And so there was silence in the boat until it touched the landing-steps opposite the great hotel, rising dark in the white desert moonshine.
On returning to his room Hubert Waldron found a telegram from Madrid awaiting him. It was from an intimate friend of his, signed “Beatriz.”
He flung himself into a cane chair and re-read the long and rather rambling message. Then he rose, lit a cigarette savagely, and stood gazing across the broad moonlit waters. That telegram was a disquieting one. Its sender was Beatriz Rojas de Ruata, of the Madrid Opera, the tall, thin, black-haired dancer, who had of late been the rage in Petersburg and Paris, and who was now contemplating a season in London.
From life in the slums of Barcelona, where her father was a wharf labourer, she had in three short years risen to the top of her profession, and was now the idol of the jeunesse dorée of Madrid; though, be it said, the only man she really cared for was the calm-faced English diplomat who had never flattered her, and who had always treated her with such profound and courtly respect.
But that message had sorely perturbed him. It was an impetuous demand that he should return from Egypt and meet her in London. A year ago he had promised to show her London, and now that she had accepted a most lucrative engagement she held him to his promise.
“Yes,” he murmured to himself as he paced the room with its bed enshrouded in mosquito curtains, “I’ve been a confounded fool. I thought myself more level-headed, but, like all the others, I suppose, I’ve succumbed to the bright eyes and sweet smiles of a pretty woman.”
For a full twenty minutes or so he pondered, uncertain what reply to send. In any case, even if he left for London on the following morning, he could not arrive at Charing Cross for fully ten days.
At last he took up his cane and hat, and descending in the lift, crossed the great hotel garden, making his way down the short hill towards the town. It was then nearly eleven o’clock, and all was silent and deserted except for the armed Arab watchman in his hooded cloak. On his right as he walked lay a small public garden, a prettily laid out space rising on the huge boulders which form the gorge of the Nile—a place filled by high feathery palms, flaming poinsettias, and a wealth of tropical flowers.
But as he passed the entrance in the shadow there suddenly broke upon his ears a woman’s voice, speaking rapidly in Italian—a language with which he was well conversant.
He halted instantly. The voice was Lola’s! In the shadow he could just distinguish two forms, that of a man and a woman.