His Hour

Now Tamara could see his face better as he looked up to her superior

height on the camel. He had a little moustache and peculiarly chiseled

lips--too chiseled for a man, she thought for a moment, until she

noticed the firm jaw. His eyes were sleepy--slightly Oriental in their

setting, and looked very dark, and yet something made her think that in

daylight they might be blue or gray.

He did not smile at all; as he spoke his face was grave, but when

something made him laugh as they turned the next corner, it transformed

him. It was the rippling spontaneous gaiety of a child.

Two goats had got loose from opposite hovels and were butting at one

another in the middle of the road.

He pulled up his horse and watched.

"I like any fight," he said.

But the goats fled in fear of him, so they went on.

Tamara was wondering why she felt so stupid. She wanted to ask her

strange companion a number of questions. Who he was? What he was doing

at the Sphinx?--and indeed in Egypt. Why he had spoken to her at

all?--and yet appeared absolutely indifferent as they rode along! He

had not asked her a single question or expressed the least curiosity.

For some reason she felt piqued.

Presently they emerged at the end of the village where there was a

small lake left by the retirement of the Nile. The moon, almost full,

was mirrored in it. The scene was one of extreme beauty. The pyramids

appeared an old rose pink, and everything else in tones of

sapphire--not the green-blue of moonlight in other countries. All was

breathlessly still and lifeless. Only they two, and the camel boys,

alone in the night.

The dark line of trees which border the road faced them, and they rode

slowly in that direction.

"You are going to the hotel, I suppose?" he said. "I will see you

safely to it."

And they climbed the bank on to the avenue from Cairo.

"And you?" Tamara could not prevent herself from asking. "Where do you

go?"

"To hell, sometimes," he answered, and his eyes were full of mist, "but

tonight I shall go to bed for a change."

Tamara was nonplussed. She felt intensely commonplace. She was even a

little cross with herself. Why had she asked a question?

The Arab horse now took it into his head to curvet and bound in the air

for no apparent reason, but the young man did not stir an inch--he

laughed.