"We'll drive you to the Agency in the car," said Helena, and they moved away together.
In a crowded lane at the back of the pavilion people were clamouring for their carriages and complaining of the idleness and even rudeness of the Arab runners, but Helena's automobile was brought up instantly, and when it was moving off, with the General inside, Helena at the wheel, and Gordon by her side, the natives touched their foreheads to the Colonel and said, "Bismillah!"
As soon as the car was clear away, and Gordon was alone with Helena for the first time, there was one of those privateering passages of love between them which lovers know how to smuggle through even in public and the eye of day.
"Well!"
"Well!"
"Everybody has been saying the sweetest things to me and you've never yet uttered a word."
"Did you really expect me to speak—there—before all those people? But it was splendid, glorious, magnificent!" And then, the steering-wheel notwithstanding, her gauntletted left hand went down to where his right hand was waiting for it.
Crossing the iron bridge over the river, they drew up at the British Agency, a large, ponderous, uninspired edifice, with its ambuscaded back to the city and its defiant front to the Nile, and there, as Gordon got down, the General, who still looked hot and excited, said—
"You'll dine with us to-night, my boy—usual hour, you know?"
"With pleasure, sir," said Gordon, and then Helena leaned over and whispered—