Edith looked at the cheque; it was for £250.
“You really are very kind to me,” she said, “and whoever may dislike you, I don’t. I love you.”
“Me or the money?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows.
“You, you,” she answered, then kissed him and went away.
“I think,” reflected Lord Devene to himself, as the door closed behind her, “this is almost the first time for over twenty years I ever heard anybody say that to me who meant it. She must marry Rupert; it is her great chance in life, and hasn’t she as much right to these good things as that pious bear.”
CHAPTER V.
THE DINNER-PARTY
When Edith reached home it was to find that Rupert had been engaged all the morning in unpacking his baggage. Now he had just set up the two steles, which, it may be explained for the benefit of the uninitiated, are sepulchral tablets whereon the old Egyptians inscribed the records of their lives, or sometimes prayers. They were massive articles, as Edith had discovered on the previous night, most suitable to their original purpose in a tomb, but somewhat out of place in a very small London drawing-room, perched respectively on a piano and the top-shelf of a Chippendale bookcase.
“Don’t they look well, mother?” he was saying.
“Yes, dear, yes,” answered Mrs. Ullershaw doubtfully; “but perhaps a little solid and time-worn.”
“Time-worn! I should think they are,” he answered. “One of them is about four, and the other three thousand years old, but the more recent—no, not that of the man and his wife seated side by side—the other, is much the more valuable. It comes from Tel-el-Amarna, which, as of course you know, was the city built by the heretic king, Khuen-Aten, and was put up in the tomb of one of the royal princesses. Look at her picture on the top, with the globe of the sun above, and from it the rays ending in hands all stretched out in blessing over her. I’ll translate it to you, if you like.”