 
 
 They went by train, and Hesper saw famihar sights 
 from a different aspect, travelling in a few hours through 
 the variations of colour and costume which had meant 
 weeks of experience on the slower water-way. 
 
 When the square-topped colonnade of the Temple of 
 Kom Ombo came in sight, she slipped her hand into 
 Ivors' and smiled at him, touching the enamelled sun- 
 disc which spread its tinted wings across the lace at her 
 throat. 
 
 " Do you remember ? " she asked, past pain obliter- 
 ated in the sweetness of the present. 
 
 " I remember," answered Ivors, thinking of all that 
 had happened in the few brief months that held the 
 greatest moments of his hfe. In a flash he saw the 
 mock temple at Naples, and felt again for an instant 
 the bitterness of his struggle. 
 
 The curving cornice and the great pillars stood out 
 for a moment against the blue like a cameo of clouded 
 amber upon turquoise, then disappeared from sight, 
 
 " We must go there again some day," he said, rousing 
 himself with an effort. " Perhaps the hoopoe " 
 
 " Has gone back to Balkis, Queen of Sheba." 
 
 " Or more probably is nesting in one of the clefts
 
 350 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 above the old gods — the falcon-headed Haroeris or the 
 ibis-headed Thout. Isn't it odd how those old sculp- 
 tors managed to invest their animal-headed gods with 
 dignity ? And the fellows had no idea of perspective 
 either, or of any way of presenting the figure except in 
 profile. They ought to look ridiculous, grotesque, but 
 they don't, somehow. I wonder why ? " 
 
 " It's because they are in their proper environment," 
 Hesper answered dreamily. " Incongruity only means 
 wrong surroundings. Look at those men working that 
 shaduf ! With their naked bronze limbs and blue 
 robes girt about their waists they look in perfect 
 harmony with the sand and the pabn-trees. Put 
 them down in a London street ! " 
 
 " What logic ! " mocked Ivors. " You are becoming 
 quite a dialectician, Hesper Belhasard." 
 
 " What's that ? " she asked. " I am far too happy 
 to-day to understand words of more than two 
 syllables." 
 
 " Hell, Hope, Heaven," he murmured half to him- 
 self. " Harriet, Hildred, Hesper. All the big things 
 in my hfe have begun with H. Pity I was not born a 
 cockney ! " 
 
 " H'm," said Hesper. " I didn't catch what you 
 said." 
 
 " I said that you and Heaven began with the same 
 letter," he answered. 
 
 " What about that for logic ? " she laughed. *' O 
 my dearest, why do you love me so much ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid I can't help it now. I'm a creature of 
 habit, Hesper Belhasard," he said, kissing the hand he 
 held, and thinking to himself, " And I can laugh.
 
 GEZIRET EL SAAdA 351 
 
 actually laugh at these things, which are the biggest 
 in the world to me ! What sort of worm am I, after 
 all ? If Hesper could look into the depths of my soul 
 what would she think of the coward and the liar that 
 she'd see there ? " 
 
 He shook the thought from him — the thought which, 
 although it returned in Protean disguises, always 
 had the power to sting and burn — and spoke of the 
 life they would lead at El-Saada. 
 
 " Our home," said Hesper softly. " It gives me a 
 thriU of excitement every time I think of it. You must 
 paint it aU for me, Ingram. You must paint me the 
 Song of the Nile." 
 
 " And you must play it for me," he declared, *' with 
 the diapason of the mountains as they melt away to 
 an amethyst diminuendo or come thundering down in 
 a golden crescendo of towering cUff and crag ! " 
 
 " Now, are we talking music, painting, or nonsense ? " 
 asked Hesper, with a little excited laugh. 
 
 " What does it matter ? " said Ivors, drawing her 
 closer. 
 
 The train swept through pakn-grove and brown tiUed 
 land, through sun-dried village and ta\vny wastes of 
 desert, past the ragged mat tents of the Bishann camp 
 in the crumbUng old Arab cemetery, and stopped at 
 last at the railway-station at Assuan. 
 
 Moussa came to the carriage, resplendent in a peach- 
 coloured kuftan, and opened the door with a flourish. 
 
 " The boatmen, efendi," he said, indicating some 
 waiting figures who made a brilliant spot of colour on 
 the platform. 
 
 With their black Nubian faces, their gleaming teeth,
 
 352 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 and their costumes of red iarbushes, jackets and shoes, 
 full white trousers and deep purple waistbands, it 
 seemed to Hesper as if they might have stepped straight 
 out of the pages of the "Arabian Nights." 
 
 " It's beginning," she cried with a little gasp of 
 delight. " Why, they're just like fuchsias ! " 
 
 Ivors' vagrant fancy was tickled at the simile, and 
 he ever aftenvards referred to the four boatmen as 
 " your fuchsias." The livery had been devised by the 
 Graf von StreUtz, and its wearers had squatted for 
 hours under the palm-trees in the dust, waiting to 
 do honour to their new if temporary master. 
 
 Ivors remembered some of them and spoke to all. 
 He had a way with the Arabs which resulted in excel- 
 lent service ; and flashing smiles now bore testimony 
 to his popularity. 
 
 " The felukeh awaits, o efendi," said Ali, the chief 
 boatman. " We will return after for the luggage. 
 The siit will walk ? It is very near." 
 
 Ivors looked at Hesper. " Can you walk a hundred 
 yards or so ? " he asked. " Across the road and the 
 sandy bank as far as old Nile ? " 
 
 " I think I can," she answered gravely. Then she 
 gave his arm a little squeeze. " Oh, Ingram, I feel 
 as excited as a child." 
 
 The time of tourists was not yet, and the bright httle 
 tovm seemed half-deserted. Only a desultory vendor 
 or two of fly-swatches and bead-chains moved in the 
 distance, and these Moussa dispersed in lordly fashion 
 as they approached. 
 
 The felukeh lay by the bank. It was gaily painted, 
 as were all the Assuan boats, but instead of the usual
 
 GEZiRET-EL-SAADA 353 
 
 crude green and yellow and scarlet, its rudder and 
 little railing bore the fuchsia colours, purple, crimson 
 and white. Hesper was silent with pleasure as she 
 stepped in and sank luxuriously on the soft red 
 cushions. 
 
 " It's too delightful for words," she sighed, as the 
 felukeh shot out into midstream and drifted quickly 
 down the river towards the picturesque, tree-shaded 
 Elephantine Island. 
 
 The gay clean town rising in tiers of flat-topped 
 houses pierced here and there by snowy minarets, 
 the clustered palms, the avenues of lebekh trees, the 
 rude ruin of Cleopatra's bath jutting out into the 
 water, the groups of Nile-boats along the bank, all 
 brought the desired and familiar atmosphere to the 
 two who sat and watched it and each other \vith 
 enchanted eyes. 
 
 Behind them, in odd juxtaposition, the crescent on 
 a dome and the cross of the Enghsh church stood out 
 upon the skyline ; and tlie clear, delicious air brought 
 with it a sense of exhilaration. 
 
 The felukeh swung round \nth a jerk, and faced 
 up the river. Ali hoisted a peaked sail and they 
 moved slowly towards their goal ; saihng against a 
 current which had lost no strength since its waters had 
 rushed through the sluice-gates of the great dam in 
 foam-white torrents, thundering, iridescent, until it 
 swirled here round the granite islets — timibled heaps 
 of stone, brown, reddish, purple — whose savage desola- 
 tion was occasionally softened by a knot of rushes or a 
 clump of low-growing tamarisk, or emphasised by a 
 mde hieroglyph of god or bird cut deep upon some 
 
 Y.
 
 354 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 large bare boulder, whose base was polished with a fine 
 black glaze from the ceaseless edd3nng of the water. 
 
 To the right rose the golden hills of Libya, whose 
 reddish spurs were clothed with sands as vivid as those 
 of fabled Pactolus ; sands which glowed as if the molten 
 metal had been poured over the rocky slopes, whose 
 brilHance was accentuated by their powdering of 
 blackened stones and the intense blueness of the sky 
 which rose above them. 
 
 One of the boatmen struck up a song which the 
 others accompanied with a soft clapping of hands. 
 
 " A lover said to a dove : 
 ' Lend me your wings for a day, 
 That I may soar thro' the sky 
 And see my beloved's face. 
 I shall obtain enough love, 
 
 dove, for a year and a day. 
 
 1 will return, O dove ! 
 
 Lend me your wings for a day 1 ' " 
 
 Ivors roughly translated the words for Hesper. The 
 crude melody, the soft insistence of the hand-beats 
 added the final touch to the scene. 
 
 " Sight and sound blend here as they do nowhere 
 else," said Hesper with a sigh. " It is perfect, isn't 
 it, dearest ? " 
 
 " I think there is something about this glowing 
 barbarity which almost frightens me," returned Ivors 
 slowly. " The suave beauties of Kom Ombo and Luxor 
 appeal to me more." 
 
 ^'Tlienwhy ?" 
 
 " Ah, wait until 3^ou come to El-Saada," he answered 
 with a smile. 
 
 They had left hotels and inliabited islands behind
 
 GEZIRET-EL-SAADA 355 
 
 them, and now came within sight of their new home, 
 a green mass embowering a ghmpse of cream. Ali 
 leaped to lower the sail as the bow of the felukeh 
 grounded softly on a little bay of yellow sand, 
 from which a tiny pier of polished granite blocks ran 
 outwards into the water. 
 
 Ivors and Hesper walked up the path into a garden. 
 Tall silvery eucalyptus and feathery pepper-trees raised 
 their foliage against the blue. Great bushes of oleander 
 in all gradations of colour, from white to sunset-pink, 
 flushed the garden in masses, while poinsettias showed 
 tongues of flame amid the green. Orange and lemon- 
 trees glowed with their burden of fruit, and there were 
 roses every%\-here. By the side of the path they trod 
 was a little channel paved with turquoise tiles, over 
 which a stream of water trickled with a tiny cool 
 murmur. Young palms clustered in corners through 
 whose branches flitted shy, velvet-throated bulbuls 
 with little melodious twitters. A bee-eater, like a 
 green flash, alighted at the edge of the stream and 
 sipped daintily. 
 
 Down an alley of oleanders came a pair of gazelles, 
 fawn-dappled and slender, with graceful, timid move- 
 ments as if inviting a greeting. 
 
 " It's too much, dearest," said Hesper with a little 
 catch in her voice. " This is an enchanted garden, 
 and here are the prince and princess who have been 
 turned into gazelles. And the turquoise tiles ! And 
 surely I hear the sleepy purring creak of a sakiyeh. 
 It is really too much." 
 
 " It's not half enough," said Ivors, touched at her 
 pleasure. " The tiles were a fad of Madame's, who
 
 356 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 had also seen them in Persia, and I am glad to see that 
 the gazelles are still alive. They are called Anas el- 
 Wogud and Zahr el-Ward, after a pair of lovers who 
 lived on the Island of Philae — Anas and Zahr for short. 
 Ta'kla hcna, Anas. Ta'tli, Zahv." 
 
 He held out his hand, and the dainty creatures came 
 a little nearer, looking at him \vith great dark eyes : 
 then some movement startled them, and they turned 
 and trotted away among the oleanders. 
 
 " I must make friends with them," said Hesper. 
 
 " That's easily done. They're really quite tame, 
 but a httle shy just now. Come ! I want to show 
 you the house." 
 
 It was a low cream-coloured structure, built in the 
 Arab style of arched verandahs and fiat-topped roof. 
 Inside, the dim richness of Persian rugs and carpets 
 was spread pleasantly beneath one's feet. The win- 
 dows were latticed in deUcate mushrahiyieh, and each 
 had its softly cushioned divan. On the inlaid tables 
 stood turquoise bowls of stififiy-arranged flowers, and 
 against the wall at one end was a fragment of some 
 temple nook, the golden-yellow cartouche of a king 
 encircled by the love-colour. One end of the verandah 
 was curtained off into a sort of loggia, and hung with 
 gay tenting covered with crude briUiant figures of the 
 old Egyptian deities. Here were spread divans, 
 cushions, and all contrivances for lazy ease. One 
 looked over its flat cream parapet at the golden hills 
 and the river which now ran molten with the sun-rays, 
 and caught a glimpse of a distant Nubian village with 
 its cylindrical mud-huts and the far black silhouettes 
 of women coming down to the water's edge.
 
 A 
 
 GEZIRET-EL-SAADA 357 
 
 On a divan lay a lute inlaid with silver and ebony, 
 just as if some rose-veiled Faimeh had but that moment 
 put it down. 
 
 Ivors touched its strings softly. 
 
 " To-night when the sky is jewelled with stars as 
 large as moons I will serenade you with this, beloved." 
 He moved towards her and took her in his arms. 
 " Welcome home, my sweetest heart. May your days 
 be as white as milk." 
 
 " Ah, my man, my man," she said, resting her cheek 
 against his. 
 
 " What a delicious voice you have, Hesper Belhas- 
 ard," he said, after a little. " It is one of your chief 
 charms. I hate loud voices, and angry voices hurt me 
 like a blow. I think I'd do anything to avoid a scene." 
 
 " And yet one mustn't shirk," said Hesper. " Some- 
 times it is sheer cowardice to avoid the unpleasant." 
 
 " Are you trying to strengthen my weakness ? " 
 
 " Ah, you don't want any strengthening." 
 
 ** God knows I do," said Ivors with a bitter pang. 
 
 " I suppose we all do." 
 
 " I have not the strength to hurt you, beloved," he 
 said, lulling his qualms \\ith sophistries. 
 
 *' Which means that you haven't the strength to 
 hurt yourself," she responded, looking at him with her 
 heart in her eyes. " For aren't you and I one ? " 
 
 Her words rang uncomfortably in his ears. Was 
 that the truth, spoken so innocently, so unwittingly ? 
 Had he been afraid of hurting himself, not her ? Had 
 he cared all the time only for the Ego which had always 
 ruled his life ? 
 
 Hesper moved to the parapet. The evening glow
 
 358 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 encircled her, en-haloed her, Ivors thought, with a surge 
 of passionate adoration. 
 
 " In the things that matter I hope you would have 
 the strength to hurt me if necessary," she said, turning 
 her head. " Nothing could hurt me so much as any 
 failure in you." 
 
 " Hesper, I am full of flaws. For God's sake don't 
 put me on a pedestal. Any height makes me giddy. 
 I'd tumble at once, and you'd find your poor clay idol 
 in pieces at your feet. I'm a bundle of faults and 
 failings tied together with the golden thread of my 
 love for you. It's the one good thing about me, if 
 indeed, there is any virtue in loving ' the highest when 
 we see it.' " 
 
 He knelt beside her and put his arms round her. 
 
 " How you exaggerate ! " she said fondly. 
 
 " Lord knows I don't," he answered with a rueful 
 sigh. Then his mood changed suddenly. He sprang 
 up and went to the divan. 
 
 " After all, why should I wait until to-night to 
 serenade you, my star ? " he cried, snatching up the 
 lute and tuning it. 
 
 After a soft thrumming at the strings he broke into a 
 curious melody, and then into song. So few were 
 the notes of the song that it almost seemed as if the 
 words accompanied the music, but the effect was oddly 
 passionate and pleading. 
 
 "My heart, 
 I would have sold it 
 Had it not been full of thee 1 
 
 "Mine eyes, 
 I would have blinded them, 
 Had they not been illumined by the radiance of thy face I
 
 GEZIRET-EL-SAADA 359 
 
 "My soul, 
 I would have burned it 
 As a perfume at thy feet 
 Had it not been the breath that exhaled from thy lips 1 " 
 
 All the romance, all the glamour of Hesper's life were 
 concentrated in that thin, alert figure poised on the 
 edge of the divan, plucking the heart out of the lute, 
 and looking at her the while with eyes tliat seemed to 
 burn, so intense was the fire of their gaze. When the 
 song ended she ran to him, and knelt by his side. 
 
 " You love me like this ? " she cried, in a choked 
 voice, answering his eyes rather than his words. 
 " Ingram ! My husband ! What have I done to 
 deserve it ? " 
 
 The lute fell with a little clatter to the floor, where it 
 lay harmoniously on the dull rose and mauve and yel- 
 low of the nig. Ivors* lips twisted into a mirthless 
 smile over her bent head, for he knew that one of the 
 seeds of his punishment was coming into flower, and 
 that the fruit thereof would be exceeding bitter.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE GOLDEN BALL 
 
 AS the weather grew cooler and the desert air 
 wafted draughts of exhilaration through 
 Assuan the two on the island made many 
 excursions. 
 They plunged in search of colour into the narrow 
 covered bazaars, and found it in the gay barbarity of 
 the Sudanese bead and leather chains, the silver and 
 ivory amulets, the straw fans and baskets in rich tones 
 of orange, green and magenta ; in the gourds covered 
 with nets of blue beads ; and in the vegetable bazaar 
 with its medley of oranges, lemons, tiny green limes, 
 strings of dried pods, and rough earthenware bowls 
 full of yellow millet, orange lentils, or dull green peas. 
 Here was a stall of weapons presided over by a 
 dark-eyed, white-bearded Arab, who proudly wore the 
 green turban, sign that he had made the pilgrimage 
 to Mecca. A sense of fitness linked him with his 
 wares — swords whose scabbards of leather, ivory or 
 dull gold were inlaid and encrusted with garnets and 
 turquoises, and knives with handles of carved wood or 
 curving horn, whose sheaths of black crocodile, grey 
 lizard-skin, or flame-coloured leather were ornamented 
 wnth bits of silver, ivory or copper. 
 
 By his side a man in a dull blue robe with a tray of 
 
 360
 
 THE GOLDEN BALL 361 
 
 brass and copper seals, poured pale amber tea into 
 tiny handle-less cups, one of which he presented to the 
 Mecca pilgrim. 
 
 Wild-eyed Bishann stalked through the dim covered 
 ways, bringing, with their shaggy hair pierced with 
 silver or ivory pins, their rough white robes, and 
 the dagger or amulet fastened to their bare brown 
 arms, a sense of desert wildness into this brilliant semi- 
 civilisation. 
 
 Ivors and Hesper bargained and bought with the 
 zest of children. He presented her with a string of tur- 
 quoises, and a gay blue, green and white " Madama 
 Nubia," as the Arabs call the bead, shell and leather 
 apron which comprises the simple costume of the 
 Sudanese women ; and they gave each other amulets, 
 little rolls of the Koran, hers encased in rose-red and 
 turquoise leather, his more sombrely enclosed in brown 
 and red. They were hung on long fawn leather chains, 
 and when Ivors went to put Hesper's round her neck 
 he found that it had become so entangled with his 
 that he could not disengage it. 
 
 The Arab who sold them came forward with a smile. 
 
 " Let me try, efendi," he said. His slim brown 
 fingers pushed and patted and finally disentangled the 
 two chains. " A httle patience, that is all. Every 
 knot has an unraveller in Allah," 
 
 Ivors thanked the man and drew away, but the 
 words lingered. Would Allah unravel his knot, he 
 wondered, the tangled knot ot his o\\ti deliberate 
 tying ? The question pursued him through the richly- 
 coloured twilight of the bazaars, and pierced through 
 the eager chaffering of the merchants, until, with a
 
 362 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 fatalism born of the East, he set it aside to await its 
 answer at the appointed time. 
 
 They spent long delightful hours in the felukeh, 
 saiUng beneath the green slopes of Elephantine Island, 
 and skirting the golden hills crowned with the mined 
 tomb of a sheikh, or breasting the current among the 
 granite islands, watching the brown-robed Nubian 
 women come down to the water's edge with kerosene 
 tins poised on their heads with all the grace with which 
 their blue-robed sisters of the Thebaid bore their grey- 
 green water-jars. Here little children, wild as hares, 
 would peer and chatter among the rocks, half-naked, 
 but always with an amulet of silver or copper to glint 
 away misfortune. 
 
 Once they went to Philse— -Philae the beautiful, the 
 moribund— with the crested loveliness of a colonnade 
 Hfting its head above the water which had drowned her 
 pahns and acacias, and the little kiosk richly pillared 
 and square to the blue. The depth of the sky was 
 reflected in the water on which the sun shone with 
 dazzling brilliance, and the cahn beauty of the ruined 
 temple was emphasised by the wild savagery of its 
 surroundings, the reddish-purple islands, and the fiery 
 golden-yellow of the hills. 
 
 The sight depressed them, despite its barbaric 
 contrast. Titans at play might have tumbled together 
 those volcanic-looking cairns, which loomed terrifying, 
 almost overwhelming, not because of their grandeur, 
 but because of some sense of the abnormal, of the 
 primeval which they produced. 
 
 As the winter progressed their solitude U deux 
 became invaded. Visits from their acquaintances
 
 THE GOLDEN BALL 363 
 
 among the residents were not to be avoided, but they 
 were discouraged, and the outer world was carefully 
 excluded, to the hum of much gossip. 
 
 Ivors was insane, diseased, profligate : he was 
 living \vith a famous Russian dancer, a divorcee, had a 
 hanm full of houris, whose slim, naked forms might be 
 seen flitting through the oleanders. No theory was 
 too wild, too lurid, to be believed, but gradually, as 
 nothing startling occurred to fan the blaze, and as 
 Hesper and Ivors appeared occasionally on the main- 
 land, interest in El-Sa^da died out, and the usual 
 round of winter excitements took its place. 
 
 It was a favourite amusement with visitors to sail 
 round the island, and day by day gaily-painted 
 felukehs belonging to the hotels hovered about it like 
 butterflies, but their occupants saw little besides the 
 palms and eucalyptus-trees, and a hedge of flaming 
 hibiscus which guarded one end of the island ; while 
 the only living creatures who presented themselves to 
 their gaze were Mahmud, the blue-clad urchin who 
 lay along the rough shaft of the sakiyeh, and the fawn 
 cow which turned its creaking, purring wheel while 
 the long chain of dripping red pots dipped into the 
 well beneath. 
 
 The gazelles followed Hesper everywhere, pattering 
 through the big cool rooms and the pillared verandah 
 on tiny pohshed hoofs : and the days drifted b}'. Ivors 
 painted, and Hesper read, worked, and made music. 
 
 The service of the house was silent-footed and unob- 
 trusive, and there was nothing external to mar the 
 harmony. 
 
 Ivors was trying portraits — the Hesper he knew and
 
 364 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 the Ingram she knew. Inspiration sped his brush, with 
 the result that the love-illumined woman looked from 
 one canvas, while the whole appeal of the man's soul 
 spoke through the brown eyes in the other. 
 
 He was thinner than ever, and his cough troubled 
 him. To Hesper's anxiety he made impatient answer 
 that he always coughed a little in the winter, and that 
 there was no need to fuss. His secret wore upon him 
 daily and fretted his patience to a thread. His clear 
 vision of Hesper's character made it imperative that 
 he should tell her if he wished to snatch at his lost 
 self-respect or to retain a shadow of hers, but the words 
 choked him. He could not force them to his lips. His 
 fastidiousness revolted from the blackness of his own 
 deceit, but his whole soul shrank from the thought 
 of meeting the look in her eyes when she knew. 
 
 Sometimes the calm serenity of her happiness almost 
 irritated him. How could she be so happy when he 
 was suffering the tortures of the damned ? Then in an 
 agony of reaction he would kiss her feet in spirit. 
 
 At other times he fancied coldness, a slight with- 
 drawal on her part, and tormented himself with won- 
 dering if she suspected anything, if she were changing 
 towards him, if he were losing her love ? Then would 
 follow fierce outbursts of affection, passionate demands, 
 incessant claims which puzzled Hesper and made her 
 feel a faint sense of apprehension. 
 
 Ivors' gusts of petulance, his fitfulness, his alterna- 
 tions of mood pricked her to wonder, but she attributed 
 them chiefly to his variations of health. Often the 
 passage which had offended her in Gerda's letter 
 recurred to her mind.
 
 THE GOLDEN BALL 365 
 
 " Mammy was fearfully afraid that I should fall in 
 love with Mr. Ivors, but indeed tliere was never any 
 fear of that. I like a man to be all a man, and not 
 partly a woman, and there is a good deal of femininity 
 about Mr. Ivors. I don't mean anything nasty. I 
 mean the nice kind, which some women love in a man, 
 but I don't." 
 
 This crude expression of a truth had hitherto jarred 
 on Hesper ; but in these days she was aware of its 
 reality. 
 
 " There is more of the child than the woman in 
 him," she told herself, " and it is the child who needs 
 me most." 
 
 She was infinitely patient with him, and infinitely 
 responsive. She called upon all her stores of loving 
 and giving to supply his want, and she felt amply re- 
 warded when one day he told her that he had WTitten 
 to Hildred. She hfted brows of delicate enquiry, 
 and thought she read the answer she desired in his 
 smile. The warm kiss she gave him told him so, and 
 added another flame to his torment, which increased 
 as he heard her go singing softly about the house for 
 the rest of the day. 
 
 He let opportunity after opportunity slip by, and 
 the days were prodigal of them. Hesper did not like 
 to worry him \v'ith questions, of which he was always 
 impatient, but at times she felt as if some barrier had 
 arisen between them — a barrier of glass, as it were, 
 which was tangible, yet through which she could see. 
 
 Once she asked him if he were tired of El-Saada, if 
 he would like to go any^vhere else.
 
 366 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Tired of this Paradise ? " he answered. " No, 
 beloved. Besides, wherever we went I should take 
 myself with me. Some wise man said once that 
 * always in the sunshine is a black spot : the shadow of 
 ourselves.' That is what ails me." 
 
 " Are you sure ? " she was insistent for once. '* You 
 would tell me, wouldn't you, if anything were really 
 amiss ? " 
 
 She put her hands on his shoulders. Her eyes were 
 very blue, very sweet, very pleading. " You wouldn't 
 keep anything from your own wife, would you, 
 Ingram ? " 
 
 " My own wife ! Good God ! " he cried, taking her 
 hands in his. How could he kill that look, that 
 sublime faith and trust in him ? How could he tell 
 her that she, his soul's comrade, his ideal woman, was 
 no wife at all ? How could he let her know what he 
 had dared to make her in the eyes of the world ? 
 
 He swallowed a lump in his throat that seemed to 
 choke him. 
 
 " You've made a sorry bargain, Hesper Belhasard," 
 he said huskily. 
 
 " Don't be nonsensical ! " 
 
 " They're the truest words I ever spoke. You went 
 through the wood and picked up the crooked stick 
 when you took me," he said, gazing hungrily at her. 
 
 " There's nothing crooked about you, dearest," she 
 breathed happily. 
 
 How could he shatter this image, this phantasm of 
 what he might have been ? Oh, if he had but met her 
 before Fate had bound liim in fetters ! He could have 
 become the man of her dreams. She could have taken
 
 THE GOLDEN BALL 367 
 
 him by the hand and led him with her to the Kingdom 
 of Heaven. But now . . . now. ... He 
 groaned aloud. 
 
 " Ingram ! \\'hat is it ? Are you ill ? " 
 
 " No, nothing. Only a twinge," he answered, turn- 
 ing his head away. 
 
 " Where ? Is it your heart ? Oh, darling, I wish 
 you would see Dr. Ayrton." 
 
 " You should know best about my heart. You 
 have it." He joked with set lips. " No, dear fuss, ray 
 heart is as sound as a bell." 
 
 " VVhat is it, then ? You don't know how you 
 frighten me." 
 
 " Don't be a goose. Indigestion, old age, conscience 
 — what you will." He took up the lute, and plucked 
 at it with fingers that trembled. He seemed to himself 
 to have shrunk to the meanest dimensions, a shivering 
 creature whose shrivelled soul still had power to feel 
 and to mock at its miserable owner. 
 
 After another period of feverish doubt which was 
 followed by the usual reaction of passionate need, of 
 frantic demands on Hesper's love, Opportunity, the 
 juggler, offered him the golden ball again instead of 
 the bubble, but once more he thrust it aside. 
 
 " I fancied that you had changed to me," he said. 
 He was lying on the divan in the verandah, and Hesper 
 knelt beside him. 
 
 Isis, Horns, Thout and Hathor looked down from 
 the tenting in gay splashes of colour. Outside the 
 verandah a pepper-tree raised feathery foliage against 
 the blue, and in its branches the bulbuls chirped and 
 twittered. From the distance came the sleepy purr
 
 368 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 of the sakiyeh, and through the faint insistence of 
 sounds rose the rush and swirl of the Nile. The air 
 was warm and heavy with the perfume of the white- 
 starred Egyptian jasmine, which clambered over the 
 end of the verandah, flinging great scented trails across 
 the low cream parapet. 
 
 " How could you fancy such folly ? " she asked, 
 noting with a pang how thin were the temples from 
 which she stroked back his hair. " Never, never dream 
 of such a thing again. How could I change to you, 
 my very dearest, to you who have filled my life with 
 happiness, unless to love you more, if that were pos- 
 sible ? Why do you worry yourself with these night- 
 mares ? It's so bad for you, and I believe it makes 
 your cough worse." 
 
 " Oh, don't fuss," he said irritably. Then in swift 
 remorse : " Hesper, you're an angel and I'm very much 
 the other thing. I'd try the patience of any saint but 
 you. I put a daily strain on you " 
 
 " You put it on yourself, too, Ingram, by these 
 foolish doubts." 
 
 " I don't know how you bear ^vith me. Some day 
 you'll get tired of the job, and leave me to my own 
 devices." 
 
 " Ingram, don't ! " she cried, wounded. 
 
 " Wliat ? You wouldn't ? Let me see your face. 
 You wouldn't desert me whatever I did. You'd stick 
 to me through thick and thin ? You'd never leave 
 me?" 
 
 Hesper answered with trembling lips. 
 
 " You hurt me more by these doubts than " 
 
 she stopped : she could not control her voice. 
 
 I
 
 THE GOLDEN BALL 369 
 
 He caught her to him and kissed her passionately, 
 her eyes, her hair, her lips ; but what seemed to her 
 the ardour of his first love was fervour tinged with the 
 bitterness of despair. In spite of her answer he could 
 not cling to it as he would, for he knew that she had 
 not the faintest knowledge of the real meaning that 
 underlay his questions. Dare he put this great love 
 to such a test ? He knew that the best of women 
 often judge harshly, narrowly, that out of the whiteness 
 of their own purity they have no pity for the soiled 
 raiment of others less fortunate. Should he tell her 
 now and end for ever this doubt which consumed 
 him ? 
 
 Her soft voice was murmuring something in his ear. 
 . . . What divine folly was it uttering ? 
 
 " If there is anything in me which jars upon you in 
 any way, any little trick of speech, or manner, or ges- 
 ture, I would far rather that you told me of it than 
 that you remained silent for fear of hurting me, and 
 continued to let it irritate you." 
 
 " You irritate me ? " he cried, with a depth of 
 humility in his tone. " Lord, will men and women 
 ever really understand each other ? " Then, with a 
 change of key : " Don't let your goose's feathers 
 grow into angel's wings, Hesper Belhasard, unless they 
 would be large enough to cover me too ! "
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 AFTER this outburst followed a period of calm. 
 Ivors was in the position of a man who is 
 condemned to death, but who has to fix the 
 day for his own execution. Daily it was 
 borne in upon him that if he were ever to know peace 
 again he must tell Hesper what he had done, that even 
 the worst would be easier to bear than this constant 
 gnawing terror ; and the decision brought with it a 
 certain sense of rehef. That she should hear the 
 truth from other lips than his would doubly deepen his 
 guilt ; the cold, bleak, naked truth as others would 
 tell it, shivering without even a rag of his love to 
 cover it. No, he must tell her himself in the dust 
 on his knees at her feet. Perhaps she would forgive 
 him, or at least not condemn him too harshly because 
 he had loved her so much. 
 
 Lightened of so much of his burden he became almost 
 his old insouciant self again. He painted wonderful 
 splashes of colour, rainbow-tinted mist and opaline 
 hazes. Too impatient to tame the birds, as Hesper 
 did, he teased and played with the gazelles, tying silver 
 bells round their necks, and driving them, a fairy team, 
 through the garden. He made love to Hesper, wooing 
 her with roses, pomegranates and sprays of jasmine, 
 crowning her with the large starry blossoms and 
 
 370
 
 CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS 371 
 
 calling her his " branch of Evin's apple-tree, with twigs 
 of white silver and buds of crystal with blossoms." 
 
 " If I had a harp of applewood I could enchant 
 you," she said, falling in with his mood. " There is 
 great magic in a harp made of applewood." 
 
 " You don't need any harp. It is I who fain would 
 woo you with my lute." 
 
 He sang many love-songs to her in those days, 
 Arabic, Persian, Spanish, but always to the lute, 
 for he said that his voice was too husky for the piano. 
 
 The reaction from those weeks of torment was 
 delicious. Feeling almost happy he felt almost good : 
 the impulse of confession seemed to bring its own 
 absolution. " Every knot has an unraveller in Allah." 
 
 Still, bitter qualms shook him as to what she would 
 say, how she would look, when he told her. The 
 thought of her eyes shrinking from his hurt him like a 
 blow. It seemed like a murder to kiU her faith in him, 
 but he would abase himself before her, he would kneel 
 so low in humiliation that for very pity she could not 
 leave him in the dust. 
 
 He put off the evil day from week to week, but like 
 the condemned man he knew that he could not put it 
 off for ever. A period was set to his indecision. The 
 day should be appointed : let Fate decide the hour. 
 
 He would have one more perfect day, and then 
 
 " Hesper Belhasard, what is your favourite day in 
 the week ? " he asked her suddenly. 
 
 " Thursday," she replied, looking up \vith a smile, 
 " because that is the day I first met you." 
 
 " Then on Thursday I am going to take you for an 
 excursion, probably the last for the season, as the
 
 372 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 weather is growing warm again." He savoured the 
 irony of his simple statement. Perhaps after that day 
 Hesper would be his comrade no more. Perhaps she 
 would cast him adrift to be blown again like a leaf on 
 the winds of chance. Well . . . if she did . . . 
 there were ways of ending it all. He could not face 
 the desert of life if what meant the greatest and best 
 of it were torn from him any more than he could 
 continue to breathe if his living heart were cut from 
 his living body. It would be the same in a spiritual 
 sense, with the bitterness of bodily separation added. 
 
 " Where are we going to, Ingram ? " 
 
 " Wait and see, Madama." 
 
 " Are we to go by boat, camel, donkey or sand-cart ? " 
 
 "Why this anxiety?" 
 
 " So that I shall know what to wear." 
 
 " Wear your Madama Nubia." 
 
 " The sun is too hot ! " 
 
 " Put on one of your white frocks, then, and my 
 chain of turquoises to make your eyes look blue. 
 When you wear those your eyes always reflect the 
 love-colour." 
 
 " Don't they do that in any case ? " she asked, 
 coaxingly. 
 
 In spite of his jesting fear tinged every thought, 
 every movement, the unadmitted fear of losing her. 
 He determined to taste the sweetness of this last day 
 to the full, but fear dropped doubt into the cup. 
 
 Thursday dawned, and Ivors' waking thought drove 
 sleep away. 
 
 " To-morrow I must tell her. To-morrow, to-mor- 
 row, to-morrow.**
 
 CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS 373 
 
 The words rang in his ears like a knell. Through the 
 early morning he watched her, hanging on her words, 
 forestalling her desires, realising with each fleeting 
 moment more and more of what she was to him. 
 
 Hesper's anxieties were lulled to rest. She was 
 frankly happy at the thought of the long golden day 
 they were to spend together. She did not care where 
 they went, what they did, so long as Ingram was with 
 her, his old whimsical self. His new watchful wist"* 
 fulness escaped her, or rather melted into his general 
 charm. 
 
 They started early, as the first part of their journey 
 was by train. When they alighted at a little wayside 
 station Moussa awaited them with donkeys and a flat 
 reed basket. 
 
 Hesper's steed was large and grey : his tail and mane 
 were dyed orange with henna, and round his neck he 
 bore chains of gilt coins and blue and white beads which 
 jingled pleasantly as he went. 
 
 Ivors' black donkey was gay with scarlet and yellow 
 saddlecloth and red-himiped native saddle, and both 
 animals had neat geometrical patterns clipped on their 
 hindlegs. Moussa's beast fell behind while its rider 
 conversed amiably with the blue-girt donkey-boys, 
 who sometimes sprang forward with a great show of 
 energy to urge their steeds onward with clucks and 
 grunts and harsh cries. 
 
 The air was balmy and delicious : a faint pearly 
 haze softened the intense blueness of the sky, and shim- 
 mered dreamily on the Nile, by whose bank the path 
 led for a time. Passing through the hard-beaten mud 
 streets of a village (a-jostle with flap-eared goats, long-
 
 374 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 legged hens, peeping children, and freely-moving 
 women), whose pungent atmosphere surrounded them 
 almost tangibly, it was a relief to come upon the half- 
 empty track by the broad spaces of the river ; to see 
 the darting black and white kingfishers, or the metallic 
 flash of a blue one up a side canal ; to hear the whisper 
 of the tall purple-stemmed sugar-cane, or savour the 
 scent of mimosa blown upon a warm morning wind. 
 
 On sandy islets storks and herons brooded, or brown 
 and white mottled vultures picked at a heap of tum- 
 bled bones where the river had taken toll of sheep or 
 goat. 
 
 Fishermen waded along the foreshore, their nets, 
 silken-fine, coiled in loops about their wrists. A deft 
 touch of sinewy fingers, a rhythmic movement of bronze 
 arms, and out upon the air they flew like wisps of pale 
 brown mist, settling for an instant in wide rings 
 upon the surface before they sank out of sight beneath 
 the water. 
 
 Then the track turned through another palm-girdled 
 village, and on to the edge of cultivation, where the 
 tawny desert stretched in wrinkled folds to the foot 
 of the Arabian hiUs. 
 
 The hollows in the sand were grey and lavender, 
 and an occasional rock or elevation cast a shadow that 
 had a hyacinth bloom. 
 
 The great silence brought a sense of peace to Ivors' 
 
 turbulent heart. He turned to Hesper as they rode 
 
 across the noiseless sand. 
 
 " 'Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday. 
 Why fret about them if To-day be sweet/" 
 
 he said, flinging a challenge to Fate.
 
 CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS 375 
 
 " To-day is sweet," answered Hesper, as she had 
 done once so long ago. 
 
 " Too sweet to last." 
 
 " Then there's to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow ! We won't think about to-morrow." 
 
 " Let's enjoy to-day." 
 
 " Are you enjoying it, Hesper Belhasard ? " 
 
 " Oh, so much. Inexpressibly, my dearest. I must 
 invent a new vocabulary." 
 
 Why did the trivial words dart javelin stings from 
 the past ? The shadow of himself, no longer merely a 
 black spot, threatened to blot out the sunshine of 
 to-day. He strove with it. To-day was his, his last 
 day. What to-morrow might mean for Hesper he did 
 not try to surmise. There were abysses into which he 
 dared not peer. To him its issues were grave beyond 
 conjecture. After to-day those eyes of hers, which 
 for him held all the sweetness of the world, and all 
 love's sorrow as well as love's laughter, might look at 
 him with hatred as his wife's had done on that long- 
 banished day, which being dead yet lived, and being 
 past was ever present. 
 
 No, he could not picture hatred in Hesper's eyes. 
 Reproach perhaps, the wounded gaze of one mortally 
 hurt by the best-beloved — bah ! Why should these 
 thoughts buzz round him hke a cloud of flies and spoil 
 his last good moments ? Once more he strove to 
 banish them. 
 
 Far behind them stretched the Nile-valley, a blur of 
 green in every imaginable shade from vivid emerald 
 to olive-grey, threaded through by the silver ribbon of 
 the river ; before them rose amber slopes of sand to the
 
 376 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 hills that loomed sheer above them in fawn and yellow 
 crags with deep rusty crevices. A cleft in the heights 
 opened before them showing a narrow desolate valley 
 of rocks and sand, with a track which bent towards the 
 right. Near the top of a bluff which was shaped like a 
 crouching lion the tawny hillside seemed to be pierced 
 with dark blue hollows. 
 
 Ivors pointed with his stick. 
 
 " It is there we are going, beloved. It is a deserted 
 Christian hermitage." 
 
 " Up there ? Then we shall have to fly," answered 
 Hesper, smiling happily. 
 
 " No need to use your wings yet. There is a path, 
 but it zigzags steeply up the hill." 
 
 " I am entirely in your hands. Whither thou goest 
 I will go." 
 
 His heart leaped absurdly. " Hesper ! " 
 
 " Why should it be such a constant surprise to you 
 to find that I love you ? " she asked rather wist- 
 fully. 
 
 " Because I deserve it so little," he replied, with bent 
 head. 
 
 The slope grew steeper, and the sun beat more 
 fiercely. The winding of the valley cut them of! from 
 cultivation and civilisation. Burnt-looking stones 
 lay scattered on the sand, and a high spur of rock cast 
 a sharp black shadow across the path at a bend. 
 
 Suddenly from behind it stepped an odd figure, 
 hunchbacked, bearded, gnome-like, whose brown, 
 seamed face and white rolled turban made it appear as 
 if the spirit of one of the burnt distorted stones had 
 unexpectedly taken shape and stood before them. A
 
 CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS 377 
 
 bunch of heavy keys dangled from his girdle and an 
 old-fashioned, long-barrelled musket over his shoulder 
 added a suggestion of lawlessness that was as much one 
 with the barren valley and the desert hills as the kite 
 which wheeled, solitary, in the blue overhead. 
 
 " I am the Keeper of the Caves," he announced in 
 guttural Arabic. " Does his excellency wish to see 
 them ? " 
 
 Ivors answered him in the same tongue and the 
 man responded courteously, looking the while with bold 
 admiration at Hesper. Then he turned and bade 
 them follow him. Despite his deformity he seemed to 
 be possessed of great strength and agility as he swung 
 before them with free gait up the narrow pathway to 
 the plateau in front of the hermitage. 
 
 It was a strange primitive place, this deserted sanc- 
 tuary, where tempest-torn men had fled from the 
 temptations and distractions of the outer world to seek 
 peace and to find their own souls. 
 
 The hot sun seemed to invoke the spirit of oblivion 
 which brooded over the place. There was no sign of 
 life beyond their own incongruous presence : no least 
 green thing peeped from the burning rock, no hzard 
 darted across the glistening sand, no bird hopped or 
 twittered. Even the kite had vanished from the 
 empty sky. Forgotten by time, deserted by humanity, 
 a heavy silence encircled the place. Their very foot- 
 falls were lost in the thick sand. 
 
 From a long vaulted corridor hollowed out of the 
 living hillside opened a series of small rock-hewn cells 
 whose tawny walls bore the Coptic symbol of the Cross. 
 One or two of them had wooden doors which the Keeper
 
 378 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 of the Caves flung wide, disclosing crude frescoes of 
 saints and martyrs, flame-racked or arrow-stung. 
 
 In the centre of the corridor was a door that was 
 higher and more ornate than the others. It was 
 roughly-carved and was clamped and ornamented 
 with pierced bands of copper, green with age. 
 
 " Now I will show you the mosque of the Chris- 
 tians, e/endi," he said, inserting a wrought-copper 
 key into the ancient lock. 
 
 Then, to the sound of a creak that was like the heavy 
 sigh of eld, he opened to them a dim vaulted rock- 
 chapel, its walls and ceilings covered with faded 
 paintings. In the half-light the effect was surprisingly 
 beautiful. Ivors thought of the sumptuously dight 
 chapels of kings, of the brilliant Sainte Chapelle, of the 
 lovely Spanish Chapel at Florence, and felt the same 
 sense of rich yet subdued beauty and colour in the 
 very atmosphere of this little vaulted hollow. 
 
 Over the old altar shone Christ surrounded by 
 adoring angels. The figures were stiff, the attitudes 
 primitive and awkward, yet through it all breathed 
 an essence of adoration which made one lose sense of 
 its mere artistic value. The spirit of art was there 
 mingled with the spirit of prayer, shining Hke a jewel 
 in the wilderness. 
 
 Ivors' beauty-loving nature was captivated. He felt 
 grateful to the " eremites and friars " who had in their 
 primitive way sown the seed of art in the desert, making 
 it to blossom hke a rose. He wondered what manner 
 of men they had been, from what they had fled — 
 takng themselves with them — to what they had 
 attained ?
 
 CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS 379 
 
 Hesper sighed, touched by the surprise and enchant- 
 ment of it all. Moved by an impulse she left Ivors' 
 side and knelt before the ancient altar with its adoring 
 angels. 
 
 Ivors' heart contracted as he looked. That her 
 religion meant much to her he knew, but it was beauti- 
 ful, remote and as deeply hidden as this old chapel. 
 She did not speak about it, but its inexpressible fra- 
 grance breathed through her spirit and distilled itself 
 in sweet womanliness and gentle charity. 
 
 He had often watched her at her prayers, and now, 
 as always, felt a sense of her withdrawal, of the presence 
 of an essence which he could not capture. Sometimes 
 it was as a benediction to him to know that she was so 
 innately good : at others the sense of contrast opened a 
 sudden gulf between them. Would he lose her or gain 
 her through eternity for her goodness ? To-morrow 
 he would know. 
 
 A carving round the base of the wall caught his eye 
 and he stooped to examine it. Some words in Arabic 
 were engraved on the stone. 
 
 " What is written here ? " he asked the Keeper. 
 
 The bright eyes peered upwards, then down at the 
 stone again. 
 
 " I used to know, efendi, but I have forgotten. If 
 AUali wills my fingers will tell me." 
 
 He closed his eyes and felt each deeply-cut letter 
 with his strong brown fingers, mumbhng to himself 
 in Arabic. To Ivors' highly-strung fancy he seemed to 
 be weaving an evil spell in that sacred place, while 
 Hesper, white and remote, rapt in prayer, was 
 detached from him in spirit as well as in body.
 
 38o THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT | 
 
 The mumbling stopped ; the bent figure straightened 
 itself as well as it could, and the man looked up at 
 Ivors. I 
 
 " These are the words, o efendi — some Christian spell 
 without a doubt. ' To-day if ye will hear His voice, 
 harden not your hearts.' " %\ 
 
 " To-day if ye will hear His voice " the words 
 
 fell on Ivors* ears with a shock. They chimed so 
 aptly with his thought, with his design. He took the 
 man by the shoulder. 
 
 " You are sure those are the words ? Quite sure ? " 
 
 " Ya salttm, efendi ! It is long since I read, but as 
 Allah is my ^vitness those be the words my fingers told 
 me. They are not evil words, efendi ? " 
 
 " No, no," said Ivors. " To-day if ye will hear His 
 voice, harden not your hearts." 
 
 Well, he had heard the voice to-day, the voice crying 
 in the wilderness, and he was not going to harden his 
 heart, he was going to confess his sin to Hesper to- 
 morrow. 
 
 At the thought wild ideas rushed through his brain. 
 It seemed as if Hesper were rapt away from him 
 already : as if for countless ages she had knelt there 
 before that remote unserved altar ; as if he must rouse 
 her, snatch her up, carry her away from these influences 
 into the secret heart of the hills. 
 
 As if his thoughts had touched her, she rose and 
 came towards him. In the twihght of the rock-chapel 
 his face looked white and strange. 
 
 " Come out," he said, almost roughly, " I must 
 breathe the outer air again." 
 
 She slipped her arm through his and nibbed her
 
 CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS ^.8i 
 
 ^' 
 
 cheek against his shoulder. Her heart was full of 
 him : her prayers had all been his. 
 
 The light seemed dazzling after the dimness of 
 the church, and the cliffs were irradiated with a golden 
 glow. 
 
 " Out of the darkness into light," said Hesper, 
 lifting her face to the sunshine. 
 
 " Don't go into the light without me," he cried 
 hoarsely, detaining her. 
 
 " I don't want to go anywhere without you." 
 
 " Not even to Heaven ? " 
 
 " Not even to Heaven," she answered with a little 
 sigh that melted into a smile. 
 
 Up past the forgotten hermitage they went, wander- 
 ing along the rocky plateau to find that Moussa had 
 set a feast for them at the mouth of a blue-shadowed 
 cave. 
 
 On the fine yellow sand he had spread a rose and 
 purple shawl for Hesper to sit upon, and had laid a 
 table of Nature's providing with young pigeons, crisp 
 bread, golden loose-skinned oranges, and ripest pome- 
 granates. He had made a pattern in the sand with 
 jasmine stars and curling orange-leaves, and into silver 
 cups he had poured libations of white wine. 
 
 " This is Uke our first feast, dearest," said Hesper. 
 " Ah, do you remember ? How lonely I felt before 
 you came, and how dull my ears were that I never 
 heard the sound of your feet ! " 
 
 " It would have been better for you if they had 
 carried me out of your life." 
 
 " High treason and heresy ! " she smiled. " You 
 must be extra nice to me now to make up for the
 
 382 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 disloyalty of that speech. I pledge you, my dearest. 
 I drink to you and to our love." 
 
 She lifted one of the silver cups, touched it with her 
 lips, and handed it to him. He took it with fingers 
 that shook. 
 
 " You have filled my cup with sweetness," she went 
 on. " Ah, how lonely I was without you ! " 
 
 He handed back the cup. " To-morrow I may fill 
 it with bitterness," he said. The hand that touched 
 hers in the transfer was burning. 
 
 " Ah, no," she answered. " You couldn't, so long 
 as you love me." 
 
 His face lightened. " Be sure of that, whatever 
 happens. No man ever loved woman as I love you." 
 
 " I haven't crystallised into a common-place, then ? " 
 she looked at him from under her black lashes. 
 
 " No, you haven't. You were more correct in your 
 diagnosis of human nature than I. One cannot foretell 
 what even one's nearest and dearest will do in the 
 stress of circumstance." 
 
 " Who is your nearest and dearest ? " she coaxed, 
 trying to woo him back to his earlier mood of gaiety. 
 
 " Conceited creature ! As if you didn't know ! " 
 
 *' Of course I know, but I lo-ove to hear you say 
 so!" 
 
 The strangeness of the bread and wine among the 
 desert hills, the remoteness from their kind, the silence 
 and soUtude of their surroundings, curtaining them as 
 in a sanctuary, made the little meal seem almost sacra- 
 mental to Ivors. 
 
 •' To-day if ye will hear His voice " 
 
 He had vacillated before. He would postpone no
 
 CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS 383 
 
 longer. To-morrow he would confess his sin and take 
 his punishment like a man. 
 
 To-day ? 
 
 When the feast was over and its traces silently 
 removed by Moussa, Ivors lay on the sand with his 
 head on Hesper's lap. He felt a sense of peace steal 
 over him, and the sweetness of her presence soothed 
 him with its wonted magic. At times he seized and 
 kissed the gentle fingers which stroked his hair and 
 forehead. 
 
 " How good you are ! How far above me you 
 shine, you fix^d star ! " he cried once. 
 
 The stroking ceased. Hesper was troubled. 
 
 " My dearest, I wish you would not idealise me so. 
 I am not good — I am not a star, but a very ordinary, 
 faulty human being." 
 
 " I don't idealise you. I call you conceited and a 
 goose. Is that the language of rapture ? " 
 
 She gave a little crooning laugh. 
 
 " I know you're a woman, which spells weak human- 
 ity for both sexes, but Lord ! I often wonder whether 
 the worst woman isn't better than the best of men ? " 
 
 Hesper flushed and sparkled. " Ingram ! The 
 worst of women better than you ? I never heard 
 such absurd nonsense ! " 
 
 " Ah, who's idealising now ? You don't know men 
 and their capacities, Hesper Belhasard. You don't 
 know their temptations and passions, nor how close 
 the beast in them is always lurking. What did these 
 hermits flee from ? " 
 
 " I know that they were made in the image of 
 God," answered Hesper very low.
 
 384 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " And how cruelly, how brutally men often deface 
 that image ! " cried Ivors. " You believe in God, 
 Hesper, in a personal, actual God ? " 
 
 Hesper was startled. She spoke softly, shyly, out 
 of the depths of her reticence. 
 
 " I believe in an ineffable Presence, an ineffable 
 Goodness and Understanding. Yes, Some One Who 
 knows our sins and weaknesses, and makes allowances 
 for the unseen temptations of circumstance and 
 surroundings ' ' 
 
 " Some One Who really cares ? " he interrupted. 
 
 " Some One Who really cares," she answered low. 
 " I am stupid at saying what I feel. I only know. 
 After all, we have only finite, hmited words to express 
 the ineffable, and only earthly symbols to express 
 heavenly things." 
 
 " But you believe that somewhere there is Some One 
 Who cares what becomes of us, as I care for you or you 
 care for me ? " he persisted. 
 
 " Oh, more, far more. That's an earthly symbol 
 which expresses the heavenly. If we two faulty human 
 
 beings can care so much " she broke off, but her 
 
 silence spoke. 
 
 Ivors looked through the mouth of the cave across 
 the peach-yellow valley to the hot hills opposite, which 
 seemed to burn against the intense blueness of 
 the sky. 
 
 " Have you ever come across this verse, Hesper ? " 
 
 he asked after a pause. 
 
 ' Within my earthly temple there's a crowd : 
 There's one of us that's humble, one that's proud. 
 There's one that's broken-hearted for his sins. 
 And one who, unrepentant, sits and grins ;
 
 CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS 385 
 
 There's one who loves his neighbour as himself 
 And one who cares for naught but fame and pelf. — 
 From much corroding care I should be free 
 If once I could determine which is me.' 
 
 '* With a few little differences there's Ingram Ivors 
 — Ego — for you." 
 
 " There's each of us," answered Hesper. ** I'm sure 
 most human beings have felt that sense of warring 
 entities." 
 
 " Only those with imaginations. The fellow who 
 wrote that packed a profound truth into his nutshell 
 of verse." He gazed silently into the distance. 
 
 " Wise men crack nuts for fools to eat," said 
 Hesper. " Do you know that your hair would curl 
 beautifully if you would only let it grow a little longer." 
 
 " Don't tell me that you want a curly horror for a 
 husband ? " he began lightly, but the word husband 
 checked him. 
 
 He rose. " It's time for us to go," he said. 
 
 Hesper held out her hands, and as he bent to take 
 them the picture became impressed on his mind — the 
 silent sanctuary and the dark recession of the cave, 
 the white-clad woman with the chain of turquoises 
 which called the love-colour to her eyes, the glowing 
 rug on the fine sand, and the slim hands stretched up 
 in appeal. 
 
 " Is our lovely day over ? " she asked regretfully. 
 She slipped her hand within his arm and rested against 
 him when he had helped her to rise. 
 
 " Not yet, the Lord be praised," he answered. " We 
 have the ride home and tlie night with its myriad 
 stars." 
 
 2A
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TOMORROW 
 
 WHEN they had left behind them the lonely 
 valley, wishing a " Night as white as 
 milk " to the Keeper of the Caves, an 
 odd spirit of reaction seized Ivors. 
 He laughed, jested, urged his donkey to a gallop, and 
 challenged Hesper to a race across the desert. She 
 laughed too, and fell in with his mood, and with quick- 
 ened pulses they raced across the heavy sand to the 
 sound of beating hoofs and the pattering feet of the 
 donkey-boys. They had perforce to slacken speed 
 when they came to the highway along the Nile-bank 
 and mingled once more with humanity, the crowd 
 which came and went to the watering-places in the 
 red sunset : the dark-robed women with jars, the 
 water-carriers with their shaggy goat-skins, the children 
 driving cows and buffaloes, the shepherds leading their 
 flocks and herds, the strings of camels tied nose to 
 tail, grunting and bubbling as they passed, the little 
 pink-clad girls with baskets of fuel-cakes on their 
 heads, the brown-robed men with their wool and 
 spindles. 
 
 So through the crowded village with its gleam of 
 fires seen through square and courtyard, its palm- 
 thatched houses and its sharp-nosed, barking pariah 
 
 386
 
 TO-MORROW 387 
 
 dogs, to the zinc and wood railway-station set incon- 
 gruously beyond it. 
 
 Their train was not yet due, and the wind which 
 sometimes springs up on the Nile at sunset blew with 
 an unwonted sharpness. Ivors, who was heated from 
 his ride, shivered a little at its touch, 
 
 Hesper, quick to note, was all sohcitude. 
 
 " Ingram, haven't you got a coat ? Moussa, why 
 did you not bring your master's coat ? " 
 
 *' Also an eider-dowm and a hot-water bottle ? " 
 scoffed Ivors. " Dear fuss, why don't you offer me 
 your turquoise chain for a wrap ? " 
 
 Hesper smiled. " Let's walk about at any rate, so 
 that you shan't get a chill." 
 
 " Bachelor's wives and old maid's children — no, 
 that's not appropriate," he began. 
 
 " Appropriate enough," she answered. " / was an 
 old maid for so long, with no one to take care of, that 
 it's more applicable than you think. I suppose the 
 reason that the saying is never inverted to old maid's 
 husbands and bachelor's children is that every woman 
 is at heart a mother. We all have the protective in- 
 stinct. I suppose that is why we look upon our men- 
 folk as nothing more — or less — than big children." 
 
 As she spoke a sense of that divine instinct compact 
 of the desire to give, to understand, to strengthen, to 
 protect, and above all to love, flowed from her to him, 
 and seemed to be but another hnk in the chain that 
 bound them together. Needing her as he did it would 
 break her heart to break that chain, he reasoned. 
 
 " That, in a way, is how I looked on my dear father," 
 the soft voice went on, impelled to confidence by the
 
 388 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 subtle influences of his nearness and the waning light. 
 " It was that alone which kept me from being too 
 cruelly hurt when he failed me, as people have failed 
 me all my life. Now I've learned to be content to give 
 and not to expect too much in return, to do my utmost 
 not to fail anyone who depends on me, and not to 
 over-demand. In one way or another everyone on 
 whom I ever depended failed me, everyone but you ! " 
 she ended with unwonted fire. 
 
 Ivors turned abruptly on the platform, so that his 
 back was to the flaming after-glow and his face in 
 shadow. Her words, as well as her sudden clinging 
 touch, smote deep. He pressed her arm in silence. 
 He could find no words for the thoughts which surged 
 within him. 
 
 When at last he spoke his words were apparently 
 irrelevant to Hesper's confidence, but she was used to 
 his mental flights and followed them, or anticipated 
 them as best she might. 
 
 " What clogged minds the old animals must have 
 had who pictured Hell as a fiery furnace ! " he cried, 
 " The doctrine of the immortahty of the soul is a more 
 exquisitely cruel one than that of the fiercest of 
 material flames. Omar, the old pagan, knew better." 
 
 He quickened his pace as he murmured : 
 
 " I sent my Soul through the Invisible 
 Some letter of the After- Life to spell : 
 And by-and-by my Soul returned to me. 
 And answered. " I myself am Heaven and Hell." 
 
 " That's the crux — / myself am Heaven and Hell. 
 To take yourself with you throughout eternity . . . 
 Lord, what a refinement of torture ! "
 
 TO-MORROW 389 
 
 Hesper was puzzled at his vehemence. She could 
 not understand the bitterness of self-condemnation 
 which tinctured his speech. 
 
 " But it isn't your worst self you'take with you," 
 she began tentatively. 
 
 " Of course not," he returned impatiently. " It's 
 only your better self which is fine enough to appreciate 
 the subtler shades of punishment. Here's the train, 
 puffing derision at the idea of my discussing soul- 
 psychology." He laughed. 
 
 '* Why do you laugh, Ingram ? " 
 
 " Because crying is such a hideous sound," he 
 answered unexpectedly. 
 
 When the train moved out of the station he came 
 close to her. 
 
 " Let me lay my head on your nice soft shoulder," 
 he said. " That at any rate has never failed me." 
 
 " And never will," she asserted, touching his cheek 
 tenderly. 
 
 " What a cocksure person you are ! " he returned, 
 with his old whimsical smile. Then after a long 
 silence : "It is from this bourne that I should like to 
 set out for the last Great Adventure," he said softly, 
 and he did not move until the quickened beat of her 
 heart was followed by a patter of warm tears upon his 
 cheek. 
 
 Hesper thought of his words in the dawn of the 
 morrow when, after a night of alternate shivering and 
 fever, Ivors woke from a fitful doze to a rending attack 
 of coughing which, to her horror and despair, ended in 
 a violent hemorrhage of the lungs.
 
 390 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Illness, with its innumerable needs and details, was 
 almost unknown to her, and she waited for the arrival 
 of Dr. Ayrton in a mute agony that shut out hope 
 from her horizon. The still speechless figure with its 
 haunting eyes was not her Ingram : the unresponsive 
 hand which lay in hers was not the hand whose touch 
 she would have known among ten thousand. 
 
 The hours of watching seemed endless. A century 
 separated her from the ordinary life of yesterday. It 
 seemed as if the blow had fallen years ago, as if this 
 deadly certainty of peril had always enwrapped her. 
 
 It was a white, despairing woman who faced Dr. 
 Ayrton when he came, who spoke briefly, and huskily, 
 but whose beseeching soul looked at him out of her 
 darkly-shadowed eyes. 
 
 He was a kindly man of middle-age, who had looked 
 on hfe and death all his days as the great unsolvable 
 mysteries. He had attended Ivors before, and was all 
 too familiar with the state of his lungs. He made a 
 brief examination, a briefer diagnosis. 
 
 Ivors' brown eyes questioned him, dog-like. 
 
 " Am I ? " 
 
 " No speaking, please," said Dr. Ayrton. ** You're 
 a nice fellow to give your poor wife a fright like this. 
 Donkey-riding yesterday across the desert, heat, a chill, 
 I wonder at you at your age, Ivors ! Now listen, my 
 good man, I deliver absolute authority into Mrs. 
 Ivors' hands. You're not to budge — prop him steady 
 with pillows, Mrs. Ivors. You are not to speak. No 
 worry, no agitation. If you want to get better your 
 only chance is to lie as still as a mummy and do what 
 you're told."
 
 TO-MORROW 391 
 
 The simile was not a happy one, there was too death- 
 like a stillness already about the tense form in the bed. 
 Only the eyes seemed to be alive, and they were mutely 
 asking, asking, asking. 
 
 Hesper saw the appeal, and bent towards him. 
 
 " You want something, dearest. He wants some- 
 thing. May he whisper, doctor ? " 
 
 ** One word, then. He must not be agitated." 
 
 His lips formed the word, " Hildred." 
 
 " Yes, dear, I know. Hildred. He wants his 
 daughter to know, doctor. You want me to telegraph ? 
 Very well. I'll send Moussa at once. Her address is 
 in your pocket-book. No, I won't leave you, except 
 to write the wire. The Httlest moment, dearest." 
 
 She followed Dr. Ayrton into the big, cool hall with 
 its rich Persian rugs. 
 
 " Well ? " she asked, as countless women have asked 
 before her of countless human arbiters. 
 
 Dr. Ayrton was vague, guarded. 
 
 " He should have come to me sooner. The great 
 thing now is to guard against a recurrence of the 
 hemorrhage. If you have to hold him he must be kept 
 absolutely still. You have an ice-machine ? Good. 
 Would you like me to wire to Cairo for a nurse ? We 
 mustn't have you knocking yourself up, Mrs. Ivors." 
 
 " It doesn't matter about me " she began. 
 
 " Now that's the great mistake that all you good, 
 unselfish women make," he interrupted. " You must 
 take care of yourself : you must husband your strength. 
 It's selfishness not to do so ; and recoils on those 
 whom you desire to serve." 
 
 " I don't want a nurse unless it is absolutely neces-
 
 392 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 sary. jNIiss Ivors wiU probably come as soon as she 
 can, and I expect my o\\ti maid, who is a splendid 
 nurse, in about a week. If you think that Moussa and 
 I can manage until then ? I'll take great care of 
 myself." She tried to smile at Dr. Ayrton, who 
 coughed as he turned away. 
 
 " Very well. If you write out that wire I'll send it 
 for you." He gave some further directions and said 
 he would come again later, thinking, as he strode 
 through the oleanders which bent their rosy buds above 
 the tinkling stream, that it was extremely problematical 
 whether Ivors would live to see daughter or nurse or 
 even the dawn of another day. 
 
 " If he has another hemorrhage he'll go out like the 
 snuff of a candle," he said to himself, and he went 
 back to his rooms to dispose of his few fashionable 
 patients for the day and make preparations to take 
 up his abode for the time being at El-Sa^da. 
 
 So the stars fought in their courses, and to-morrow 
 was farther off for Ivors than ever. He had had his 
 chance and lost it, but in his weakness nothing 
 mattered. He was not capable of coherent thought : 
 he drifted on a sea of nothingness where the only real 
 thing was sight and touch of Hesper. He forgot even 
 the vague impulse which had spurred him to ask for 
 Hildred : he did not care for anything so long as 
 Hesper were present. He had thought that she was 
 going away, but she had not gone. She was always 
 there when he opened his eyes on this new vague 
 world : that was aU that mattered. Once when by 
 chance she was absent his haunting, terrified eyes sent 
 Moussa in swift pursuit.
 
 TO-MORROW 393 
 
 The days dragged in an endless dreamlike routine. 
 Everything was changed by the coming of the grim 
 presence. The infinitesimal loomed into the magnitude 
 of the abnormal : the silent house seemed full of 
 shadows and footsteps : the ticking of a clock seemed 
 a waiting menace. 
 
 The suddenness of the change at first stunned Hes- 
 per, but when the hours passed into days and the days 
 into nights, and days and nights were woven into the 
 chain of a week without the dreaded recurrence, her 
 spirit lifted itself again, and on the far horizon she 
 seemed to catch a faint vision of hope. 
 
 Dr. Ayrton ceased to spend his nights on the 
 island ; the tension, but not the vigilance, was slightly 
 relaxed. The gazelles came pattering into Ivors' 
 room in search of Hesper, and were relentlessly hunted 
 forth by Moussa lest they should disturb his beloved 
 efindi. 
 
 Memory had not as yet pierced Ivors' apathy. The 
 anodyne of illness had dulled all requirements to his 
 need of Hesper, and the faculty of dreamlike existence 
 from day to day. He had forgotten the stress of the 
 past, or at most had but a dim subconsciousness of it, 
 a sensation rather than a coming menace. 
 
 At first Hesper could scarcely believe the tale of the 
 creeping hours, then as he grew gradually better she 
 told herself that his words on that Thursday had not 
 been prophetic, premonitory of cruel separation. She 
 was content with so Uttle, just this first shght relaxation 
 of the cold clutch of terror which gripped her heart. 
 If from day to day she kept him with her she would 
 not look ahead. With tears and prayers she wrestled
 
 394 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 on her knees for Ivors' life, and saw with thankful 
 heart the hourly answer. 
 
 Sometimes they talked a little in whispers : some- 
 times she read him to sleep. S i 
 
 " I think old Ayrton thought I was done for," he 
 said once. " I was in the valley of the shadow, I 
 know, but you pulled me back." 
 
 •' I ? " 
 
 " Yes, you, Hesper Belhasard. I was conscious of 
 you somehow. You wouldn't let me go." 
 
 " No, I held you close, beloved," she whispered 
 triumphantly. "Oh, my very dearest ! " 
 
 He knit puzzled brows. " There was something I can't 
 remember. I thought you were going to cast me adrift." 
 
 " That must have been the fever, dearest. / cast 
 you adrift ? Such nonsense ! " She gave a low happy 
 laugh. A few days ago she had thought that she 
 would never laugh again. 
 
 " There was something," he persisted, " but I can't 
 remember." 
 
 ** Don't try. Shall I read you the ' Lotus-Eaters ' ? 
 This is just the warm dreamy atmosphere for it, with 
 the jasmine-scent coming in through the windows." 
 She took the book from the table and began to read 
 in her cooing voice, which harmonised with the words 
 she uttered : — 
 
 " There is sweet music here that softer falls 
 Than petals from blo\vTi roses on the grass, 
 Or night-dew on still water between walls 
 Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass ; 
 Music that gentlier on the spirit lies 
 Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes ; 
 Music that brings sweet sleep down from the 
 blissful skies."
 
 TO-MORROW 395 
 
 Before the soft voice had finished the Choric Song 
 Ivors' tired eyelids closed upon his tired eyes, and he 
 slept. 
 
 Hesper's heart contracted as she looked at him. 
 Was this thin, white, weary being the Ingram who had 
 laughed and joked and run races with her one short 
 week ago ? Was it not only the shadow of the man she 
 loved ? Ah, but her heart went out in doubled fulness 
 to that shadow which had so nearly eluded her, so nearly 
 slipped away into the Place of Shadows. 
 
 She would not let him go, he had murmured. Was 
 that what it really meant ? she wondered. Had her 
 prayers kept him with her, her great insistent need of 
 him ? How they depended on each other, these two 
 lonely creatures ! Great tears welled up into her eyes 
 and rolled slowly down her cheeks as she looked at the 
 gaunt form, so nearly reft from her already, and thought 
 of the frail hold which those hands, grown so suddenly 
 white and thin, had upon Ufe. Any remembrance of 
 his petulance, his impatience, was swept away by the 
 great flood of love which surged anew in her heart for 
 him. She set self aside utterly. Even when Nanno, 
 her one Hnk with the past, arrived with great composure 
 one evening, she did not let herself break down beyond a 
 sob or two, and a cry of " Oh, Nanno ! Nanno I " 
 
 " 'Tis the fine uprise entirely for ye, me darlin' 
 lamb — Miss Hesper, ma'am, I should say," said the 
 elder woman, patting her nursling's shoulder. " To be 
 livin' in a grand house Uke this, and married to that 
 handsome gentleman, God bless him ! 'Tis we'll 
 nurse him, the two of us, until he gets as fat as butter," 
 
 Hesper dried her eyes and smiled. " That'll take
 
 396 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 some time, I'm afraid, Nanno. Oh, how heavenly it 
 is to have a woman to talk to again ! " She suddenly 
 realised what the gap had been now that it was filled. 
 " We mustn't disturb Mr. Ivors at present. We have 
 to be very, very careful of him. I won't even tell him 
 that you are here for a day or two lest it should upset 
 him. The least thing may bring on that dreadful 
 hemorrhage again." She gave an involuntary shudder 
 at the thought, then set her lips and braced herself 
 to meet the future, strengthened already by Nanno's 
 presence. " Miss Ivors may be here in a day or two. 
 You remember her, Nanno ? He asked for her the 
 first day, but he hasn't mentioned her since. I haven't 
 either, for fear of worrying him. She will probably 
 wire if she is coming, or rather when she is coming, for 
 I'm sure she'll come." 
 
 If she felt the faintest pang at having to share her 
 beloved task with Hildred she did not admit it even 
 to herself. She acknowledged the girl's right to be 
 with her father. She could afford to let Hildred have 
 the crumbs ; nay, more, she would share what she 
 could with her generously out of her abundance. Her 
 heart felt very tender towards the girl during these 
 days of anxiety, when she had time to think of other 
 than Ivors. Had she known where to telegraph reas- 
 surance she would have done so, but no word came from 
 Hildred.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MANY WATERS 
 
 WHEN Ivors realised Nanno's presence he 
 accepted the fact with the dreamy acqui- 
 escence into which all his former charac- 
 teristics seemed to have merged. He did 
 not suffer, except from extreme weakness ; he had no 
 pain, mental or physical, save the sense of uneasiness 
 whenever Hesper left his sight. It seemed to her that 
 if she were at the remotest end of the garden she would 
 stiU hear the husky whisper of " Hesper Belhasard," 
 which checked her infrequent absences. 
 
 He grew daily a little better up to a certain point, 
 but there progress ceased. Dr. Ayr ton thought that 
 the rapidly increasing heat of the weather retarded him, 
 spoke of cooler air, but gave no hint of being able to 
 move him as yet. 
 
 The roses were gone : the hot wind blew clouds of 
 their petals across the verandah, and withered the 
 waxen stars of the jasmine. The creaking of the 
 saklyeh sounded louder in the warm stillness, and the 
 river ran daily lower. Hesper went into the garden 
 late one afternoon to breathe the outer air. She had 
 just read Ivors to sleep, and she crept softly away for a 
 moment, leaving Nanno, a straight-backed vigilant 
 watcher, incongruously knitting beneath one of the 
 Moorish arches in the big darkened room. 
 
 397
 
 398 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 The gazelles pattered to meet her, and licked the 
 fingers that had forgotten to bring them sugar. With 
 a hand on the neck of each she moved slowly down the 
 path between the oleanders. One of them — Anas — 
 left her, to sip daintily at the turquoise brink of the 
 stream, and she stood waiting, gently caressing the 
 dappled neck of the dainty Zahr. 
 
 It was a picture in keeping with the waning luxuriance 
 of the garden ; blown roses, fading fires of oleander and 
 poinsettia, and the tall white weary woman with the 
 purple shadows of watching and sorrow under her eyes. 
 
 The song of Mahmud, the sakiyeh boy, came to her 
 
 through the warm heavy air, increasing and diminishing 
 
 in sound as the fawn cow went her slow round. 
 
 " A lover said to a dove, 
 ' Lend me your wings for a day I ' " 
 
 What were the exact words ? How well she remem- 
 bered the first day she had heard them, the day that 
 the felukeh brought her here to El-Sadaa, the Island of 
 Happiness ! 
 
 What had the magic of Egypt wrought for her ? 
 
 Depths of loneliness and humiliation, heights of supreme 
 
 joy. The Song of the Nile had touched for her the 
 
 gamut of human emotions, and in her overstrung tired 
 
 mood she was almost ready to hear a requiem in it 
 
 now. A cloud of depression brooded heavily over her, 
 
 the inevitable reaction from the constant strain, but 
 
 she tried to dispel it, thankful for the reprieve granted 
 
 from day to day. 
 
 " I shall obtain enough love 
 O dove, for a year and a day. 
 Lend me your wings, O dove 1 " 
 
 The voice ceased with a little twirl, and then began 

 
 MANY WATERS 399 
 
 over again in a slightly higher key, to the accompani- 
 ment of the creaking wheel. 
 
 There was the sound of a dip of oars, a murmur of 
 voices, but Hesper did not heed them until she saw a 
 figure moving quickly up the path from the little 
 landing-place — a slim, grey, girlish figure whose foot- 
 steps quickened as she approached. 
 
 " It's Hildred ! " she cried, hastening to meet her 
 with open arms. 
 
 To Hildred, after the anxious monotony of her sea- 
 voyage and the dust, heat, and fatigue of her long train- 
 journey, the crossing from the mainland among the 
 desolate islets and the vivid colouring of the wild 
 Nubian hills seemed to cast about her a strange spell, 
 which culminated when she set foot upon this enchanted 
 island. The tall white figure against the green back- 
 ground, the gazelles, the turquoise bed of the rivulet, 
 owned all the glamour of the unreal, and suggested 
 some ancient mystic poem rather than the actualities 
 of real life. 
 
 " Why, it's Smarhe ! " she cried, as she drew near. 
 " How is he ? " 
 
 " Better, thank God ! " exclaimed Hesper, holding 
 out her arms. 
 
 By some subconscious trick of memory the picture 
 of Persephone's return to the upper air flashed across 
 Hildred's mind. Hesper's attitude was the attitude 
 of Demeter, loving, expectant, and it gave the tired 
 girl a sense of comfort, of ineffable relief, to feel those 
 kind arms folded round her, and to receive that warm 
 welcome where she had not known what to expect. 
 After a moment she disengaged herself.
 
 400 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " You must be worn out, you poor child ! " said 
 Hesper. " VVhy did you not wire to let us know when 
 to expect you ? How did you get here ? " 
 
 " I hired a boat at Assuan," answered Hildred, 
 conscious now of intense fatigue. '* I wrote. Didn't 
 father get my letter ? " 
 
 " No, There was no letter. Your room is ready, 
 though." 
 
 Suddenly the oddness of the situation, the un- 
 expectedness of Hesper's presence, her welcoming, 
 proprietorial air, struck the girl in all its strange- 
 ness. 
 
 " Are you staying here, Smarlie ? " she asked. 
 
 Hesper smiled. The child was tired, bewildered, 
 upset from the long strain and anxiety. " Naturally. 
 If you had only wired the name of your boat and date 
 of starting you should have had a telegram at every 
 port. I have been feeling so sorry for you, Hildred, 
 but I did not know what to do, whether to write or 
 not. Besides, I have been so terribly anxious. Ah, 
 you don't know what it has been like ! " 
 
 She gave a little shiver. 
 
 Hildred looked at her curiously, all fatigue forgotten. 
 In the light of her father's former admission here was 
 something which she could not understand. 
 
 " But — have you been nursing him ? " she asked, 
 puzzled. " Are the Austrians here ? " 
 
 A sudden suspicion struck Hesper. Was it pos- 
 sible that Ingram had never told the girl at all ? That 
 she had misread the smile with which he had answered 
 her wordless query ? She felt a little chilled and sorry, 
 for Hildred's warmth had not been in response to their
 
 MANY WATERS 401 
 
 new relations, as she had fancied, and the revelation 
 was yet to come. 
 
 " Graf von Strelitz lent the island to your father for 
 the winter. We have been here since November. I 
 thought you knew." She would not assume Hildred's 
 ignorance until she was certain that the girl was 
 unaware of what had happened. 
 
 " We ? " echoed Hildred, incredulity struggling 
 with a horrible suspicion. " We ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Hesper quietly, " your father and 
 I." 
 
 " Father and you ? But " the words choked 
 
 her. 
 
 " I see that he hasn't told you. I am very sorry. 
 It was never my wish that you sliould be kept in ignor- 
 ance." She checked herself, fearful of disloyalty to 
 Ivors. She took the girl's limp hand in hers. " We 
 were married last May." 
 
 ''Married?" Hildred seemed incapable of other 
 answer than horrified whispered repetition. 
 
 " Yes, married." Her lips trembled suddenly. 
 " Won't you say something nice to me, Hildred ? 
 Won't you say at least that you are not — sorry ? I — 
 have gone through much — in these last days. I — I 
 thought you Uked me — a little." Her voice broke. 
 
 Some cord snapped and loosed Hildred's speech. 
 She snatched away her hand and turned to face 
 Hesper, her words coming incoherently. 
 
 " I did hke you. I do like you. But it's all a dread- 
 ful mistake. I can't believe it. Father — you're not 
 married. You can'i be married." 
 
 Hesper drew herself up, and looked in wonder at the 
 
 2B
 
 402 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 girl's white strained face. Was she mad ? Why did 
 she say such absurd things ? Mere resentment could 
 not account for it. 
 
 " It's all a mistake. You can't be married ! " she 
 repeated wildly. 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " Because my mother is alive." 
 
 " Your mother is alive ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 By this time they had reached the house, and Hesper 
 suddenly swayed and sat down on the verandah steps. 
 
 The whole scene seemed unreal, impossible. 
 
 The woman and the girl in the garden, saying 
 unbelievable things to each other beneath a hard 
 blue sky. 
 
 The steps were in shadow, and the trails of withering 
 jasmine tapped lightly against them in a puff of wind. 
 Once again Hesper's world had crashed about her ears. 
 She had rebuilt it before, but now the fragments 
 appeared infinitesimal. Something in falling seemed 
 to have pierced her heart, and she had the odd fancy 
 that she could feel it dripping slowly — drip, drip, drip, 
 tears of blood. It did not really hurt — yet. 
 
 She looked up at Hildred, who stood above her, 
 bewildered, indignant, miserable, caught in a swirl of 
 scarcely realised emotions, not knowing what to say or 
 what to do. She continued to ask incredible questions 
 in a dull toneless voice. 
 
 " Your mother is really alive ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Was slie aUve last May ? " What an absurd 
 question ! What inadequate things words were !
 
 MANY WATERS 403 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Did— Ae— know ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You are sure ? " 
 
 " He must have known." 
 
 " No possible doubt ? " Even as she spoke Hesper 
 knew that there was no doubt. Half-forgotten, un- 
 comprehended memories, thronging from the past, 
 gave her instant assurance of that. In that blinding 
 flash much that had been hidden was laid bare. 
 
 " Not the faintest." Hildred put her hand to her 
 throat as if to ward off a choking sensation. She felt a 
 wild desire to scream, to run away, to do anything in 
 order to escape from this quiet cross-examination. 
 She could neither condone nor condemn. She was 
 too near the event to see it in any true proportion, and 
 the ghastly quietude and lack of sensation or drama 
 only added to the poignancy of the scene. 
 
 There was a silence, which the song of Mahmud broke 
 violently. The two women started. Hesper shivered. 
 
 " Then it was all a lie," she said dully. " All a 
 lie from beginning to end. My beautiful life, my 
 happiness, all a lie." 
 
 Hildred forced words. " No. If you were happy, 
 you were happy. You had that." 
 
 '* Hush, child. How should you know what I had, 
 or what I've lost ? " She covered her face with her 
 hands, her body shaken by long, tearless sobs. " Oh, 
 God! Oh, God!" 
 
 Hildred was miserably silent. She would have 
 given much to be able to comfort this sorrow which 
 lay too deep for tears, but she was helpless. The call
 
 404 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 of her blood forced her to share in the wrong done 
 to one who had given her best to both. But still, 
 there in the hot sunshine the whole scene was tinged 
 with unreality, and Hildred longed vaguely for any- 
 thing that would end it, and bring about normality 
 once more. She had an odd feeUng that if anything 
 happened she would awake and find that it had all 
 been some impossible incredible nightmare. 
 
 The sight of the proud head humiliated to the dust, 
 the hidden, tortured lips crying low upon God, hurt 
 her with an actual physical pain. Tears rolled silently 
 down her cheeks. She did not think of wiping them 
 away. 
 
 Then something happened. A voice called in a 
 husky whisper : " Hesper Belhasard ! " 
 
 Hesper started and looked around her with wild 
 terrified eyes, seeking escape and finding none. 
 
 " I can't go. I can't," she cried hoarsely. 
 
 The voice called again. Hildred moved forward. 
 
 " Can I ? " 
 
 Again Hesper looked about her desperately. 
 
 " No, he doesn't expect you. It might — Oh, how 
 can I go ? " 
 
 She covered her face with her hands again. 
 
 " Do let me." 
 
 '* No, it is me he wants." 
 
 The voice called a third time, strained, petulant, 
 and Nanno hurried round the corner of the verandah 
 in evident agitation. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Hesper, ma'am, I've been looking for 
 
 you. The master " she stopped at the sight of the 
 
 two white faces, the evident tension.
 
 MANY WATERS 405 
 
 Hesper drew a long breath, a sigh that was half a 
 sob. 
 
 " Here is Miss Ivors, Nanno. Be very good to her. 
 She is worn out. She — her journey — take care of her. 
 Coming, Ingram." 
 
 She went up the steps and along the verandah, 
 slowly, with dragging feet, a heavy travesty of her 
 usual free gait. She would have given all that she 
 possessed to have been able to creep away into some 
 remote corner where she could wTestle in solitude with 
 what had befallen her, where she could find her soul 
 again among the ruins of her life. If only she need not 
 have faced Ingram for one brief hour. 
 
 She paused at the open window of his room, sup- 
 porting herself with a hand on either side. The 
 evening sun shining behind her threw her shadow 
 athwart the polished floor in the form of a cross. So 
 Ivors, looking towards her, saw her against the golden 
 glow. 
 
 Their eyes met. 
 
 In that instant Ivors remembered all that had gone 
 before — his sin, his chances of confession, his fears, 
 his vacillation, his incessant punishment. Now stand- 
 ing on the borderland as he did, his vision suddenly 
 pierced the cloud of things that are, and read in Hes- 
 per's eyes that she too knew. Caught in the meshes 
 of a great fear, mute, incapable of speech or motion, 
 in that tense moment of clearer vision he realised what 
 he had wrought upon the one being who really loved 
 him, and all his soul, crying dumbly in self-abasement, 
 pleaded through liis eyes, craved, besought. 
 
 Time was burnt Hke a scroll in the flame of the spirit
 
 4o6 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 that rose between them : silence and the things of 
 earth passed away, and the soul of the sinner saw, for 
 his punishment, the soul of the sinned-against cry out 
 against him before the Throne of Judgment, for the 
 beautiful things he had deliberately murdered, her 
 faith, her trust, her love. 
 
 Fearing all things, hoping nothing, the whole 
 strength of his ebbing life was concentrated on the 
 supreme effort of entreating Hesper's forgiveness. 
 
 She stood and met that look. Gradually all thought 
 of self shrivelled before the fire of the spirit. Agony, 
 disillusion, sense of betrayal were consumed in that 
 pure flame, and all she remembered was that he, her 
 dearest, was ill, dying perhaps, and that he needed 
 her. His tense, white stillness, the mute agony of his 
 gaze, pleaded more powerfully than words. 
 
 Oddly enough, his speech of that day among the 
 golden hills flashed back to her. 
 
 " ' Does God care as you care ? ' As 7 care ? How 
 do I care ? Won't he judge by that ? " 
 
 " Belhasard ? " the voice was a mere thread, a 
 husky, anguished question. 
 
 She stumbled across the room to him with a little 
 inarticulate murmur. In a moment her arms were 
 round him. 
 
 " You forgive ? " his eyes asked. 
 
 " Sure, you know I love you," she cried, holding him 
 to her as if she would never let him go, having said all.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ANOTHER ASPECT OF THE PROBLEM 
 
 THAT night Ivors lay between life and death. 
 To Hesper, who watched, the barrier 
 seemed frail as spun glass and the night dark 
 with the shadowing wings of the Angel of 
 the Asphodel. Everything paled before the fear of 
 losing him. She thought nothing of her wrong as she 
 wrought with the dark angel for his life, and her 
 heart was wrung as his husky whispers, half-sane, 
 half-delirious betrayed the fear that had accompanied 
 him as closely as his own footsteps. 
 
 Over and over again came the words — 
 
 " She cannot leave me now. She will not leave me 
 now. She would have left me in the beginning if I 
 had told her. I know she would. She is good. She 
 is without sin. I have made her sin. No, it is I who 
 have sinned. She is good. She will not leave me now. 
 Hesper Belhasard . . . " 
 
 So ever and again round an endless circle, selfish 
 love whipped by fear. 
 
 Hesper saw the love but not the selfishness, in that 
 divine blindness which dulls the critical faculty in 
 women who love as she did. Her voice, her touch 
 were ever ready to soothe and comfort. Her patience 
 welled inexhaustibly. 
 
 407
 
 4o8 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Once the murmuring voice broke into a laugh and 
 startled her : the sound chimed so incongruously with 
 the heaviness of her thoughts. 
 
 The weak fingers sought and clung tenaciously to 
 her hand. 
 
 " WTiat if the friend happen to be God ? " said Ivors 
 very distinctly. Then he feebly put her hand under 
 his cheek, turned on it and went to sleep. d 
 
 Hesper could not move when he awoke. She was 
 cramped and helpless, and Dr. Ayrton and Moussa 
 carried her to her room while Nanno took charge of 
 the patient. 
 
 " I'll be very good," Ivors said. "I'll make Nanno 
 tell me stories in her comfortable brogue, and I promise 
 not to ask for Hesper, until I feel that I really cannot 
 exist a moment longer without her." 
 
 " You'll be good enough to speak when you're spoken 
 to and not till then," said Dr. Ayrton gruffly. " You've 
 gone back points since yesterday." 
 
 "I'm going to get well now," retorted Ivors, with his 
 old smile. 
 
 " See that you do. It will be the best return you 
 can make your poor wife for her devotion." 
 
 His poor wife ! How sweet, how piercingly sweet 
 the words sounded ! She would not leave him. She 
 was his wife in the sight of God, and it was one of the 
 bitterest pangs of his punishment that he could not 
 make her so in the eyes of man. 
 
 Another pang pricked him — would his recovery 
 really be the best thing for Hesper ? Would she 
 . , . he wondered. In his weakness slow tears 
 rolled down his thin cheeks.
 
 ANOTHER ASPECT OF THE PROBLEM 409 
 
 Nanno, startled, came and wiped them away. 
 
 " Now, sir, you mustn't be frettin'. Sure, a hot 
 bath and a bit of a rest will make the mistress like 
 herself again. 'Tis only the way she is a bit stiff-like 
 from sittin' in the one position so long." 
 
 " Have I hurt her again ? I didn't know." 
 
 " Sure, 'twas nothin' at all, sir, only the way she 
 couldn't stir for fear of disturbin' you in your 
 sleep." 
 
 " Even in my sleep," he murmured. " I must hurt 
 her even in my sleep." 
 
 " Now, sir, 'tis a shame for you to be talkin'. Beside, 
 Miss Hesper is one o' them that would rather have a 
 hurt from the one they love than a kiss from e'er 
 another." 
 
 " You needn't tell me what she is," he said, with a 
 flash of his old spirit. 
 
 Then he lay silent for an infinity of time, longing to 
 see her again, to know that she was within sight and 
 touch, craving for her mere physical presence with the 
 intense disproportionate desire of the invalid. 
 
 " How long is it since they left the room ? " he asked 
 suddenly. 
 
 " Just ten minutes, sir." 
 
 " Ten minutes ! " he groaned. " And I meant to 
 have done without her for an hour ! " 
 
 " Would you like to see the young lady, sir ? " 
 
 " Is Hildred here ? " he asked languidly. He felt 
 no sensation, neither surprise nor pleasure. It did not 
 seem to matter whether she were here or not. Nothing 
 mattered except Hesper. 
 
 Dr. Ayrton came suddenly into the room, and stood
 
 410 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 by the bedside looking silently down on him for a 
 moment. 
 
 " So you've an addition to your battalion of nurses ! " 
 he said at last. " We'll have to dismiss this one. She 
 lets you talk too much. If I allow your daughter in 
 to see you will you promise not to let it agitate you ? 
 If you talk or get excited I shall forbid her the room for 
 the present." 
 
 " I promise," he answa-ed. " Hildred will be a nice, 
 cool person to look at." 
 
 " Very weU, then." 
 
 Ivors did not realise what lay between him and Hil- 
 dred. He vaguely connected her coming with Hesper's 
 knowledge, but the thought had no power to trouble 
 him. Hesper knew : she loved him : she had forgiven 
 him. That was all that mattered. She would not 
 leave him. But she had left him ! Oh, how he wanted 
 her! 
 
 He groaned again, and moved feebly. In an instant 
 Nanno was bending over him. 
 
 " What is it, acuth ? " she asked, as if he were a child. 
 
 " I want Hesper," he murmured with closed eyes, 
 
 " She'll come to you the very minute she's able, sir. 
 Sure she's been watchin' all night, and she must have 
 a bit to eat, the poor lamb." 
 
 " I won't be selfish, but tell her to come as soon as 
 
 she can. If she only knew how I wanted her " 
 
 he sighed heavily. 
 
 It was with mingled feelings that Hildred received 
 Dr. Ayrton's summons. 
 She had realised that sooner or later she would have 
 
 !
 
 ANOTHER ASPECT OF THE PROBLEM 411 
 
 to face her father, and she shrank inexpressibly from 
 the ordeal. She had slept the sleep of exhaustion during 
 the night, and the watchers had not disturbed her ; 
 therefore she was rested in body and consequently 
 capable of clearer perception than she had been when 
 the long strain of her journey had culminated in the 
 final blow. 
 
 Although she had never idealised her father the 
 shock was a severe one, and the old sense of resentment 
 arose within her when she thought that she was the 
 medium through which the wound of knowledge had 
 been dealt to Hesper. 
 
 Through a woman's eyes she had seen, as thrice 
 before, a ghmpse of the depths so carefully hidden 
 beneath the surface : she had seen a soul in anguish 
 and it was her innocent hand which had struck the 
 blow. Verily, the sins of the fathers .... 
 
 " Oh, it's unfair ! It's unfair ! " she cried with 
 clenched hands. 
 
 To the clear, pitiless eyes of youth no extenuating 
 circumstances appeared. Her father had deliberately 
 sinned against Hesper, against her mother, and against 
 herself. He had, with all the arts at his command — 
 and they were many and insidious, the girl acknow- 
 ledged to herself with a bitter little smile — striven to 
 win a love to which he had no right, legally or morally. 
 He had sinned against Heaven and before the world, 
 and had humbled and brought to the dust the proudest 
 woman Hildred had ever known. Three character- 
 istics of Hesper rose saUently before her, pride, purity, 
 and generosity, in its widest sense. At each of these 
 had he struck. Two he had slain, thought the stern
 
 412 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 young judge, and the third he had wounded past 
 belief. She would never forget how Hesper had looked 
 yesterday, never, never, never. She thought she now 
 knew something of what one would feel who had slain 
 unwittingly. And her father, who had committed 
 the crime, who had done this incredibly wicked, cruel 
 thing, had slipped away from the consequences, and 
 made himself, by his illness and weakness, the centre 
 of his universe as usual. 
 
 What rankled most in Hildred was the sense of in- 
 justice done ; that she, who had left her beloved work 
 in England to rush off to Egypt, hot haste, in response 
 to her father's wish, should have been chosen to deal 
 this blow to one for whom she really cared, and that 
 he, with his usual selfish facility, should have shuffled 
 the burden of his responsibility on to the shoulders 
 of another. 
 
 In that bitter moment the girl felt that she hated the 
 two beings who had given her birth : that she was the 
 most cruelly wronged of all. Hesper had had her few 
 months of perfect happiness — " the beautiful hfe that 
 was all a lie ! " What a world of sad suggestion the 
 simple words conveyed ! Her mother could not be 
 reaUy affected by any action of her father's. It was 
 she who was the tool of their circumstances, she who 
 was flung about Hke a shuttlecock by their caprices. 
 Was she never to have any life of her own ? 
 
 The thought of Dr. Lisle, who had seen her off at 
 Waterloo, flashed suddenly across her mind and brought 
 a quick sense of warmth to her sore heart. 
 
 " My cage of dreams is very strong now," he had 
 said, with an odd fire in his blue eyes, " and very full.
 
 ANOTHER ASPECT OF THE PROBLEM 413 
 
 If I show them to j^ou when you come back will you 
 promise not to open the door and let them fly away ? " 
 
 " Isn't it rather a pity to keep them caged ? " she 
 had answered — a soft young Hildred who was only 
 known to this little brown man. 
 
 " You mustn't let them go again." 
 
 " Again ? " 
 
 " Have you forgotten that day in the wood ? " he 
 asked in return. " The day we feasted on wild fruit ? 
 The day I had — my hour ? " 
 
 " Did I, then ? " she asked flushing. 
 
 He nodded. " What's more, you clapped your 
 hands to make them fly all the faster." He took one 
 of the offending hands in his as he spoke. " Do you 
 think you have grown any wiser ? " 
 
 She blushed deeper. " I — don't know." 
 
 At that moment Time, the mischief-maker, had 
 caused the guard to blow his whistle. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Dr. Lisle. " Take care of your- 
 self. I hope you will find your father better, also 
 that you will seek wisdom in the East." 
 
 "I'll look for it, at any rate." 
 
 " Whatever you find be sure to come back — to me," 
 she thought he added, but his last words were lost in 
 the movement of the train. 
 
 The thought, indefinite as it was, softened her. Dr. 
 Lisle was the one person who always understood. He, 
 at all events, desired her friendship. She stood for 
 something in his life. What was the true wisdom ? 
 Where should she seek it ? 
 
 At this moment Dr. Ayrton broke in upon her 
 musings with his summons.
 
 414 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 He glanced approvingly at her trim, white-clad 
 figure, her clear look of health, and her soft fair 
 hair. 
 
 " No agitation, my dear young lady," he said. 
 
 " I am a nurse myself," she rephed with a touch of 
 dignified reproof which amused him vastly. " At 
 least I am learning to be one." 
 
 *' Then you ought to know something of the great 
 essentials, patience and sympathy," he retorted. 
 ** Your father is in a precarious state. Humanly 
 speaking it is your mother who has kept him alive." 
 A shght stiffening of the girlish figure checked him. 
 
 " She's not your mother, surely ? " 
 
 '• No." 
 
 " I thought not. She's too young to be anything 
 but your stepmother. Your father's a lucky man. 
 She's a fine creature, a fine creature," he repeated 
 musingly. Then he stopped and looked at Hildred. 
 
 " She's nearly worn out now. I see a great change 
 in her even since yesterday. You must take care of her 
 now that you've come. Ivors wiU hardly let her out of 
 his sight, and she has no thought but for him. She 
 is absolutely selfless." 
 
 " It's not an Ivors' faiUng," said Hildred. The 
 hardness of her tone surprised the doctor. 
 
 " Ah, you've got to learn men and women yet," was 
 all he said. " We're all only human beings at best, 
 and I dare say Mrs. Ivors has her flaws as well as the 
 rest of us. I'm bound to say, though, I've never seen 
 'em. Here we are. There's nothing to be frightened 
 of." 
 
 Hildred paused upon the threshold, shrinking from
 
 ANOTHER ASPECT OF THE PROBLEM 415 
 
 the inevitable. Her heart beat quickly and she would 
 have given worlds to be able to run away. 
 
 " This is sheer cowardice," she thought to herself, 
 '• It must be done." 
 
 She hfted her head and went in. 
 
 The room with its round Moorish arches looked big, 
 and bare, and dim, as everything that could exclude 
 the air had been removed. The French windows which 
 opened on to the verandah had their green sun-shutters 
 down, but here and there a shaft of sunlight penetrated 
 and shone in a httle dancing pool of light on the polished 
 boards. 
 
 Ivors' bed was drawn near one of the windows, and 
 he lay white and still amid its whiteness. Hildred had 
 expected to see a change from the debonair man from 
 whom she had parted, not without a qualm, in Cairo, 
 but the reality came with a shock. All vitality seemed 
 to be concentrated in his eyes — the thin limbs, sunken 
 cheeks, and damp hair seemed to have little left of 
 life — and those eyes, dark and wistful, met Hildred's 
 as she entered, with the mute appeal of a dog's. 
 
 " Is that you, Httle girl ? " he said in a husky 
 whisper. 
 
 She sprang forward, all her bitter thoughts melting 
 into pity. 
 
 " Oh, father ! father ! " she cried, stooping to kiss 
 him. 
 
 " Sit there, and let me look at you," he said. 
 
 Nanno brought a basket chair forward. 
 
 " Not that horrid thing, it creaks. Oh, no, not on 
 the end of my bed. I can't bear people to sit on my 
 bed."
 
 4i6 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Not so much talking, my good man," put in Dr. 
 Ayrton. " You may look at Miss Ivors as much as you 
 like, but unlimited conversation is not allowed. Now 
 remember." He went away. 
 
 Hildred noticed a wicker-covered flask of eau-de- 
 cologne on a table. " Would you like me to put some 
 of that on your forehead ? " she asked. " I could fan 
 you after. It's very cooling." 
 
 ''Thanks." 
 
 She deftly touched him with the tips of her fingers, 
 soothingly moving his lank hair. 
 
 " You've nice hands," he murmured after a while. 
 " I always said so." 
 
 Everything still bore an air of unreality to Hildred. 
 She had never imagined that people could touch tragedy 
 so quietly. She did not yet realise the narcotic power 
 of illness, and had never come in contact with the 
 broken words and halting phrases with which the proud 
 decently cover their hurt, jealous of its sight by any 
 eyes other than their own. 
 
 That her father could still be impatient, petulant, 
 came to her with a little shock of surprise. 
 
 Her months among the children had taught her a 
 good deal and broadened her mental outlook, but she 
 had still much to learn. 
 
 " Think largely," Mrs. Marston, the matron, used 
 to say to her. " Even the wisest person only sees 
 life from a limited standpoint, so it behoves us all to 
 try to think largely." 
 
 She would try to think largely now, to readjust her 
 old rigid standards of right and wrong to this new com- 
 plex problem, to realise the inner meaning of the tragedy
 
 ANOTHER ASPECT OF THE PROBLEM 417 
 
 in which they were all involved, and above all not to 
 condemn too harshly. 
 
 Ivors grew restless. He moved his head upon the 
 pillow : he raised weak hands and let them fall again : 
 he coughed huskily : he sighed. 
 
 " What is it ? " Hildred asked. 
 
 " Hesper," he answered. " I really cannot do 
 without her for one moment longer. I have been a 
 marvel of patience, but not a second more. Go and 
 tell her." 
 
 " But she's tired. She — You ought " began 
 
 Hildred disapprovingly. 
 
 Ivors looked up at her with a glance which mingled 
 his old whimsicality with a new and yearning 
 deprecation. 
 
 " O wise young judge," he whispered hoarsely. 
 *' You can't afford to cast a stone. Why did you 
 ever leave me ? " 
 
 " Father ! " Hildred gasped, flushed, and went 
 hurriedly out of the room. 
 
 It was the final touch — to make her responsible for 
 his weakness, to saddle her with his sins, to rate her 
 omission, if it were an omission, with his commission, 
 to reproach her, whom he had wronged among the rest. 
 
 Still, under his words lay a truth which pierced and 
 stung : an Ithuriel truth whose spear-touch revealed 
 her own self-deception, and brought home the fact that 
 she, too, might have erred ; that she, too, was not 
 without reproach ; that, as her father had said, she 
 should not be the first to cast a stone. 
 
 If she had remained with him this could never have 
 happened. With a tinghng conscience she remembered 
 
 2C
 
 4i8 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 the hint of appeal in his manner at Luxor : the half- 
 confidence, the request that he would not make, to 
 which she had deliberately shut her ears. Was it 
 possible that instead of being noble and self-sacrificing 
 in her desire to devote her Hfe to the sick and suffering 
 she had but echoed the selfishness which she so strongly 
 condemned ? 
 
 All the things which had made her life beautiful, her 
 dreams, her love of art, her aspirations, suddenly fell 
 away. She was face to face with the naked truth now, 
 and she could not look at it unashamed. 
 
 Hastily summoning Moussa she gave him the 
 message for Hesper, and went out to the side of the 
 verandah which was in shadow to take counsel 
 with her surging thoughts, alone.
 
 CHAPTER XI . 
 
 THE SOLUTION 
 
 WHEN Ivors slept that afternoon Hesper 
 went in search of Hildred. She found 
 her curled up on a big divan in the 
 drawing-room near a latticed window 
 reading a letter. 
 
 The girl sprang up as she entered. 
 
 " You look half dead," she cried. " Rest here on 
 the divan and put your feet up." 
 
 " I am half dead," answered Hesper quietly, " but it 
 doesn't matter. Don't move, child. I have been 
 resting on the couch in your father's room. He is 
 asleep now, so I slipped away. I wanted to see 
 you." 
 
 Her voice was dull, toneless : she bore the same 
 resemblance to the woman who had welcomed Hildred 
 yesterday as a waxen image does to its living proto- 
 type. Some spring seemed to have been broken within 
 her, some vital essence destroyed. Her answer to 
 Hildred's comment sounded startlingly true. She 
 looked half dead, and her voice, when she spoke, 
 seemed to come from far away. 
 
 " I wanted to see you," she said again. " I think 
 it is better to talk this thing out." 
 
 *' Oh, must we ? " cried Hildred, shrinking. 
 
 419
 
 420 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " I think we must. The fact of shutting one's eyes 
 and pretending a thing isn't there won't prevent it 
 from staring us in the face the moment we open them 
 again. I thought we might confront it once for all, 
 
 and then " she raised her hands and let them fall 
 
 with a gesture of finality. 
 
 " As you like," answered Hildred uncomfortably. 
 " You are the person to be considered. It is your 
 right " 
 
 " Don't ! " Hesper sat for a moment looking at her 
 wedding-ring and turning it mechanical^ on her 
 finger. Then she lifted her head suddenly. " What 
 is your mother to you, Hildred ? " 
 
 The girl reddened from neck to brow. 
 
 " An instinct, no more," she answered, crumpling 
 the letter she held in her hand with a quick fierce 
 gesture. 
 
 " Can you tell me anything — of the circumstances — ? 
 I don't want to hurt you, but I must ask — this once." 
 
 " I — they " the girl paused awkwardly. 
 
 " Can't you see that I want some reasons, something 
 to make me understand ? " said Hesper in quickened 
 tones. " I want to understand." 
 
 Her voice broke pitifully and Hildred in response 
 told her what she knew, all the bald, ugly story of 
 selfishness and neglect of duty. 
 
 " My mother loves no one except her dogs," Hildred 
 concluded warmly. " I wrote to her before I came 
 away to tell her about — about father, and I have just 
 had this letter from her. Will you read it, just to see 
 her point of view, or will it hurt you ? " 
 
 " Nothing else can ever hurt me."
 
 THE SOLUTION 421 
 
 Hildred handed her the letter. " It was written 
 shortly after I started, but it travelled quicker than I 
 did. I am glad, glad tliat I arrived before I got it. 
 I want to be your friend, Hesper, if you will let me." 
 
 " That's generous of you, child," said Hesper, 
 opening the letter. 
 
 It displayed a cold disregard for her husband's 
 health and deplored the flightiness of Hildred's mind 
 which had led her to abandon her chosen career and 
 dash off half across the world because her father 
 imagined himself to be ill. It was short and was 
 signed " her sincere H. D. Ivors," but, hke the scorpion, 
 its sting lay in its tail. There was a long and hastily- 
 added postscript, tacked on because she had not time 
 to write another letter to catch that mail. She had 
 met the Waveneys, she said, and Laura had been 
 coming to tell her a shocking piece of news which she 
 had heard from a cousin who was staying at the 
 Cataract Hotel at Assuan. " Not to put too fine a 
 point on it, it was to the effect that your father is 
 living with a woman on some island near the place. I 
 will not presume to dictate, Hildred, but I hope that 
 you will have sufficient sense of what is due to yourself 
 to leave the place at once. Wire me what boat you are 
 coming by and I will meet you." A cheque for fifty 
 pounds dropped out of the envelope, as Hesper 
 replaced the letter with trembling fingers. 
 
 In spite of her brave assertion there still remained a 
 vulnerable spot, and this letter had hurt it cruelly. 
 In the midst of her pain and grief she had never dreamed 
 for a moment that any one could consider her sinful 
 or her presence contaminating. The conventional,
 
 422 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 uncomprehending view of the situation had never 
 occurred to her, and the thought that any one could 
 consider her purity smirched was a new and stinging 
 revelation. She turned away her face for a moment 
 to hide her quivering lips, and gradually the lesser pain 
 merged into the greater. 
 
 " She is a hard, narrow woman," cried Hildred. 
 " I don't want her monej^ I have plenty of my own. 
 She does not know how cruelly wronged you have 
 been," 
 
 " Hush ! She is hard and narrow, perhaps, but she 
 is your mother, Hildred." 
 
 " She has never been a mother to me, any more than 
 she was a wife to him." 
 
 At that Hesper drew herself erect, and a light burned 
 in her eyes. 
 
 " Ah, there," she said, speaking quickly, " there she 
 has much to be forgiven. If it comes to that, it is 
 she who is Uving in sin rather than I. She, a married 
 woman, ought to have realised something of the 
 temptations to which she exposed him when she cast 
 him adrift, young and impetuous as he was. She 
 sinned against God and man, against him and you, 
 when she did so. She broke her solemn promises to 
 satisfy her own selfish pride. The sin is hers, not mine. 
 
 I deny that I have sinned, that I am sinning " 
 
 she stopped. 
 
 Hildred was flushed and troubled : her thoughts 
 were incoherent, her sympathies swayed. 
 
 " But what will you do eventually ? " she asked at 
 last, feeling to the full the awkwardness of such a 
 question. " Will you — surely you will — leave him ? "
 
 THE SOLUTION 423 
 
 " I will never leave him." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " He will leave me," said Hesper very low. 
 
 Hildred gasped. This solution had not occurred to 
 her. Yet, though the words came as a shock, she 
 realised, subconsciously, that they were not altogether 
 a surprise, for she had seen a shadow on her father's 
 face — a shadow with which her winter's work had 
 sadly familiarised her. 
 
 " Are you sure ? " 
 
 " Quite sure. Dr. Ayrton told me so to-day." 
 Then her calm broke and she covered her face with her 
 hands. " Oh, God, he will leave me, and I shall be 
 alone in a cold world again." 
 
 Hildred put her arms round her. Her heart was 
 wrung at the sight of Hesper's grief. It seemed so 
 pitifully hard that she, the innocent, should suffer so 
 poignantly, while those who had wronged her — 
 she paused on the thought. How did she know what 
 her father had endured ? How could any one even 
 dimly conjecture the processes of another's mind, the 
 bitterness of another's pangs ? In the eyes of the 
 world Hesper had wronged her mother, while, to those 
 who knew, it was Mrs. Ivors who had, indirectly, 
 wronged Hesper. It was the stone thiown into the 
 pool of life, whose circles, ever widening, touched other 
 circles undreamed of. 
 
 Who could tell ? Who should dare to judge ? So 
 some sense of the scope of hfe and its larger issues 
 came to the girl's troubled mind. 
 
 Hesper disengaged herself gently, and looked up with 
 dry burning eyes.
 
 424 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Don't be kind to me. I can't afford to give way 
 just now. He needs me too sorely." 
 
 " Hesper, do you ever think of yourself ? " cried 
 Hildred, wondering at a greater love than her starved 
 life had ever seen. 
 
 " I think of myself when I think of him," Hesper 
 answered. "It is all the same. It was that way 
 almost from the beginning. We are really one, 
 Hildred." 
 
 " You feel hke that for father ? " All the wonder of 
 one generation at the needs and desires of an older 
 rang in her tone. 
 
 "I do. Ah, child, how should you understand ? " 
 she drew an impatient breath, checked herself and 
 continued : " We have given each other what no one 
 else in the world could have given us. I would have 
 given him anything I had. I have given him every- 
 thing I had." She raised her hands again and let 
 them fall with the same hopeless gesture. " Without 
 knowing." 
 
 " If you had known ? " 
 
 " Ah, how could I answer such a question now ? " 
 She turned her ring again, and Hildred noticed how 
 thin her hands had grown. 
 
 " Hildred " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Do you want — to stay ? " 
 
 " To stay ? " 
 
 Hesper looked up with a sudden red flame on her 
 cheek. " I never thought — it did not occur to me 
 what — what outside people might think or say. If — 
 it would harm you — in any way "
 
 THE SOLUTION 425 
 
 " Harm me to be with you ? " 
 
 Hesper nodded, shamed, humiliated beyond words. 
 
 The girl took the hand with the ring on it between 
 her own two warm ones and kissed it. 
 
 " I am proud to be with you," she said, tears 
 quick as rain falhng down her cheeks. 
 
 " Child, you mustn't cry. Don't ! I can't stand it." 
 
 There was a silence in the room. A low wind moaned 
 outside and filled the air with its hot breath. A 
 yellowish haze obscured the blue of the sky, and the 
 sakiyeh creaked and purred unaccompanied to-day by 
 song. 
 
 " I'm afraid it's blowing up for a khamdsin," 
 said Hesper. " I hate these hot \\'inds and these 
 sand-storms. Ingram always said that their elec- 
 tricity invigorated him, but now — it's so bad for him. 
 You are good to m.e, Hildred," she said suddenly. 
 " It's such an impossible situation altogether. Your 
 mother " 
 
 " Don't talk of her, please." 
 
 " But I must talk of her," Hesper gently insisted. 
 " I would not come between you for the world." 
 
 " There is nothing of that sort," Hildred began. 
 
 " Ah, child, there is," Hesper interposed. " You, 
 in your generosity, are all for championing me, and 
 that would create an instant breach." 
 
 " There is a breach already." 
 
 " Don't widen it, then. Your mother loves you, 
 Hildred. You are all she has. Don't take that from 
 her." 
 
 " I assure you that you're mistaken. She doesn't 
 care a jot for me. Games and dogs "
 
 426 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 " Ah, no, Hildred. Those who love always know 
 love when they see it. I saw it in every line of that 
 cold, hard letter. It cried out in jealousy for you, in 
 the words that jibed at you for rushing to your father 
 away from her, in her care for your reputation, in her 
 thought in sending you money which you might need, 
 in her wish to meet you on your return." 
 
 " I don't want her money," cried the girl resentfully. 
 " And as for my reputation it can't be worth much if 
 it is so easily tarnished. She may be jealous, as you 
 
 say " 
 
 " Jealousy implies love, Hildred. It's the mother 
 instinct asserting itself at last." 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 "I've been face to face with big things lately," 
 answered Hesper simply, " and when the little things 
 are stripped away one sees more clearly. Besides, 
 there's a lot of the child in every man. Perhaps 
 that's how I know." 
 
 Hildred looked at her curiously. " You don't 
 understand my mother, Hesper. You have nothing 
 in common with her type." 
 
 •' She's a woman, isn't she ? And she's your 
 mother." 
 
 " It's odd that you should defend her to me, 
 Hesper." 
 
 Hesper flushed again. " Oh, I'm not defending her. 
 I think she has acted both wickedly and foolishly, but 
 I have a great pity for her because she wilfully threw 
 away the best things of life and picked up rubbish 
 instead." 
 All at once the girl softened.
 
 THE SOLUTION 427 
 
 " You're a good woman," she said. " A good, good 
 woman." 
 
 " Ah, my dear " 
 
 Moussa entered noiselessly. 
 
 " Master awake. Wants the sitt." 
 
 Hesper rose. " Will you come, child ? " 
 
 " No, he doesn't want me," Hildred answered. 
 " No one really wants me," she thought as Hesper 
 hurriedly left the room. 
 
 Then a vision of her mother ready to come and meet 
 her was evoked by Hesper's words ; and Dr. Lisle's 
 warm insistence on her return suddenly rang in her 
 ears with more than a tinge of reproach. 
 
 She smiled to herself and felt vaguely comforted. 
 Then remembering the shadow of death which brooded 
 over the island she chid herself for heartlessness, 
 and thought anew upon the depth and height of 
 Hesper's love, before which her own little rushlight 
 of affection paled its ineffectual fire.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 LOVE TRIUMPHANT 
 
 HESPER found Ivors propped up in bed with 
 pillows. His eyes were clear and bright, 
 and a spot of colour burned in either 
 cheek. 
 
 He greeted her with a smile and a weak air of 
 triumph — the pitiful travesty of his former buoyancy. 
 
 " I got Moussa and Nanno to lift me up. I felt 
 choked lying down. A khamdsin is brewing, I think 
 I feel it tinghng through me." 
 
 " As usual," she said, sitting down next him, and 
 speaking in her softest tones. The waves of her black 
 hair were loosened, and emphasised the whiteness of 
 her face. 
 
 " As usual. I feel ever so much better. If old 
 Ayrton would only let me move to some cooler spot 
 I should get well in no time." 
 
 "In no time," she echoed, the sentence ringing in 
 her ears. Then she roused herself. " You are not 
 strong enough for the journey yet, dearest." 
 
 " Am I still your dearest ? " he asked in the husky 
 whisper which always thrilled her with fear. It 
 pierced her heart to hear it, yet every time he slept she 
 dreaded lest she should never hear it again. 
 
 " Always." 
 
 " Through life and death ? " 
 
 428
 
 LOVE TRIUMPHANT 429 
 
 " Through life and death." 
 
 " Up in your high, white heaven ? " 
 
 " Up " her voice failed. 
 
 " You'll wait there till I come, won't you ? " he 
 persisted. 
 
 " For ever if need be." 
 
 " Ah, not for ever. God is pitiful to sinners. You 
 taught me that." 
 
 "I?" 
 
 " Ah, beloved, I feel all the more because I cannot 
 speak. I know. I repent, liyou — if yojf can forgive 
 how should any omniscient God be less merciful ? " 
 
 " Hush, my very dearest. You mustn't talk. You 
 must not agitate 3^ourself." 
 
 "It is worse for me to keep silent. Just this once, 
 Belhasard, and then I'll do everything I can to get 
 well. I want to get weU in order to — atone." 
 
 Every word hurt. How could she tell him ? What 
 did it matter after all ? Confession had been made for 
 him : she had forgiven : by the light of her love he 
 perceived the shadow of Love Eternal. 
 
 " If — I had told you beforehand would you have 
 left me ? " he whispered. 
 
 " WTiy worry about that now ? " 
 
 " But would you ? " he persisted. 
 
 " I — think so," she answered slowly, stroking the 
 dry, transparent hand she held. 
 
 " Then I'm glad I didn't," he said huskily. 
 
 " So am I," she answered, flushing. " It may be 
 wicked of me, but I am — glad — to have had what I 
 had — all those beautiful months, all that wonderful 
 happiness "
 
 430 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 *' Wicked ? You ? " he interrupted. 
 
 " Perhaps it isn't the best part of me that's glad," 
 said Hesper, wistfully. " I don't know. At any rate, 
 for a time, I tasted perfect happiness. That is more 
 than most people can say. You gave it to me." 
 
 She hid away her wounded faith, her betrayed trust. 
 She loved him : the matter of atonement lay between 
 him and God. She loved him, and she must lose him. 
 
 In spite of her words some sudden apprehension 
 seized him. 
 
 " You won't leave me ? " he pleaded, clutching at 
 her hand. 
 
 "Never, my dearest, never." 
 
 " Ah, I never felt sure. You good women — your 
 sense of right and wrong is so strong. So " 
 
 " Hush, my dearest. I am sure it is bad for you 
 to talk so much." 
 
 A sudden fear pricked her that she might have fallen 
 in his estimation by consenting so easily to remain with 
 him. 
 
 " You don't think any the worse of me ? " she began 
 in a low voice. 
 
 " My fixed star shines high in the heaven above me," 
 he answered, understanding at once. " I don't know 
 how you stooped to such a worm as I, Hesper Belhasard . 
 Do you remember the night at Minia when you danced 
 into my heart ? You came lightly in " 
 
 " It was never lightly. I strove against you at 
 first." 
 
 ** It was no use. . . . Now you know why I 
 ran away." 
 " Now I know."
 
 LOVE TRIUMPHANT 431 
 
 ** Now you understand why I could not leave you 
 at Capri." 
 
 Hesper was silent. 
 
 " You do, don't you ? " The whisper sharpened a 
 little, and he tried to see her face. 
 
 " Now — I — understand," she cried at last in anguish. 
 " Oh, Ingram — Ingram." 
 
 She hid her face in his pillow. Long sobs rent her. 
 
 " Hesper, don't. I can't bear it," he cried weakly. 
 
 She checked herself with an effort. 
 
 " Darhng, forgive me. I am sorry," she said under 
 her breath. " I did not mean to distress you. I 
 think the khamasin has upset me." 
 
 The hot wind moaned round the house, filtering fine 
 sand upon the floor. 
 
 "It is doing me good," he said. " I feel ever so 
 much better." 
 
 " That's right." 
 
 " This pillow isn't very comfortable, though." 
 
 " What can I do to make it easier ? " 
 
 " You can sit on the bed next me, and put your arms 
 round me, and let me lay my head against you instead." 
 
 In an instant her arms were round him, and he was 
 raised very gently, his head sinking on the desired 
 resting-place. 
 
 *' Ah, how soft and sweet you are," he murmured, 
 with a weary sigh. " After aU, I feel a little tired 
 now. I think I could sleep." 
 
 " Do, my dearest." 
 
 Her arms held him closely, tenderly. She crooned 
 inarticulately as she rested her cheek against his head. 
 
 The wind howled outside — the strange wind that
 
 432 THE FRINGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 was hot instead of being cold. A sudden gust rattled 
 the sun-shutters. 
 
 " Who is that ? " asked Ivors, rousing. 
 
 " Only the wind, beloved." 
 
 He looked up and smiled at her. " I thought it 
 might be some one coming to take you from me." 
 
 She held him closer. 
 
 " I feel safe when your arms are round me like that," 
 he whispered. " When I am better I will hold you 
 so closely that no one can take you from me." 
 
 " You never held me closer than now, dearest," she 
 whispered back. She did not dare to trust her voice. 
 
 " Ah, wait until we go adventuring again." His 
 head slipped down a little, and she pillowed it softly 
 above her beating heart. 
 
 " Are you comfortable ? " 
 
 " Very comfortable. Stoop down and kiss me before 
 I go to sleep." 
 
 " Are you tired ? " 
 
 " Not now." 
 
 " Only sleepy ? " 
 
 " Only sleepy and happy," he murmured. '* Don't 
 let the others in. We don't want any one else — you 
 and I. Do we, Hesper Belhasard ? " 
 
 "No," she answered. 
 
 The Eastern night fell suddenly through the yellow 
 twilight and still Hesper sat holding Ivors to her heart, 
 protecting him from intrusion. 
 
 She did not know the moment when the Unbidden 
 Guest entered and, summoning him from that desired 
 bourne, set out with him upon th e last Great Adventure.
 
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