Long ago, in her untroubled college days, she had been one woman, with one mind and one purpose—her intellectual work. Egypt had changed her. The great mother of the world-civilization had revealed to her some of the amazing secrets hidden in the human heart; from her immortal treasury of things good and evil she had bestowed upon her child the jewel of suffering, the pearl of passion. As a devout pupil Margaret had knelt at her knee.
In her very modern surroundings she felt quite another being from the Margaret who had seen the vision of Akhnaton in the Valley. She had allowed herself to forget that she had been instrumental in developing the psychic side of Michael's nature. The thought of it now seemed absurd; it was probable that her surroundings and her work had been accountable for the visions. Her imagination had unconsciously pictured them.
And yet there was a sound argument against this common-sense, practical view of the thing, for she had visualized almost exactly the type and individuality of a character in history of whom she was totally ignorant. Even in the modern hotel, in her everyday surroundings, she could see with extraordinary clearness the rays of light which had surrounded that head. Nothing could ever obliterate the picture of the suffering Pharaoh from her memory.
She had left the breakfast-room, and as she waited for the lift to descend, she was almost afraid that it would bring Millicent down with it from the floor above. But it did not. There was a grain of disappointment in the elements which made up Margaret's feelings as she saw that it was empty. The Lampton combative instinct demanded a fight to the finish, and an open, broad-daylight attack.
CHAPTER XVII
Margaret kept her promise to Freddy. During the three days which she spent with the Iretons nothing transpired to make it possible for her to break it. No word, either by letter or by native word of mouth, had arrived from Michael.
Even to Hadassah's generous mind, Michael Amory's conduct seemed strange and inexplicable. His silence, in a manner, condemned him as casual, even if he was not guilty. She began to wonder if he had been carried off his feet by Millicent, if he had been weak and forgetful of Margaret for a little time. Millicent would certainly have done her best to deprive him of his higher instincts and ideals. If he had been faithless to Margaret, he was the type of man who would exaggerate the sin.
When she reviewed the situation calmly, she found that there was much to be said from Freddy Lampton's standpoint, and Margaret herself was growing more and more wounded by her lover's conduct—not so much by the fact that Millicent had been in the desert with him, for she knew the woman's persistence, but by the lack of effort which he had made to explain the situation to her. Even if he had allowed himself to be carried away by Millicent's wiles, she would have forgiven him, for Margaret was very human, and she was no fool. Never had she imagined that her lover was a saint. What she felt it harder and harder every day to forgive was his silence, his want of courage, his lack of trust.
During those three days Margaret's beautiful world and life seemed to have crumbled into dust, just as she had seen the unearthed objects in Egyptian tombs crumble into atoms when the first breath of air from the desert reached them. Her contact with the world of to-day had melted her romance of the desert into thin air. It was a beautiful vision which her strange life had created; it had flourished during her short stay in the Valley. It was not suited for the practical everyday world.
While she was with the Iretons, she tried to interest herself in Hadassah's work as much as possible. She contrived very bravely to put aside her wretchedness and at least appear interested and eager.