"Are you getting tired of it?" I asked.
"I've been tired of it since the first day I put it on. I don't like play-acting for long. But it was necessary. And it has had its advantages as well as disadvantages for me."
I should have liked to ask another question then, but dared not, so instead I told him about the letter from Bechid Bey's beautiful American bride, Mabella Hânem, the "Ship's Mystery" of the Laconia. Anthony listened, as the Enchantress Isis slipped past the Island of Roda, past Ghizeh, past old Cairo and still older Babylon, then out on to the broad bosom of the river where the Nile Valley lay bathed in sunshine from Gebel Mokattam in the east, to the Libyan hills—haunt of departed spirits—in the west.
"Miss Gilder wants me to help, does she?" he asked at last. "She told you to tell me about this?"
"I warned her that you mightn't approve," I explained. "I said you had more knowledge of Egypt in your little finger than I had in all my gray matter, and you might think that nothing could be done—"
"Tell her I think something may be done," he interrupted me. "And before we reach Asiut we'll plan out how best to do it."
"You and I?"
"You and she and I. She has brains as well as courage."
"She?"
"Of course I mean Miss Gilder."