There is no danger in it, goodness knows, when you bestride a diminutive donkey whose dainty little feet know every pebble on the route, but there is danger when an animal like Sooltan takes the Avenue of Sphinxes at a mad rush and slips and slithers and slides, under the impetus of his own weight, pace and terror, the rest of the way, even if he is as sure-footed as a goat.
* * * * * *
Later, when her beloved child wakened the night-porter, Jane Coop, blue with anxiety and cold, most unhygienically closed the window and thankfully padded off to her comfortable bed.
CHAPTER XXII
"_Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that being nothing art everything! . . . . The mighty future is as nothing, being everything! the past is everything, being nothing!"
LAMB.
In spite of her tongue, which was somewhat unduly inclined to gossip,
Lady Thistleton was a motherly old soul and had a great affection for
Damaris.
". . . I should not like either of my little girls," she was saying the morning after the visit to the Terrace Temple, "to visit the ruins or stay out unchaperoned after dark. I am responsible for you, you know, dear, and you are very beautiful and very young. Of course I know that you are a little unhappy, dear, but other girls have been the same. So you must not worry. Everything will come right. I expect you know all about my Ellen." Damaris nodded. "And everybody is so fond of you. Would you like to have a long day in bed to-day, dear, or go to Denderah with the girls? They are thinking of staying for a few days."
Damaris smiled the radiant smile which made her so attractive, and, rising, put her arms round the motherly old dear's neck and kissed her, which was an unusual thing for her to do, as she was, as a rule, undemonstrative to coldness.
"I'd love to go to Denderah, if I may take Janie and Wellington. And I'm truly not worrying; it's just a tremendous spirit of adventure which drives me to do these awful things."