She was seated on a low chair at the other side of the window. Her eyes were timidly fixed on his face. He had come from Egypt, the land of the inexplicable Pyramids and the inscrutable Sphynx. To her this cousin William's inner life was as dark a mystery as the riddle of the Pyramids, and his face as baffling as the face of the Sphynx. Until now she had heard men speak, and had attended to their words. When he spoke now she regarded less the words than the unuttered thoughts attending upon them. The "How d'ye do?" of other men required only a straightforward answer, without thought beyond the scope of the question. The "How d'ye do?" of her cousin came to her attended by veiled figures of strange aspect, that gave the simple question a volume and depth the mightiest questions never had before.
Was it because he who had been the ogre of her younger years had become the protector of her orphan maidenhood, and the air of the ogre still hung vaguely around him in her mind? Was it the influence of remote consanguinity operating, as blood does, between those of the same stock who have met for the first time when grown up? Was it the background afforded by the Nile and the sacred crocodile, and the mysterious barren silent rows of the Pyramids, with those features of men and women lying hid in folds of linen and layers of asphaltum, with, save the eyes, all the features, the lips that were kissed by lover or mother, still unchanged, still the same lip, the same dimple in the cheek, the same curve in the temple as when Thebes and Memphis conned the stars, the Paris and the London of three thousand years ago, and taught the world all the world knew?
Then before her mind rolled forth the plains of purposeless white sand, overhung by the plains of unbroken blue sky, and, blazing in the blue sky, the fierce sun. And here, against the homely sash of that old familiar window, that commonplace sash and frame, down which she had seen the dreary rain of weary winter days slide to the sodden ground, he leaned; on his face and hands the brown harvest of Egyptian suns, in his dark eyes the strange knowledge of awful arts and rites wrought in labyrinth and in cave by Egypt's ancient priests, and in his tones the softness of a land where no waves beat and no winds blow loudly enough to drown the timid whispers of a maid.
"Are you thinking of Egypt?" she asked in a low voice.
"No. I am thinking of Maud," he answered, without moving. Then, rousing from his reverie, he said: "Yes, Mr. Grey was most agreeable last night, and I am sure we shall get on very well together. One of the things I had to speak to him about was a matter of business detail. The other, Maud, was of the first moment, the arrangement you and I came to yesterday about my acting as your personal guardian."
"What did he say about that?" asked Maud aloud. She thought he had not been thinking of Egypt. His mind had not been far away, as she had supposed, but close at home, near where they were, busy with thoughts of her. Was it strange a man who had that dark sad face, and those deep eyes, and those mystic memories, and so short a knowledge of her, should, while looking so out of that old familiar window, think of her, who knew nothing of the world and was so commonplace? Was that strange? No doubt, in her, in this secluded place, and with her humdrum life, the objects entering into which were all around her clad in the threadbare interest of daily use, it was not strange that, being who he was, and coming as he did, she felt a great interest in him. But that he should concern himself so much about her was inexplicable. Egypt had been to her, since first she knew how to hold a book, the land of her dreams. Her only wish for travel sprang from a desire to see the site and monuments of the race which gave the arts and sciences to Europe. And here was her cousin William come back from that land, and, while lost in a reverie which looked proper to the country of the Nile, thinking of her, Maud.
The young man paused awhile before answering her question. Still his face wore the same abstracted look as he replied:
"At first Mr. Grey seemed surprised and shocked. I think it appeared to him as if he had been slighted. I intended no slight to him, and I don't think my manner showed anything of the kind. At all events, all went well, and he seemed quite satisfied once the first surprise had passed. How did he hurt his knee, Maud?"
"I do not know. I am very sorry to hear he has hurt himself. When did it happen?"
"He said some time ago. It gave him dreadful pain last evening. I never shall forget the shout it wrung from him. It was like the shout I once heard of a man who awoke in the jaws of a crocodile."