A fleeting expression of amusement flitted over Gervase’s features.
“It is very honorable of you,” he said, “very! My dear boy, you shall have your full chance. Because I—I would not make the Princess Madame Gervase for all the world! She is not formed for a life of domesticity—and pardon me—I cannot picture her as the contented châtelaine of your grand old Scotch castle in Ross-shire.”
“Why not?”
“From an artistic point of view the idea is incongruous,” said Gervase lazily. “Nevertheless, I will not interfere with your wooing.”
Denzil’s face brightened.
“You will not?”
“I will not—I promise! But”—and here Gervase paused, looking his young friend full in the eyes, “remember, if your chance falls to the ground—if Madame gives you your congé—if she does not consent to be a Scottish châtelaine and listen every day to the bagpipes at dinner,—you cannot expect me then to be indifferent to my own desires. She shall not be Madame Gervase,—oh, no! She shall not be asked to attend to the pot-au-feu; she shall act the rôle for which she has dressed to-night; she shall be another Charmazel to another Araxes, though the wild days of Egypt are no more!”
A sudden shiver ran through him as he spoke, and instinctively he drew the white folds of his picturesque garb closer about him.
“There is a chill wind sweeping in from the desert,” he said, “an evil, sandy breath tasting of mummy-dust blown through the crevices of the tombs of kings. Let us go in.”
Murray looked at him in a kind of dull despair.