Dinner was not ready yet, and we sauntered about on the flat roof, white as marble in the moonlight. The sky was milk—the desert, honey —far off Cairo with its crowned citadel, pale opal veined with light, and faintly streaked with misty greens and purples; the cultivated land a deep indigo sea. The fantastically built hotel (in its ancient beginnings the palace of a Pasha) was like a closely huddled group of châlets, looked down on from its central roof. On the fringe of the oasis-garden the cafés and curiosity-shops buzzed with life, and glittered like lighted beehives. Outside the gateway, donkey-boys and camel-men and drivers of sandcarts chattered. To-night, and on a few moonlight nights to come they would reap their monthly harvest. They were all ready to start off anywhere at a moment's notice; but apart from them and their clamour, reposed a row of camels previously engaged, free, therefore, to enjoy themselves until after dinner. As we gazed down as if from a captive balloon, at the line of sitting forms, they looked immense, like giant, newborn birds, with their huge egg-shaped bodies and thin necks. Along the arboured road from Cairo, flashed motor-car after motor-car, their lights winking in and out between the dark trees, now blazing, now invisible, their occupants all intent on doing the right thing: dining at Mena House, and seeing the full moon feed honey to the Sphinx. Some, wishing to save time, or to dine later in town, or to take a train, for somewhere, later, did not turn in at the hotel gate, but swept past with siren shrieks, and tore on, hoping to "rush" the steep hill to the Pyramid platform at top speed. Only a few of the strongest succeeded, and, with a dash instead of an ignominious crawl, triumphantly fanned their lights along the base of that vast monument in which King Cheops vainly sought eternal privacy. What would he say, we wondered, could he see the crowds of tourists tearing out to pay him a call, on their way to the Sphinx? Would he blight them with a curse, or would he remember pearly nights of old, when his subjects assembled in multitudes for the feast of the Goddess Neith when the moon was full, and all the white, brightly painted houses along the Nile reflected their flowerlike illuminations in the water? Anyhow (as Sir John Biddell would have said), this was helping to keep his name before the public; and nothing could succeed in vulgarizing his mountain of gold in its gleaming waves of desert, under pulsing stars and creamy floods of moonlight.
Anthony had told me that the great "tip" was to go out while the less instructed sightseers ate their dinner. Then, the desert was comparatively empty; and, more important still, instead of having the moon on her head, and her face in shadow, the Sphinx received its full blaze in her farseeing eyes. Of this advice I meant to avail myself, feeling vaguely guilty as I thought of the giver, who was absent from the feast: Anthony Fenton, one of the finest young soldiers in Egypt, who could be lionized in drawing-rooms at home if he would "stand for it"! Anthony who, would he but accept the repentant overtures of that tyrannical old prince, his maternal grandfather, might inherit a fortune and a palace at Constantinople! Yet as Ahmed Antoun in his green turban, he was "taboo" at our little party.
He was due later, however, and I rather expected to find him waiting below, when I excused myself to descend to the Set. But I had not left the roof when a note for Monny was brought up by an ebony person in livery. I watched her as she read, one side of her face turned to marble by the moon, the other stained rose by the red-shaded candles. I thought that the rosy side grew more rosy as she finished the letter.
"There's a—message for you, Lord Ernest," she said. "Aunt Clara wants me to tell you that 'Antoun' can't meet you at the hotel, because she —changed her mind about not coming out, and sent for him. She felt better, it seems, and got thinking what a pity it would be to miss the full moon, so she suddenly remembered that 'Antoun' wasn't with us, and decided to invite him. She writes in a hurry and didn't know where they would dine, but says anyhow they'll meet us by the Sphinx between nine and ten."
"Where 'they'd' dine!" echoed Sir Marcus, pricked to interest. "Was she going to let Fe—I mean 'Antoun,' take her out to dinner?"
"Apparently she was," replied Monny, rather dryly.
"Why not?" asked Brigit. "He's perfectly splendid. And Mrs. East—not that she isn't a young woman, of course—is old enough to go about without a chaperon."
"If we're to meet them between nine and ten at the Sphinx," said Monny briskly, "don't you think, Lord Ernest, you'd better hurry and get your people off, so we can set out ourselves?"
"I'm going," I assured her. "But I thought we planned to give them a long start, in hopes that they might be ready to come back by the time we arrived?"
"Oh, well," she said, "that will make it very late, won't it, and we may miss Aunt Clara? Anyhow, lots of other creatures just as bad as yours will be there, for we can't engage the desert like a private sitting-room."