He did not smile at all; as he spoke his face was grave, but when something made him laugh as they turned the next corner, it transformed him. It was the rippling spontaneous gaiety of a child.
Two goats had got loose from opposite hovels and were butting at one another in the middle of the road.
He pulled up his horse and watched.
"I like any fight," he said.
But the goats fled in fear of him, so they went on.
Tamara was wondering why she felt so stupid. She wanted to ask her strange companion a number of questions. Who he was? What he was doing at the Sphinx?—and indeed in Egypt. Why he had spoken to her at all?—and yet appeared absolutely indifferent as they rode along! He had not asked her a single question or expressed the least curiosity. For some reason she felt piqued.
Presently they emerged at the end of the village where there was a small lake left by the retirement of the Nile. The moon, almost full, was mirrored in it. The scene was one of extreme beauty. The pyramids appeared an old rose pink, and everything else in tones of sapphire—not the green-blue of moonlight in other countries. All was breathlessly still and lifeless. Only they two, and the camel boys, alone in the night.
The dark line of trees which border the road faced them, and they rode slowly in that direction.
"You are going to the hotel, I suppose?" he said. "I will see you safely to it."
And they climbed the bank on to the avenue from Cairo.