Their blood was blue, their upbringing beyond suspicion; they simply erred through a too-generous supply of the above-mentioned philanthropic fluid.
They had come home dead-beat the night before, but were first down to breakfast, as happy as could be at the thought of the strenuous day before them, and were ostentatiously comparing their books of notes or jottings when Damaris came in. They went everywhere with note-books in their hands, and made entries at the most inconvenient moments during their journey. To you or me they would have seemed but jottings, but Berenice could have read you a blank-verse love-poem in the thick markings of her fountain-pen; and Ellen a De Profundis from the hieroglyphics and inscriptions copied by her scratchy stylo and under which she essayed to bury the memory of the tomato-hued Inverness.
Damaris slid into her seat with an inward prayer that she might be allowed time to read her mail, which consisted of a fat letter from her godmother and a bulky one from home. "Perhaps Marraine will be back soon," she thought, opening the other letter first, as is a way with us perverse humans. Enclosed was an atrociously-written letter to her mother from her plain-as-a-pikestaff brother, written from Harrow.
". . . it's awfully jolly," wrote the enthusiastic youngster, "being in Ben Kelham's house. They still talk about his last house-match against Bumbles. Don't you remember I'd just got over mumps and we went down for it? Bumbles had six to win and ten minutes to do it in when Howard was bowled, and Carden, their captain, went in and drove right over the Pav. He won the match by one, don't you remember? And then Kelham caught him magnificently in the slips just as time was up."
Damaris looked at a bunch of jasmine lying beside her plate, and sighed as she opened her godmother's letter; then sighed again, more profoundly.
The duchess had arrived at Khargegh without mishap. She described the journey, gradually ascending through the desert, then down through the narrow valley of rocks—the wastes of rock and gravel—the beautiful valley—the great plain to Mahariq-Khargegh with its date-palms, its filthy lanes, its mosques, with the limestone hills almost surrounding it.
"And we can't get any further, my dear. A report has come of the appearance near here of a notorious robber gang which has infested the desert farther south for years. I don't believe it myself—Hobson is furious, as the hotel we are in is not totally devoid of—shall I call them mosquitoes?—but the authorities refuse to allow us to proceed. I have sent a runner through to the friend I was going to see."—Damaris touched the jasmine at her side and sighed. "I will tell you the whole history when I return. So sad, my child; so very tragic. She may come to see me, as the authorities have no power over her. She is staying at her eldest son's house until his return. I will let you know my movements as soon as I can. Enjoy yourself. Dekko is very quiet; he is either apprehensive or going to moult."
Damaris smiled spasmodically when, as she put the letter down under the jasmine, her neighbours let off a broadside.
The head dragoman wanted to get up a party for Deir el-Bahari on the morrow. He had twenty pairs of donkeys, all of which were so accustomed, it seemed, to going about in a bunch that they refused to move a step if one pair was missing. Nineteen pairs had been filled from the different hotels, one pair was still minus riders. Would Damaris make a couple with Mr. Lumlough?
Mr. Lumlough, who was of the raw age of nineteen and who worshipped in secret at the girl's shrine, blushed divinely salmon-pink and coughed.