Still, this course of diplomacy—laid down by that most successful of royal mistresses, Madame de Pompadour—is difficult and painful indeed when the heart-happiness of the resident on the superior heights depends wholly upon the vagaries of the butterfly. Moreover, Evarne's poor little vanity was receiving a series of severe blows. For so long she had been accustomed to being first and foremost in Morris's regard—to seeing the society of all other women set aside, if at all possible, for her own. Now, despite her combination of trust and philosophy, this new state of affairs was a protracted anguish. She was resolutely brave under it—perhaps too much so to be quite pleasing or flattering to Morris. Even the deep-rooted hatred she bore Lucinda was almost entirely hidden.
When the slight meal was ended and the moment came for once more setting forth, Mrs. Belmont arose with a childishly pretty air of happy importance. "Now I must be dragoman," she declared, and proceeded to lead the way amid the ruined masses of stone and fallen columns. But she was soon fain to confess that she could not remember the track, and called upon Morris for aid.
Smiling, he took the lead. Poor Evarne! Life seemed to have become a series of heart-squeezings. Her keen eye noted the smile that was flashed upon Lucinda, and it appeared to her to be every whit as indulgent and kindly—almost as caressing—as that which had hitherto been reserved for herself alone.
It was necessary to cover quite a long distance over a plain besprinkled not only with fallen stones, but with a long spiky growth that rendered progress difficult.
"It is well worth this walk," declared Morris, joining her after a while, "for what we are going to see is the most perfectly-preserved temple in the whole of Karnak. It is very small, but one gets from it a better idea of what these buildings must have looked like in their palmy days than the larger ruins can show."
"Talking about 'perfectly preserved,' why didn't the old 'Gyps pickle their 'corpsies' instead of bothering to stuff them?" demanded Tony.
"Don't be nasty," retorted Evarne curtly; and a few minutes later the goal was reached.
"Now, go in one by one," suggested Morris, "and ladies, be prepared for a shock."
Despite this warning, Evarne could hardly suppress a little cry as she, in her turn, entered alone into the inner sanctuary of the tiny temple. Its walls were completely decorated with richly coloured representations of weird deities and worshipping mortals. There was no window, but the rays of the sinking sun filtered in through a small opening in the roof. The chamber was dim and gloomy, but the one square beam of light was arranged to fall with concentrated force upon a solitary upstanding statue in polished black basalt. It depicted a slender woman's form, surmounted by a cat's head. So perfect was it in every detail, so realistic, so full of quiet animation, that for a moment Evarne had believed herself to be in the presence of something living and dreadful.
Almost immediately, of course, she realised her mistake, and knew it for what it was—a representation of the ancient Egyptian goddess Sekhet. Already that day the girl had stood in the middle of an open field—once the site of a great temple, of which the ruins lay all about—and gazed around the extensive circle of large, gleaming, black marble statues of Sekhet that now alone remained to hint at the departed grandeur of this vanished temple.