"They're having the vicar—or is it the rector?—to tea. They asked him this morning before your message came," Arlee explained. She did not explain that the vicar, or the rector, had imagined, in accepting, that she, too, was to be of that tea party on the boat and was even now inquiring zealously of her of the Evershams.
"Here's Mr. Hill," said Lady Claire.
Miss Falconer stirred; there was room for the fifth chair between her and Arlee. Lady Claire also stirred; there was room between her and Robert Falconer. And there Billy B. Hill seated himself after a general exchange of greetings.
"How were the bazaars?" said Arlee gaily across the table.
"You mean the department store of Mr. Isaac Cohen," Billy laughed back. "They are all under him, you know."
"Not really!" Falconer exclaimed, in disillusionment. "It rather takes it out, doesn't it, to know it is so commercialized."
"What did you expect—it is the twentieth century," Miss Falconer retorted, putting aside her knitting as the tea things arrived.
"Sometimes it is," said Arlee.
"I think it's more so than ever, here," declared Lady Claire. "Egypt's so frightfully civilized——"
"Not when you're camping in the desert."