"Good-bye, old girl," he said. "Take care of yourself."
As Meg walked back to her hotel, she comforted herself with the assurance that Michael Ireton would find some way to help her. She visualized to herself repeatedly the personality of Hadassah and her expression of absolute confidence in Michael's Amory's loyalty and honour. Her finer senses told her that it was natures like Hadassah's, natures keenly sensitive to purity and uprightness, which could judge people like Mike justly. The magnet of righteousness draws kindred souls together. If Hadassah had doubted, then indeed she might have listened to Freddy's counsel. Freddy was just and splendid in his way, but Margaret did not blind herself to the fact that his knowledge of human nature, even though it was singularly correct in most instances, was derived from a more material source of evidence. His judgment was governed by his practical common sense rather than by his super-senses. Hadassah's nature was tuned to the inner consciousness of human beings, as a musician's ear is tuned to the harmonies and discords of music, even to the hundredth part of a tone.
If a woman like Hadassah had doubted Michael, or given a moment's thought to the gossip of the dragoman, Margaret's faith might have been troubled. But as matters stood at present, she knew that she herself had a finer understanding of Michael than Freddy possessed, in spite of his years, as compared to her own months of friendship. She tried to strengthen herself against the invasion of unhappy thoughts by thinking over in her mind all the various objects of beauty she had seen in the Iretons' house. The picture of the cool courtyard, with the dark-leaved lebbek-tree reaching up to the romantic balcony, brought a smile to her lips. It was such an ideal setting for an Eastern Romeo and Juliet. Busy as she knew the Iretons' life to be, their mediaeval home suggested the repose and the charm and the romance of Love in Idleness!
CHAPTER XV
To assure herself of her complete confidence in the arguments which she had used to Freddy and of her own heart's happiness, as a thing widely apart from her anxiety, Margaret dressed herself in her most becoming frock that same evening for her first appearance at the hotel table d'hôte. She sat at a little table by herself, in the enormous dining-room. The season was far advanced; the tourists in Egypt had all returned to Cairo, there to disperse to their various countries.
There were many fair and attractive women in the room, of widely varied types—Americans, Austrians and English: that was how they took their place in the scale of beauty in Margaret's opinion. Amongst them all there was perhaps no one who was more commented upon and admired than herself. Sitting by herself, for one thing, provoked curiosity, while for another her claim to good looks had the high quality of distinguished individuality; in an assembly of well-dressed women of the world, Margaret, like Hadassah, could never be overlooked.
She had been out of the world of fashion and frivolity for so long that the gay scene interested her and made it easy for her to temporarily put aside her troubles. She had lived in the Valley, studying the lives and customs of lost civilizations until they had become a part of her own life. Now she found it amusing to be back again amongst the men and women of to-day, people who were, as she reminded herself, in their own little way creating history. They were as typical of the world's evolution in the twentieth century as the Pharaohs in their tombs and the painted figures of men and women and dancing girls on the temple and tomb-walls were typical of the world's evolution three thousand years ago.
After dinner she drank her coffee in the fine lounge of the hotel, under tall palm-trees, while a Hungarian band played music which stirred her blood and pulses. It made her feel very much alone and a little desolate. She had been happier before the music began; it made calls upon her heart, it gave re-birth to a thousand wants. Her sense of loneliness increased as she watched more than one pair of lovers gradually drift off and settle themselves down somewhere out of sight. She heard one radiant couple making arrangements for going to see the Pyramids by moonlight.
She had never seen the Pyramids or the Sphinx. Perhaps when she was staying with the Iretons, they would take her to see them. She had certainly no desire to make the excursion alone.
As she thought of the Pyramids, and Mike's association with them, a wave of hate and rage spread over Margaret like a blush. She wondered if any of the curious eyes of the tourists had noticed it; she had been conscious of being freely criticized all the evening. She looked about her quickly. The place had become almost devoid of young people; only some elderly men and women were left, reclining in big chairs. With the absence of youth, Margaret's spirits sank very low; it was not bracing to her strained nerves and lonely condition to sit with the elderly invalids and watch them passing the time away in a semi-dozing condition until it was the recognized hour for going to bed.