His Hour

The senses were improper things which Aunt Clara for her part never

quite understood why the Almighty should have had the bad taste to

permit in human beings.

But the Sphinx was again talking to Tamara--only this time in the voice

of a young man--who without a word of warning had risen from a bank of

sand where he had been stretched motionless and unperceived.

"A fine goddess, is she not, Madame," he said. And to add to the

impertinence of a stranger's addressing her at all, Tamara was further

incensed by the voice being that of a foreigner!

But it was an extraordinarily pleasant voice, deep and tuneful, and the

"Insolent" stood over six feet high and was as slender as Tamara

herself almost--in spite of his shoulders and air of strength.

She hardly knew what to answer, he had spoken with such ease and

assurance, almost with the tone of one who hails a fellow worshiper and

has a right to exchange sympathy.

Tamara had been startled, too, by the sudden rising of the man when she

thought she was alone, but at last she answered slowly, "Yes."

"I often come here at night," he went on, "when those devils of

tourists have gone back in their devil of a tramway. Then you get her

alone--and she says things to you. You think so, too, isn't it?"

"Yes," again said Tamara, convulsed with wonder at herself for speaking

at all.

"At first I was angry when I saw your camel against the sky and saw you

come and dismount and sit and look, I like to have her all to myself.

But afterwards when I watched you I saw you meant no harm--you aren't a

tourist, and so you did not matter."

"Indeed," said Tamara, the fine in her grasping the situation, the

Underdown training resenting its unconventionality.

"Yes," he continued, unconcerned. "You can't look at that face and feel

we any of us matter much--can you?"

"No," said Tamara.

"How many thousand years has she been telling people that? But it

drives me mad, angry, furious, to see the tourists! I want to strangle

them all!"

He clenched his hand and his eyes flashed.

Tamara peeped up at him--he was not looking at her--but at the Sphinx.

She saw that he was extremely attractive in spite of having un-English

clothes, which were not worn with ease. Gray flannel of unspeakable

cut, and boots which would have made her brother Tom shriek with

laughter. The Underdown part of her whispered, could he be quite a

gentleman? But when he turned his face full upon her in the moonlight,

that doubt vanished completely. He might even be a very great

gentleman, she thought.