Part 12 (1/2)
”What would be the good?” he said. ”You belong to some one else.”
”A nice sort of belonging!” she said, disconsolately. ”He doesn't care a sc.r.a.p what becomes of me.”
”Can't you possibly divorce him?” Michael did not mean that he would marry her if she did; his mind was groping for some solution of the problem.
Millicent Mervill remained silent. ”I could let him divorce me,” she said at last.
”Don't!” Michael said intuitively. His voice amused the woman.
”I don't mean to,” she said. ”Why should any woman be divorced because she lives the same life as her husband does when he is apart from her?”
”You don't, and aren't going to,” Michael said earnestly.
”I would, Michael, with you--only with you.”
”I wish you could have been friends with Miss Lampton instead of hating her,” he said sadly.
”Pouf!” Millicent Mervill cried. ”Thanks for your Miss Lampton--I can do without her friends.h.i.+p! I prefer hating her.”
”You are so perverse and foolish and . . .” Michael paused ”. . . and difficult.”
”No, loving, you mean, loving, Michael--that's all I'm difficult about.”
CHAPTER VIII
They were back in the valley again and splendid work was going on at the camp. Another two weeks' hard digging had done wonders, and Margaret and Michael had found each other again.
In the dawn, two mornings after the dance, when the mysterious figures, heralding the light, were abandoning themselves to their G.o.d on the desert sands, Mike had seen Margaret standing at her hut-door, watching, as he himself so often watched, for the glory which was of Aton to flood the desert with light. Meg's eyes the day before had told Michael that she was unhappy; he knew now that she had not slept.
While the white figures were still bent earthwards and the little streak of light was scarcely more than visible, Michael went to her and asked her forgiveness.
”Forgive me,” he said. ”I need forgiveness.”
Meg took his hand. ”I hate not being friends. Thank you.”
”It made me miserable,” he said.
”Then let's forget. I was stupid. This is all too big and great for such smallness.” She indicated the coming of the unearthly light.
”Thy dawning, O Aton,” Michael said.
Margaret smiled. ”He was very far from us at a.s.suan.”
”He was there. I stifled my consciousness of him, Meg.”
”Don't,” she said. ”Let's go forward.”
”I know what you mean,” he said. ”Regrets are weak, foolish.”
”I don't want to bring the hotel at a.s.suan into this valley. Let's just watch the sun transform its infinite mystery into our waking, working, everyday world--if Egypt can be an everyday world.”
”May I say Akhnaton's beautiful hymn to you? It is about the sunrise.