We haven't wasted a minute since you went away, but have seen sights from morning till night, so as not to have missed anything when we leave Cairo on the Enchantress Isis. I hope you'll be pleased that I've given up my dream of having a private dahabeah, and that we shall be with you on Sir Marcus Lark's boat. She is really a beauty. Antoun took us over her, and on board we met Sir Marcus, who was showing some friends round. Antoun introduced him to us. I think Sir M. asked him to do it. We had great fun, for Sir Marcus seemed to take the most violent fancy to Aunt Clara, who didn't like him at all. She says now that she believes when she was Cleopatra he was Caesar, and that it's a pity he can't wear a wreath to hide his baldness, as she remembers his doing then. It's only a very little bald spot, really, and Rachel Guest says it reminds her of a tonsure on the head of a fine-looking monk. Aunt C. quite resents Sir Marcus being able to engage the services of you and Antoun. She wants you both to be there, but she doesn't like Sir M. to have a superior position to Antoun's. That day on the Enchantress Isis Sir M. invited us to have tea on the deck, and it really was enchanting; a deck like a huge open-air drawingroom, or one of our biggest verandas at Newport, or somewhere, with jolly green wicker chairs and tables and sofas with heaps of cushions. But I forgot—you've seen the boat. The best rooms were engaged, but when we talked to Sir Marcus, he called a man who can speak many languages in bits—broken English, cracked German, fractured French, and goodness knows what all. Between them, they arranged it somehow that we should have our choice, and the other people were to take what was left. I would have refused, because it didn't seem fair, but it was for Aunt Clara's sake, evidently, that Sir M. wanted to make the exchange, and she accepted. She was as haughty as a queen, but in rather a fascinating, soft way that I think men like. And she was looking beautiful. So is Rachel, as even Biddy admits. I do believe Rachel looks younger than I do, in some new dresses and hats she has. I never noticed before, but I fancy now that we're rather alike. I'm so delighted to see her enjoying herself so much, for you know, she's wonderful. Think what courage it must have taken to break with her tiresome old life, because she felt she must see the glory of the world, when a tiny legacy gave her the chance she'd longed for. She wouldn't have had a penny left, after she'd finished her trip, if Aunt C. and I hadn't been able to help her out. It's a privilege to do anything for such a brave creature. And I can't bear to think of her having to go back when this is over, to the dull round. Perhaps some way out will be found for her.
I've fallen in love with Cairo, although—or perhaps because—I still feel as if I were moving in a marvellous picture. Antoun does make it live for us! I will say that for him, though he can be so annoying that at times he spoils everything, and makes me wish you'd won my hat instead of my winning his green turban. I'm dying to find out how you got it. But, of course, I can't ask him: it would be infra dig. You must tell me when you come. I think the one he wears now is handsomer though. I wish I could change it for mine.
We have been to heaps of mosques, and I can't help wishing we were the only tourists in Cairo. Of course, this is a selfish wish; and as dear Biddy says, it's quite funny to think how each tourist feels that he is the only spiritual-minded, imaginative person travelling—that he alone has the right to be in Egypt—that all the others are offensive, vulgar creatures, who desecrate the beautiful places with their presence. But really, you know, it gets on one's nerves, meeting droves of silly men in pith helmets with little white lambrequins looped up, when it would be so much more appropriate to wear the kind of hats they have at home. And some of the women are weird! They have the queerest ideas of what is suitable for Egypt. One friend of Bedr's refused to go about and be seen with the ladies who'd engaged him, as he was the smartest dragoman in Cairo and had his reputation to keep up. Don't you like that? Even Antoun laughed—which he hardly ever does. He's so dignified I wish his turban would blow off or something. I wonder how he'd look without it, and if most of the charm would be gone? Almost, I hope so. One doesn't like to catch one's self feeling toward an Egyptian, even for a minute, as one does toward men of one's own blood —I mean, on the same level, or even as if a person like that were above one. It's just the picturesque dignity of the costume, and the pose, perhaps. And then, this strange glamour of the East is over everybody and everything, here. I used to wonder why people wrote and spoke of the East as mysterious. Why should it be more mysterious than the West? I would ask. Nobody could explain exactly. They said only, "It is." Now I know why—at least I feel why. Without his green turban, or in European coat instead of his graceful silk robe, and away from these luminous sunsets of pale rose and gold and emerald, Antoun would be nothing extraordinary, would he? He says he is considered old fashioned in his way of dress. Most of his friends wear European clothes, and the tarboosh which Egyptians love because it never blows away or falls off when they pray. He does make me angry, because he wants to banish the beggars and poor men who sell things in the street, instead of letting me give and buy. What am I for, with all my money, except to do things for people? And it's such fun making them happy by saying "I want a cat-necklace—" or a scarab, or whatever they have, instead of pushing past with a stony glare as if they were dust under our feet. Of course we're attended by great crowds whereever we go, because it's got round that we don't refuse any one, consequently it takes a little long to arrive anywhere. But what does that matter in Egypt? Already I'm losing my American hustle. I want to eat lotuses, which seem out of season in Egypt now! I've asked for them everywhere but can't get them. I want to feel back in the Middle Ages, in Cairo, which, as Antoun says, is an Oriental and Medieval Gateway to the Egypt older than history. And how I am looking forward to the Desert! Sir Marcus tells us that you are to take the people of the Candace for a desert trip before they go up the Nile; so of course you must count us among your "trippers," and Mr. Willis and Mr. Sheridan, who have settled to go on the Isis. You didn't mention the desert plan before you went away!
No news of that poor, beautiful child, Wretched Bey's wife though I've written twice. I'm worried about her. Mabel she used to be. Now she's Mabella Hânem! Biddy says you'll arrive for the ball to-morrow night. But somehow I don't feel you will. I don't know why you should. Men don't care for such things much. And of course I shall not dance, as I'm still in half mourning. I shall only look on, and then—Rachel and I have an amusing plan for the end of the evening. But even if you came, we couldn't let you into the secret, as you would think it silly.
Yours sincerely,
ROSAMOND GILDER.
Mine "sincerely, Rosamond Gilder!" So she ended her letter, with youthful and characteristic dignity, childishly unaware, apparently, that there was more to read between the lines than in the lines themselves.
Had I read this Rosamond letter first, the last four or five sentences would have meant little for me. As it was, I would have given a month out of my future for the gift of an astral body which could go this minute to the ball at the Ghezireh Palace. I was lost in the mystery of that "amusing plan."
In Anthony's letter lay my last hope of a clue. But in it there was none. He did not even mention Monny's name. It was all about that "desert trip" which, from her, I hadn't taken seriously. Sir Marcus was actually planning it. Kruger had written that some of the passengers were clamouring for a few days' camping, and the idea was to send them off in my care, after three days in Cairo, while the others remained in charge of Antoun, who wasn't yet ready to leave. Fenton said:
Somebody's trying to defeat my scheme for getting the sheikh's tomb moved. I don't know who it is yet. Meanwhile my time and my head are so full, that in the few hours of the night I put aside for sleep, I dream queerer dreams than the visits of ghostly sheikhs. Apropos of dreams, do you know by chance a man who answers this description: elderly, stoutish, red face, gray hair, black moustache, pale eyes with sharp look in them. Sounds commonplace, doesn't it?