"No." She shook her head. "Nobody ever seems to here. Besides you'd much better not, Paul."
"I'd love to. I know what you're going to say, but I don't believe it. I like dirt and smells. They're just as mysterious and magical as colour and scent."
"Rubbish," said Muriel, who had come up behind them. "Eh, Major?"
"Gad, yes. Poet or not, Kestern, you wouldn't like Port Suez."
Ursula glanced at them. "For all that, Paul's right," she said. And she smiled at him.
A sort of fierce flame leapt in Paul at that. He had hard work to control himself. The hid passion of his nature was asserting itself. He threw his head back and laughed. Then he caught Ursula by the hand. "Oh, come on!" he cried. "Ursula, I'll race you round the deck."
"Can't," she said laughing, "in a nightie. But I might manage to walk."
She slipped her hand into his arm, and they strolled off. For the moment it was enough for Paul that they two walked together.
That morning's sun, as it set at last over Egypt, lit up the peninsula of Sinai with fierce red flames. The hot day had drawn slowly out, and most people were in deck chairs, with their books on their laps as the sun went down. Even the Major had been reading, a novel by Mr. Charles Garvice. Earlier on, the three had merrily attacked him for his choice, and he had stoutly defended himself. "That's all very well," he said, "but the sort of stuff they put in novels these days, beats me. I don't want to read a bally sermon—can't understand it either—and half the rest a fellow's ashamed to read in ladies' company. Now this chap, what's his name?" (he looked back to the cover—"Never can remember authors' names")—"Garvice, you always know what you've got with him."
"Milk and honey," said Muriel in her abrupt way, staring out over the peninsula in the direction of the Promised Land.