“I don’t know what’s going on in Muriel’s head,” she told him, “but it seems to me that she’s about the most love-sick creature I’ve ever struck. She won’t even look in any other direction except the southwest, because that’s where her Daniel is.”
A slight expression of interest came into her husband’s blank face. He was sitting in his striped pyjamas on the side of his bed, scratching himself dreamily; but now he paused and his arms fell loosely upon his pointed knees. “I thought,” he said, “she had got over all that. She has been jolly enough all the way here.”
“Yes,” answered Kate, “but now that she’s within a day’s ride of her young man, she seems to have come over all funny-like. I can’t make her out.” She waited a moment. “Wouldn’t it be possible for us to go to El Hamrân before we make the northern trip?” she asked, poking the wick of the candle, absently, with the stump of a match.
Her husband shook his head. “No,” he replied. “The plans are all fixed. And, you see, I don’t suppose Mr. Lane will give me more than a couple of days of his time just now; and I’d rather have it at the end of my tour, when I know what I’m talking about, than now when I hav’n’t yet seen the lie of the land. I want to be able to come to him with a definite offer.”
He relapsed into silence for some time, resuming his leisurely scratching; but at length he surprised his wife by asking a further question as to Muriel’s state of mind.
“Why, Benifett,” she said, smiling upon him, “you seem quite interested. You know, I believe you’re rather a sport, after all.”
He looked at her with his mouth open. “Oh, it’s a recognized maxim of the commercial world,” he answered: “‘Make yourself a party to the love affairs of your business friends.’”
“But Muriel isn’t a business friend,” said Kate.
“No,” he replied, “but her father is.” And with that enigmatical remark, he blew out the candle.
At sunrise next day he was up and about; and an hour later he had assembled his party for the start upon their journey. Kate and Muriel watched them as they filed out of the compound in front of the police buildings, in the brilliant light of the morning.