WHAT WE SAID: WHAT WE HEARD

"Biddy, you were never wiser in your life," I exploded as I got her on the bench. "You warned me there wasn't a second to lose. I've lost years already, and I can't stand it the sixtieth part of a minute longer, without telling you how I love you!"

"My goodness!" gasped Biddy. "Do be serious for once, Duffer. This is no time for jokes. Don't you know you've delayed and delayed in spite of my advice, till you've practically lost that girl? And if there's any chance left—"

"The only chance I want is with you," I said. "Darling, I want you with my heart and soul, and all there is of me. Have I any chance?"

"And how long since were you taken this way?" demanded Biddy, at her most Irish, staring at me through the darkness of the little dim room in the pylon.

"Ever since you were an adorable darling of four years," I assured her. "Only I was interrupted by going to Eton and Oxford, and your being married. But the love has always been there, in a deep undertone. The music's never stopped once. It never could. And when I saw you on the Laconia—"

"You fell in love with Monny!" breathlessly she cut me short.

"Nothing of the kind," I contradicted her fiercely. "You ordered me to fall in love with Miss Gilder. I objected politely. You overruled my objections, or tried to. I let you think you had. And for a while after that, you know perfectly well, Biddy, the Set gave me no time to think any thoughts at all, connected with myself."

"You poor fellow, you have been a slave!" The soft-hearted angel was caught in the trap set for her pity.

"And a martyr. A double-dyed martyr. I deserve a reward. Give it to me, Biddy. Promise, here in this beautiful Marriage Temple, to marry me. Let me take care of you all the rest of your life."

"My patience, a nice reward for you!" she snapped. "Let you be hoist by the same petard that's always lying around to hoist me! What do you think of me, Duffer—and after all the proofs we've just had of the dangerous creature I am? Why, the whole trouble at Luxor was on my account. Even you must see that. Monny and I wouldn't have been let into Rechid's house if those secret men hadn't persuaded him to play into their hands, and revenge himself on you men as well as on us, for interfering with Mabel. It was their plot, not Rechid's, we escaped from! And it was theirs at the Temple of MÛt, too. Rechid was only their cat's-paw, thinking he played his own hand. Just what they wanted to do I can't tell, but I can tell from what one of them said to Monny in the temple, that they took her for Richard O'Brien's daughter. Poor child, her love for me and all her affectionate treatment of me, must have made it seem likely enough to them that she was EsmÉ, safely disguised as an important young personage, to travel with her stepmother. Bedr must have assured his employers that he was certain the pale girl was really Miss Gilder; so they thought the other one with me must be EsmÉ. You can't laugh at my fears any more! And I ask you again, what do you think of me, to believe I'd mix you up in my future scrapes?"

"I think you're the darling of the world," said I. "And my one talent, as you must have noticed, is getting people out of scrapes. It'll be wasted if I can't have you. Besides, under the wing of an Embassy no one will dare to try and steal you, or blow you up. We'll be diplomats together, Biddy. Come! You say I've 'duffed' all my life, to get what I wanted. Certainly I've done a lot of genuine duffing in love; but do bear out your own expressed opinion of the work by saving it from failure. Couldn't you try and like me a little, if only for that? You were always so unselfish."

"Hush!" said Biddy, suddenly, "Hush!"

"Do you hate me, then? Is it by any chance, Anthony, you love?"

"No—no! Hold your tongue, Duffer."

"'No' to both questions? I shan't stop till you answer."

"No, to both, then! Now will you be silent?"

"Not unless you say you do care for me."

"Yes—yes, I do care. But, Sh! Don't you hear, they're talking just outside that window in the wall? If you can't keep a still tongue in your head, then for all the saints whisper!"

Her brogue was exquisite, and so was she. I worshipped her. When I slipped my arm round her waist, she dared not cry out. The same when I clasped her hand. Things were coming my way at last. And if I put my lips close against her ear I could whisper as low as she liked. I liked it too. And I loved the ear.

She was right. They were indeed talking just outside the window, Monny Gilder and Anthony Fenton. The prologue was evidently over, and the first act was on. It began well, with a touch of human interest certain to please an audience. But unfortunately for every one concerned, this was a private rehearsal for actors only, not a public performance. Biddy and I had no business in the dark auditorium. We were deadheads. We had sneaked in without paying. The situation was one for a nightmare.

"For heaven's sake, let me cough, or knock something over!" I implored Biddy's ear, which (it struck me at the moment) was more like a flower than an unsympathetic shell, best similes to the contrary. Who could have imagined that it would be so heavenly a sensation to have your nose tickled by a woman's hair?

"There's nothing you can knock over, but me," Biddy retorted, as fiercely as she could in a voice no louder than a mosquito's. "And if you cough, I'll know you're a dog-in-the-manger."

"Why?" curiosity forced me to pursue.

"Because, you donkey, ye say ye don't want her yourself, yet ye won't give yer best friend a chance!"

"Can't be a dog and a donkey at the same time," I murmured. "Choose which, and stick to it, if ye want me to know what ye mean."

"Why, you—you Man, don't ye see, if we interrupt at such a minute, and such a conversation, they can never begin again where they left off? If you'd wanted her, I'd have tried to save her for ye, at any cost. But as ye don't, for goodness' sake give the two their chance to come to an understanding. Now be still, I tell ye, or they may hear us."

"We can't just sit and eavesdrop."

"Stop yer ears then. It'll take both hands."

It would; which is the reason I didn't do it. That would have been asking too much, of the most honourable man, in the circumstances.

Meanwhile, the two outside went on talking. Believing themselves to be alone with the sunset, there was no reason to lower their voices. They spoke in ordinary tones, though what they said was not ordinary; and we on the other side of the little unglazed window could not help hearing every word.

"I've been wanting to say it for a long time," in a voice like that of a penitent child Monny was following up something we had (fortunately) lost. "Only how could I begin it? I don't see even now how I did begin, exactly. It's almost easy though, since I have begun. I was horrid —horrid. I can't forgive myself, yet I want you to forgive me for doing your whole race a shameful injustice, for not understanding it, or you, or—or anything. You've shown me what a modern Egyptian man can be, in spite of things I've read and heard, and been silly enough to believe. Oh, it isn't just that you come from some great family, and that you could call yourself a prince if you liked, as Lord Ernest says. He's told me how you could have a fortune, and a great place in your country if you'd reconcile yourself with your grandfather in Constantinople; but that you won't, because it would mean going against England. It isn't your position, but what you are, that has made me see how small and ridiculous I've been, Antoun Effendi. Can you possibly forgive me for the way I treated you at first, now I've confessed and told you I'm very, very sorry and ashamed?"

"I would forgive you, if there were anything to forgive," Anthony answered. And it must have taken pretty well all his immense self-control to go on speaking to the girl in French—an alien language —just then.

"Perhaps there would be something to forgive, if I weren't on my side a great deal more to blame than you. Will you let me confess?"

"If you wish. Otherwise, you needn't. For I've deserved—"

"I do wish. But first, will you answer me a question?"

"I'm sure you wouldn't ask me a question I oughtn't to answer."

"It's only this: Did Ernest Borrow tell you anything else about me?"

"Nothing, except his opinion of you. And you must know that, by this time."

"I think I do. Or Mrs. Jones—or Mrs. East? Neither have—for any reason—advised you to apologize to me for what you very nobly felt was wrong in your conduct?"

"No. Not a soul has advised me. If they had—"

She didn't finish, but Biddy and I both knew the Monny-habit of conscientiously going against advice.

"Thank you. You've changed your opinion of me, then, without urging from outside."

"It has all come from inside. From recognition of—of what you are, and what you've done for—for us all. You've been a hero. And you've been kind as well as brave. Antoun Effendi, I think you are a very great gentleman, and I respect Egyptians for your sake."

"Wait!" said Anthony. "You haven't heard my confession. When I first saw you on the terrace at Shepheard's, I willed you to look at me, and you did look."

"How strange! Yes, I felt it. Something made me look. Why did you will me, Antoun Effendi?" Monny's voice was soft. But it was not like a child's now. It was a woman's voice.

Listening with tingling ears, I knew what she wanted him to answer. Perhaps he also knew, but he boldly told the truth. "It was a kind of wager I made with myself. There was some troublesome business I had to carry out in Cairo. A good deal hung upon it. I saw your profile. You didn't turn my way, and I said to myself: 'If by willing I can make that girl look at me, I'll take it for a sign that I shall succeed in my work.'"

"Oh! It was nothing to do with me?"

"Not then. Afterward I knew that, while I thought my own free will suggested my influencing you, it was destiny that influenced me. Kismet! It had to happen so. But you punished me for my presumption. You treated me as if I were a slave, a Thing that hardly had a place in your world."

"I know! That's what I've asked you to forgive me for."

"And because you've asked me to forgive, I'm telling you this. I was furious; and I said, 'She shall be sorry. I will make her sorry.' My whole wish was to humble you. I wanted to conquer, and though you classed me with servants, to be your master."

"I don't blame you, Antoun Effendi! And you have conquered, in a better way than you meant when you were angry and hating me. You've conquered by showing your true self. You are my friend. That's what you want, isn't it?—Not to be my master, when you don't hate me any longer."

"No, that is not what I want. I still want to be your master."

"Then you do hate me, even now?"

"No, I don't hate you, Mademoiselle Gilder, although you've punished me over and over again for being the brute I was at first. You have conquered me, not I you. But I don't want to be your friend. If you didn't look at me as being a man beyond the pale, you would understand very well what I want."

"Don't say that!" cried Monny, quickly. "Don't say that you're a man beyond the pale. I can't stand it. Oh! I do know what you want. I do understand. I think I should have died if you hadn't wanted it. And yet—I could almost die because you do."

"You could die because I love you?"

"Yes, of joy—and—"

"You care for me?"

"Wait! I could die of joy, and sorrow too. Joy, because I do care, and my heart longs for you to care. Sorrow, because—oh, it's the saddest thing in the world, but we can never be any more to each other than we are now." "You say that so firmly, because you think of me in your heart as a man of Egypt. Dearest and most beautiful, you are great enough if you choose, to mount to your happiness over your prejudice. If you can love me in spite of what I am—"

"I love you in spite of it, and because of it, too; and for every reason, and for no reason."

"Thank God for that! You've said this to me against your convictions. I have won."

"No, for it's all I can ever say. There can be no more between us."

"You couldn't love me enough to be my wife, though I tell you now that you're the star of my soul? Never till I saw you, have I loved a woman or spoken a word of love to one, except my beautiful mother. I've kept all for you, more than I dreamed I had to give. And it's yours for ever and ever. But just because you've said to yourself that we're of stranger races, who mustn't meet in love, you raise a barrier between us. Are our souls of stranger races?"

"No. Sometimes it almost seems as if our souls were one. You have waked mine with a spark from your own. I think I was fast asleep. I didn't know I had a soul—scarcely even a heart. But now I know! Learning to know you has taught me to know myself. And if I'm kinder to everybody, all the rest of my life—even silly rich people I used to think didn't need kindness—it will be through loving you. I'm not afraid to tell you that, and though I used to be afraid I might love you, I'm glad I do, now—glad! I shall never regret anything, even when I suffer. And I shall suffer, when we're parted."

"You're sure we must part?"

"Sure, because there's no other way, being what we are, and life being what it is. Always I've thought since my father died, that he was near me, watching to see what I did with my life. For he loved me dearly, and I loved him. We were everything to each other. Even if that were the only reason, I couldn't do a thing that would have broken his heart. It would be treacherous, now that he's helpless to forbid me. Don't you see?"

"I see. And if it were not for that reason?"

"If it were not for that—oh, I don't know, I don't know! But yes, I do know. The truth comes to me. It speaks out of my heart. If it were only for myself if I felt free from a vow, nothing could make me say to you, 'Go out of my life!'"

"That's what I wanted to be sure of. I could thank you on my knees for those words. For I, too, have made a vow which I won't break. And if I were free of it, I might tell you a thing now which would beat down the barrier. Well! We will keep our vows, both of us, my Queen."

"Yes, we must keep them. But oh, how are we to bear it? Fate has brought us together, and it's going to part us. We love each other, and we must go out of one another's lives. What shall we do when we can't see each other any more—ever any more?"

"That time shall not come."

"But it must—soon."

"Will you trust me, till Khartum?"

"I'll trust you always."

"I mean for a special thing—just till Khartum. In the foolish days when I wished to conquer you, and make you humble yourself to me, I vowed by my mother's love that I'd not tell you, or let Borrow tell, a fact about myself which might win your favour. It was a bad vow to make: a stupid vow. But a vow by my mother's love I could not break, any more than you can break one to your father's memory. I'll abide by it: but trust me till Khartum, and there you shall know what I can't tell you now. I always hoped you would find out there—if we went as far as Khartum together. Then I hoped, because I was a conceited fool. Now I hope this thing—and all it means—because I am your lover."

"Ah, dear Antoun, don't hope. Because it seems to me that nothing nearer than Heaven can bring us the kind of happiness you want."

"If you hadn't told me you cared, nothing that may come at Khartum could have brought any happiness to me at all. For it would have been too late after that, for you to say you cared—and for the word to have the value it has now. You've said it—in spite of yourself. Trust me for the rest. Will you?"

"If you ask me like that—yes. I trust you. Though I don't understand."

"That's what I want. Say this. 'I believe that we shall be happy; and I trust without understanding, that it will be proved at Khartum.'"

Monny repeated the words after him. And although I was that vile worm, an eavesdropper, I was so happy that I could have picked Biddy up in my arms, and waved her like a flag. Anthony was going to be happy, and that ought to be a good omen that I should be happy too.

"I am almost happy now," Monny went on. "Happier than I thought I could be, with things as they are. I used to be miserable, partly about myself, partly because I thought you were in love with Biddy (you were so much nicer to her than me!), and partly because I believed, till I knew you well, that you wanted to marry Aunt Clara for money, though you cared for someone else. I even told Lord Ernest that about you. I had to tell somebody! And besides, I felt it would be good for him to think you cared for Biddy. Being jealous might wake him up to see that he was in love with her himself. He really is rather a duffer, at times! And oh, talking of him and Biddy reminds me of them! Where can they be, all this time?"

"Heaven alone knows—or cares," replied Anthony. And I realized the truth of the proverb about listeners, even where their best friends are concerned. I was obliged to kiss Biddy to keep from laughing out loud. And she couldn't scream or box my ears, or all our dreadful precautions would have been vain.

"We must find them," said Monny.

"Why?"

"Oh, if we don't, they might find us."

Anthony laughed—a give-away, English-sounding laugh. But Monny did not recognize its birthplace. Her own laugh interrupted it too soon, ringing out so happily, it probably surprised herself.

"If they find us here!" quavered Biddy, clinging to me.

"They can't, if only you'll let me hold you tight enough," I whispered. "If they look in, they'll just take us for a black spot in the dark!"

But they didn't look in. They went downstairs. And then was the time to get in the rest of my deadly work with Biddy. We must wait a few minutes, or they couldn't help knowing we'd been near them: and I made the best use of those few minutes. Biddy wouldn't promise anything, but said that she would think it over, and let me know the result of her thinking in a day or two.

To our great surprise, on arriving in open air at the level of the roof below, we saw that the sun was gone, and a slim young moon was sliding down the rose-red trail. It is indeed wonderful, say prophets of the obvious, how quickly time passes when your attention is engaged! And one comfort of being obvious is, that you are generally right.

We tried to flit forth from the dark recess of the pylon stairway without being seen or heard; but as luck would have it, Monny and Fenton had had just time to discover that our boat was gone. The girl was hunting for us, to see if we were "anywhere," or if in some mad freak we could have gone off and left them to their fate. As we sneaked guiltily out, she caught us.

"Biddy! Lord Ernest!" she exclaimed. "Why—why—you have been upstairs!"

A good rule for diplomats, duffers, and others, is never to tell a falsehood when there is no hope that any one will believe it.

"We—er—yes," we both mumbled.

"But—there isn't any upstairs except—where we were."

"Yes there is," Biddy assured her hastily—too hastily. "You were on the roof. We were in the little room of the guardian."

"He showed it to us. There's a window. Oh, we were under it! You must both have heard."

"Murder will out," I said, with the calmness of despair. But then it occurred to me that there was a way of using the weapon which threatened, as a boomerang.

"Dearest," Biddy adjured her beloved, humbly, "you wouldn't have had us spoil everything by moving, would you? I said to the Duffer when he wanted to do something desperate, 'If we interrupt them, nothing will ever come right—'"

"Besides, we were too busy getting engaged ourselves," said I, "to bother for long about what anybody else was saying or doing."

"You were! Oh, Biddy, that's what I've prayed for."

"Nothing of the sort!" began Mrs. O'Brien, ferociously. But the boomerang had come to my hand, and I'd caught it on the fly. Before she could go on contradicting me, Anthony, followed by the guardian of the temple, had mounted the steps from the lower ledge of the roof, where we had landed in the afternoon.

"It wasn't you who took the boat, then, for a joke!" said Fenton, at sight of us. And the mystery of our felucca's disappearance had to be discussed. Biddy saw to it that Monny couldn't edge in a word on the forbidden subject. How those two would talk later, in Miss Gilder's stateroom!

Nobody could explain what had happened, not even the guardian. He, it seemed, spent his night at the siren temple in the water, sleeping in the cell where I had blackmailed Biddy, and not even appearing to know that the custom scintillated with romance. By and by his companion who joined him for night work, would arrive in a small boat, bringing food; but this man rowed himself, and neither could leave the temple again that night.

"You will lend the boat to us," said Anthony. "We'll row, and send it back to you here by some one who is trustworthy."

"We have no right to lend the boat," returned the Nubian.

"Then I will steal it," replied the Hadji.

But none of us cared how long a time might pass before deliverance came. The Enchantress Isis couldn't steam away and leave her Conductor behind. As Mrs. East had disappeared, I vaguely associated the puzzle of our missing craft with Sir Marcus; and anyhow, curiosity wasn't the strongest emotion in my being just then. I thought that perhaps never in my life again would love and romance and beauty all blend together in one, as here at Philae in the moonlight. The sharp sickle of the young moon cut a silver edge on each tiny wave, that murmured against the submerged pillars like a chanting of priests under the sea. The temple commemorating love triumphant was carved in silver, and drowned in a silver flood. The flowering capitals of the columns as they showed above the water, blossomed white as lilies bound together in sheaves with silver cords, and placed before an altar.

Yes, Egypt was giving us what we asked. But would she give us all we asked? Just as there might have been a renewed chance of getting an answer to this question, black men in a black boat hailed us. Sir Marcus had deigned at last to remember our plight.