“Don’t show off any of your airs and graces here, Edith, please,” he said, “I am not anxious to follow the example of our friend, the god upon the platform, and renounce the world in a wider fashion. That little tartar of a woman would jump at a chance of murdering us, and she can do it if she likes.”
Only Tabitha, weary with standing, sank down on to a block of stone, and incidentally into the lap of a native who already occupied it, and scarcely heeding his wild struggles to be free, fanned herself with a broad-brimmed hat and remarked:
“Ach! do not trouble. If they kill us, they kill us. It is very interesting to hear them say their minds so well. I am most glad that we came.”
“You hear their answer, Edith,” said Rupert, “and you must understand my position. Have you any objection to make?”
“I understand your position perfectly, Rupert, and I am quite aware that a man may find it difficult—most difficult, to escape from certain kinds of entanglements,” and she glanced at Mea and paused.
“Wrong word again,” murmured that lady, with a sweet smile; “no what you call it, no tangles, only one great rope of love, too thick to cut, too strong to break—much!”
“As for objections,” went on Edith, without heeding this melodious and poetic interruption, “I could make scores, but since we don’t wish to be butchered by your amiable protégés, perhaps I had better hold my tongue and give you a month in which to come to your right mind. Only I am by no means sure that I shall stop here all that time.”
“Don’t stop if you no like,” broke in Mea again. “Please not—the road it always open, give you camel, give you soldiers, give you food, and write you letter afterwards to tell you how Zahed make up his mind. I can write very nice letter all in English, learn that at Luxor, or if you rather, write in Arabic.”
At this sally Dick grinned, for it pleased his wounded soul to see Edith getting the worst of it for once in her life, and Tabitha burst out laughing. The general effect was to induce Edith to change her mind rapidly.
“Yes, I shall stop,” she went on, as though she had never suggested anything else, “because I suppose it is my duty to give him every chance.”