There was a sound of quick, light footsteps on the stairs. In silence we turned to see a tall young officer in uniform walk out upon the flat roof. The moon shone straight into a face grave, yet eager, so deeply sunburned as to be brown even in that pale light: long eyebrows sketched sharply as if in ink—the black lines running down toward the temples; large, sad eyes; a slight upward hitch of the mouth on one side; clear cut Roman nose; aggressive chin.
"Miss Gilder, let me introduce Captain Anthony Fenton," the Sirdar said.
"I've brought you a rose," said Anthony.
They stood looking at one another for a long moment, the sun-browned British officer, and the pale girl. We, Biddy and I, stared at them both from our distance; and when the spell of the instant had broken, we saw that the Sirdar had gone.
We, too, would have gone, though the man and the girl were between us and the stairway, and we should have had to push past them. But Anthony, seeing our hesitation, spoke quietly. "Don't go," he said. "I may want you."
Never until to-night had Monny Gilder heard him speak English.
"You see," he said to her, "why I told you yesterday you would never see Antoun again. I had to tell you that, to make sure you would trust me—fully, through everything. You have trusted me, and so you've made it possible for me to keep my vow—a wrong and stupid vow, but it had to be kept. When I was angry because you treated me like a servant, I swore that never, no matter how I might be tempted, would I tell you with my own lips who I was—or let Borrow tell. I was going to make myself of importance in your life as Ahmed Antoun, if I could, not as Anthony Fenton. But long before that night at Philae I was ashamed. I —but you said then, you would forgive me. Now, when you understand what you didn't understand then, can you still say the same?"
"I—hardly know what to say," she answered. "I don't know how I feel —about anything."
"Well, I know, you goose!" exclaimed Biddy, rushing to the rescue, where angels who haven't learned to think with their hearts might have feared to tread. "You feel so happy you're afraid you're going to howl. Why, it's all perfectly wonderful! And only the silliest, earliest Victorian girls would sulk because they'd been 'deceived.' If anybody deceived you, you deceived yourself. I knew who he was from the first! So did your Aunt Clara. We'd kept our ears open, and heard the Duffer talk about his friend Anthony Fenton who was coming to meet us. You were mooning I suppose, and didn't listen. We didn't give him away partly because it wasn't our business, and partly because each of us was up to another game, never mind what. Captain Fenton never tried to play you a trick. You threw yourself at his head, you know you did, from Shepheard's terrace. He had his mission to think of, and you'd be very conceited if you thought he ought to have let you interfere with it. As it happened, you worked in quite well with the mission at first. Then Fate stepped in, and made the band play a different dance tune; no military march, but a love-waltz. That wasn't his fault. And I have to remind you of all this, because you're glaring at Captain Fenton now as if he'd done something wrong instead of fine, and he can't praise himself."
As she finished, out of breath, having dashed on without a single comma, the giant black musicians in the garden began to sing a strange African love song, in deep rich voices, their instruments, which had played with precision European airs, suddenly pouring out their primitive, passionate souls.