Hilda exclaimed, involuntarily: “A dagger!” Even in Egypt men are not frequently suffering from dagger wounds, and the word has a shudder in its sound.
Mr Muirhead said, smilingly: “There is generally romance surrounding a dagger wound, sir. If it would not bore or distress you, perhaps, some time later, you might feel inclined to tell us as much as you care.”
Raife thought to himself: “Oh, hang these people. Why don’t they go away? She’s a charming girl, though.”
As he thought, Mr Muirhead, with a promptitude characteristic of Americans, produced his card, and, proffering it, said: “Here is my card, sir. I am a very humble American citizen. My daughter and I occupy the suite on the first floor, facing north. I shall take it as a compliment, if you should have a dull few minutes to spare, that you should honour us with a visit. We shall be here, or hereabouts, for a week or two.”
Even in Cairo the warmth of the old gentleman’s invitation appeared rather sudden to Raife. However, he had not been in the United States, and had met few Americans. He certainly had not met one who combined so much courtliness of manner and dignity as Mr Reginald Pomeroy Muirhead, of the Fifth State Bank of Illinois, and father of a charming daughter with a musical voice.
Raife forgot he was a woman-hater. He replied, “I’m sorry I haven’t got a card with me, and, if I had, I couldn’t get at it with this confounded shoulder. My name is Remington, sir, and I’m an Englishman. I will try to avail myself of your very kind invitation.”
As they departed, Raife, for the first time, saw those lips that helped Hilda Muirhead “to talk and laugh, and to sing.” He also encountered her eyes that were for the purpose “of normal sight and restrained emotion.” On this occasion it was a sympathetic emotion.
When they had gone out into the hot sun for one of those expeditions on donkeys, that are such an attraction to visitors to Egypt, Raife contemplated. In the end he had determined that he would not accept Mr Muirhead’s invitation to visit them in his suite. He hated the sound of the word “suite,” anyhow.
It is dull work for a strong young man to recline in a wicker chair, to smoke and to read all day in a hotel, whether it be in Cairo or elsewhere. To refuse the advances of a hundred eyes of every hue, and to maintain a stoical indifference to every one around, because one has suffered at the hands of two women was a brave endeavour. Raife confined himself to his own rooms and dined in solitary state for three days. At the end of that time his desire for companionship of some kind was uncontrollable.
Raife sat in the foyer once more, and Mr Muirhead came across to him with an air of urbanity. “Ah, Mr Remington! We have not seen you during the last few days. I hope your wound has not been troubling you.”