“Need you ask? Well, my wife and sister-in-law would probably be able to tell you, from the study of prophecy, the exact year or day you may expect the explosion, but I, as a practical man, will merely say that I shall be very much surprised if you are still at Jerusalem when your seven years are over. The Pope may be established there, and your temple turned into a second St Peter’s, for all I can say.”
“Ah, we shell worrk wid de Orthodox against dem.”
“Don’t be too sure. Neustria and Scythia united against us three years ago, you know. The two Emperors are very friendly, and there is time for their respective Churches to become friendly too. Well, there will always be a welcome for you at Sitt Zeynab, Chevalier, if you are driven out.”
“Nefer! nefer! Wid all Issrael, I will die fightink in de Temple courts before Yerushalem shell fall again into de hends off de Chentiles. No, Count, we hef receifed our punishment, efen double, for all our sins. You hef lost your name. De Keptifity iss ofer for efer.”
He bowed them off the wharf, and returned to his self-imposed task of superintending the loading of the ship, as if opposition had made him only the more determined to go on with it. Cyril and his wife walked some way in silence, and when he spoke, it was not of the Chevalier or his scheme.
“When we left Sitt Zeynab, I little thought I should be glad to return to it,” he said at last.
“I know; you have always felt you were in exile there. But to me it is a haven of peace. I can’t feel that you are safe anywhere else.”
“Do you know, Ernestine, that when we left it last winter I was brimming over with ambition, though I didn’t say so to you? I had an idea that my old powers might return if I plunged suddenly into the midst of the old life.”
“Yes, I thought so when you were so determined to answer Michael’s appeal for your help in person.”
“And you never said so? Wise woman! Well, here I am returning meekly, quite shorn of my aspirations. Michael is safely married, but to the very last person we should have thought of for him then. Usk is married too, not at all to the girl who seemed obviously suitable. The Thracian finances are placed on a sound footing, but thanks far more to Félicia’s money than to any skill of mine. Scythia is out of Palestine, but Malasorte’s the friend, not Mortimer. And as for myself, instead of juggling with crowns, I am thankful to be rescued from a lunatic asylum. I not only did no good, but gave a great deal of trouble to other people. In future we will take our politics quietly, looking on at them from a distance.”