Part 19 (2/2)
He indicated the gaily-dressed crowd.
”I insist,” Millicent Mervill said, and as she spoke, she stretched out her hand and nipped out the book Michael had in his coat-pocket. ”Now you'll have to come and get it, and I'll order tea. Fresh tea, for two, please, Mohammed,” she said to the waiter who was standing near her table.
Michael turned reluctantly and walked up the flight of steps which took him on to the hotel-terrace.
”How nice!” Mrs. Mervill said happily. ”Now tell me where you have been. I heard you were in Cairo. Were you going back without seeing me?”
”How did you know I was in Cairo?”
”Ah, that's telling! First of all you tell me what you have been doing. You look tired.” Her voice was tender. ”You are not happy?
And I have been very good!”
”I am tired,” Michael said. ”Cairo tires me after the desert. I have been to el-Azhar.”
”To the university! I want to go there. If we had only gone together!
Why didn't you take me?”
A strange smile changed Michael's expression. If Millicent Mervill had been there! He thought of her in that courtyard, in her luxurious modern clothes. How absurd her becoming hat would have seemed, how grotesque her daintily slippered feet! How little she divined his thoughts.
”What took you there to-day? Tell me.”
”I have an old friend there, a student.”
”A native, do you mean?”
”Yes, a native from the country south of Gondokoro.”
”Gondokoro? How did you come to know him?”
Millicent Mervill's curiosity was unlimited. Her persistence resembled the perseverance which is Islam.
”It's a long story,” Michael said. ”I always go to see him when I come to Cairo. He's a mystic and a religious recluse. I like him. We are great friends.”
Mohammed had returned with the tea, and Michael, who was more than ready for it, lapsed into silence while he ate his Huntley and Palmer biscuits and drank his tea. His thoughts went back to el-Azhar.
His silence lasted for some time. He was very far from Shepheard's Hotel. Margaret had not forgotten her promise. She was closer than Millicent.
”You are not very polite--I have had to pump you with questions, or you would not have spoken at all. I have been patient while you drank your tea; now talk to me.”
”Please forgive me, but you know I did not want to come. I was hungry and I was going back to tea. I am not good company.”
”You didn't want to come?” She laughed. ”Really, your rudeness is refres.h.i.+ng! The desert has made you worse than ever.”
Michael looked into her beautiful eyes. ”I am in no temper for banter.
You know what I mean, you know why I didn't want to have tea with you or see you. Rudeness between us is out of the question.”
”All this because you're a dear old puritan. Or is it because”--she hardened her eyes--”because you're afraid of the dark-haired girl? Has she forgiven you?” In the same breath she said, ”When are we going on our journey? It's my turn soon.”
”What do you mean?” he said. ”I wish you wouldn't talk like that. We are going on no journey.”
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