And thus he entered into the Kingdom of the Men of the World.
CHAPTER XX
THE next morning, Martin enquiring for Miss Merriton learned that she had already started on a sketching excursion with Hassan, the old, one-eyed dragoman. Her destination was unknown; but the fact that Hassan had taken charge of a basket containing luncheon augured a late return. Martin spent a sorry forenoon at Karnak which, deprived of the vivifying influence of the only goddess that had ever graced its precincts, seemed dead, forlorn and vain. It was a day, too, of khamsin, when hot stones and sand are an abomination to the gasping and perspiring sense. And yet Lucilla had gone off into the desert. She would faint at her easel. She would get sunstroke. She would be brought back dead. And anxious Martin joined a languid luncheon table. There was talk of the absent one. If she had not been Lucilla they would have accounted her mad.
He sat through the sweltering afternoon on the eastern terrace over a novel which he could not read. Last night he had held her passionately in his arms. Her surrender had been absolute and eloquent avowal. Already the masculine instinct of possession spoke. Why did she now elude him? He had counted on a morning of joy that would have eclipsed the night. Why had she gone? Deep thought brought comforting solution. To-morrow they were to migrate to Assouan. This was their last day in Luxor where, up to now, Lucilla had not made one single sketch. Now, had she not told him in Brantôme that her object in going to Egypt was to paint it? Generously she had put aside her art for his sake—until the last moment. Of this last moment she was taking advantage. Still—why not a little word to him? He turned to his book. But the thrill of the great kiss pulsated through his veins. He gave himself up to dreams.
Later in the afternoon, Watney-Holcombe, fly-whisk in one hand and handkerchief in the other, took him into the cool, darkened bar, and supplied him with icy drink and told him tales of his early days in San Francisco. A few other men lounged in and joined them. Desultory talk furnished an excuse for systematic imbibing of cold liquid. When Martin reached the upper air he found that Lucilla had already arrived and had gone to her room for rest. He only saw her when she came down late for dinner. She was dressed in a close-fitting charmeuse gown of a strange blue shade like an Egyptian evening. Her pleasant greeting differed no whit from that of twenty-four hours ago. Not by the flicker of a brown eyelash did she betray recollection of last night’s impassioned happenings.
She talked of her excursion to the eager and reproachful group. A sandstorm had ruined a masterpiece, her best brushes, her hair and old Hassan’s temper. She had swallowed half Sahara with her food. Her very donkey, cocking round an angry eye, had called her the most opprobrious term in his vocabulary—an ass. Altogether she had enjoyed herself immensely.
“You ought to have come, Martin,” she said coolly.
He made the obvious retort. “You did not give me the chance.”
“If only you had been up at dawn,” she laughed.
“I was,” he replied. “I lay awake most of the night and I saw the sunrise from my bedroom window.”