Biddy glared a warning. Her eyes said, "Silly fellow, don't you know every girl wants to be the one and only love of a man's life?"
I had supposed that this old craze had gone out of fashion. But perhaps there are a few primitive things which will never go out of fashion with women.
Now that I had Miss Gilder's proud young face opposite mine, I saw that it wasn't quite so perfect as I'd fancied when she flashed by in her tall whiteness. Her nose, pure Greek in profile, seen in full was —well, just neat American: a straight, determined little twentieth-century nose. The full red mouth, not small, struck me as being determined also, rather than classic, despite the daintily drawn cupid's bow of the short upper lip. I realized too that the long-lashed, wide-open, and wide-apart eyes were of the usual bluish-gray possessed by half the girls one knows. And as for the thick wavy hair pushed crisply forward by the white hood, now it was out of the sun's glamour, there was more brown than gold in it. I said to myself, that the face with the firm cleft chin was only just pretty enough to give a great heiress or a youthful princess the reputation of a beauty; a combination desired and generally produced by journalists. Then, as I was thinking this, while Brigit explained me, Miss Gilder suddenly smiled. I was dazzled. No wonder Biddy loved her. It would be a wonder if I didn't love her myself before I knew what was happening.
And so I should instantly have done, perhaps, if it hadn't been for Biddy's eyes seeming to come between mine and Miss Gilder's: and the fact that at the moment I was in quest of another treasure than a woman's heart. My thoughts were running ahead of the ship to Alexandria, to find out from Anthony Fenton ("Antoun Effendi" the biggest boys used to nickname him at school) more about the true history of that treasure than he dared trust to paper and ink and the post office.
So I put off falling in love with Rosamond Gilder till I should have seen Anthony, and tidied up my distracted mind. A little later would do, I told myself, because (owing to the fact that my ancestral castle had figured in Biddy's tales of long ago) I was annexed as one of the protégés; allowed to make a fifth at the small, flowery table under a desirable porthole in the green and white restaurant; also I was invited to go about with the ladies and show them Cairo. Just how much "going about," and falling in love, I should be able to do there, depended on "Antoun Effendi." But when Biddy congratulated me on my luck, and chance of success in the "scheme," I said nothing of Anthony.
CHAPTER II
CLEOPATRA AND THE SHIP'S MYSTERY
Now, at last, I can skip over the three days at sea, and get to our arrival at Alexandria, because, as I've said, the exciting part began soon after, at Cairo.
They were delightful days, for the Laconia is a Paris hotel disguised as a liner. And no man with blood in his veins could help enjoying the society of Brigit O'Brien and Rosamond Gilder. Cleopatra, too, was not to be despised as a charmer; and then there was the human interest of the protégées, the one with the eyes and the one who had reluctantly developed into the Ship's Mystery.