"Sergeant O'Rafferty of the Irish Guards, Miss Jill. He demeaned himself by marrying a _bar_maid, miss."
As already mentioned, love and marriage had passed Maria Hobson by.
Arrived at the hotel, their spirits went up with a bound.
What had come to them out there in the desert town? Had they all been stricken with some dreadful depression? Of course the child was safe in this laughing, dancing, happy throng, and at the sight of her god-mother she would leave her partner and run to her; would throw her arms about her, and hug her in her loving way.
Owing to the crowds of people and the crush of cars, little if any notice had been taken of their arrival; the luggage was coming up later.
"Wait a minute here, Hobson," had said her grace. "Jill, come and see if you can recognise Damaris by the picture you saw of her—the prettiest girl in Egypt!"
They stood at the side door of the ballroom and scanned the laughing couples sitting in rows in the throes of the cotillon. Ellen Thistleton, with the royal asp of ancient Egypt with a slight list to starboard above her heated countenance, stood alone in the middle of the room, with a glass of champagne in one hand.
Before her stood Mr. Lumlough and the colonel for whom the gilded asp was being worn at such a rakish angle.
She stood for quite some seconds in her conspicuous position, as though debating within herself upon the choice. As Mr. Lumlough subsequently remarked to his panting partner, in his customary slang, "She had a nerve!"
Then, with head on one side, she coyly handed the Veuve Clicquot to the thankful young man, and allowed herself to be gathered to the heart of the portly, jubilant colonel, who, loving her, saw the jaunty gilded asp as a nimbus around her head.