Part 82 (1/2)

”Very well,” he declared. ”I shall go to--to the devil, I think. Yes, I will. I shall give away my money, all of it, and go to the devil.”

It was absurd enough, but the absurdity of it did not strike either of them then.

”Oh, WON'T you go to Egypt?” she begged. ”Won't you, PLEASE?”

He was firm. ”No,” he declared. ”Not unless you go with me. Ah--ah--Miss Martha, will you?”

She hesitated, wrung her hands--and surrendered. ”Oh, I suppose I shall have to,” she said.

He did not dare believe it.

”But--but I don't want you to have to,” he cried. ”YOU mustn't marry me for--for Egypt, Miss Martha. Of course, it is too much to ask; no doubt it is quite impossible, but you--you mustn't marry me unless you really--ah--want to.”

And then a very astonis.h.i.+ng thing happened. Martha turned to him, and tears were in her eyes.

”Oh,” she cried, breathlessly, ”do you suppose there is a woman in this world who wouldn't want to marry a man like YOU?”

After a while they discovered that it was raining. As a matter of fact, it had been raining for some time and was now raining hard, but as Galusha said, it didn't make a bit of difference, really. They put up the umbrella, which until now had been quite forgotten, and walked home along the wet path, between the dripping weeds and bushes. It was almost dark and, as they pa.s.sed the lighthouse, the great beacon blazed from the tower.

Galusha was babbling like a brook, endlessly but joyful.

”Miss Martha--” he began. Then he laughed aloud, a laugh of sheer happiness. ”It--it just occurred to me,” he exclaimed. ”How extraordinary I didn't think of it before. I sha'n't have to call you Miss Martha now, shall I? It is very wonderful, isn't it? Dear me, yes!

Very wonderful!”

Martha laughed, too. ”I'm afraid other people are goin' to think it is very ridiculous,” she said. ”And perhaps it is. Two middle-aged, settled folks like us startin' up all at once and gettin' married. I know I should laugh if it was anybody else.”

But Galusha stoutly maintained there was nothing ridiculous about it. It was wonderful, that was all.

”Besides,” he declared, ”we are not old; we are just beginning to be young, you and I. Personally, I feel as if I could jump over a bush and annihilate a--ah--June bug, as Luce did that night when we went out to see the moon.”

Luce himself was at the door waiting to be let in. He regarded the pair with the air of condescending boredom which the feline race a.s.sumes when confronted with the idiosyncrasies of poor humanity. Possibly he was reflecting that, at least, he knew enough to go in when it rained.

Martha opened the door, but Galusha paused for a moment on the threshold.

”Do you know,” he said, ”that, except--ah--occasionally, in wet weather, it scarcely ever rains in Egypt?”

CHAPTER XXIV

(A letter from Mrs. Galusha Bangs to Miss Lulie Hallett.)

Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo, Egypt, February tenth.

MY DEAR LULIE:

Well, as you can see by this hotel letter paper, here we are, actually here. Of course we are only a little way toward where we are going, but this is Egypt, and I am beginning to believe it. Of course, I can't yet quite believe it is really truly me that is doing these wonderful things and seeing these wonderful places. About every other morning still I wake up and think what a splendid dream I have had and wonder if it isn't time for me to call Primmie and see about getting breakfast. And then it comes to me that it isn't a dream at all and that I don't have to get up unless I want to, that I don't have to do anything unless I want to, and that everything a sensible person could possibly want to do I CAN do, and have a free conscience besides, which is considerable.

I don't mean that I lay a-bed much later than I used to. I never could abide not getting up at a regular time, and so half past seven generally finds me ready to go down to breakfast. But, oh, it is a tremendous satisfaction to think that I could sleep later if I ever should want to.

Although, of course, I can't conceive of my ever wanting to.

Well, I mustn't fill this whole letter with nonsense about the time I get up in the morning. There is so much to write about that I don't know where to begin. I do wish you could see this place, Lulie. I wish you could be here now looking out of my room window at the crowds in the street. I could fill a half dozen pages telling you about the clothes the people wear, although I must say that I have seen some whose clothes could be all told about in one sentence, and not a very long sentence at that. But you see all kinds of clothes, uniforms, and everyday things such as we wear, and robes and fezzes and turbans and I don't know what.

You know what a fez is, of course. It's shaped like a brown-bread tin and they wear it little end up with a ta.s.sel hanging down. And turbans!