She reined in her horse and waved her hand. “I guessed it was you,” she cried.
Without waiting for his camel to kneel, Daniel slid from the high saddle and dropped to the ground.
“Why, what are you doing out here at this time of day?” he asked her, as, leading his camel behind him, he hastened to her side and grasped her hand. “I’m mighty glad to see you.”
She turned to her companions, Mr. and Mrs. Benifett Bindane, and introduced them to Daniel. She had been spending the night at Mena House Hotel, she explained, where the Bindanes were staying, and the fresh morning air having aroused her before sunrise, she had had an early breakfast and had come out for a canter over the desert.
“I spotted you a long way off,” she said. “I knew you by your hat, if it is a hat.” Somehow she did not feel so shy of him as at their meeting at the Residency.
“I guess I’m going to shock you all in Cairo with that hat,” he laughed. “It’s an old friend, and old friends are best.”
“Am I an old friend?” she asked.
“Pretty old,” he answered. “I’ve known you for four years, you must remember.”
She told him that her father was not expecting his arrival for some days, and that she feared no room had yet been prepared for him.
“But I’m not going to stay in the house,” he answered quickly. “You didn’t think I’d come and live in the town, did you?”