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Page 107
This time he was inflexible. She repeated, with a spark of
resentment, "It's not fair to let you pay so much----"
"It was _my_ adventure," said Billy firmly.
She said, "Very well," in a voice that puzzled him. He felt she
was annoyed. And he realized more than ever that he could never
take advantage of her indebtedness to make her pay with her
companionship. It was becoming a queer tangle.... He felt they had
suddenly slipped out of tune.... She seemed to be escaping
him--withdrawing ...
He wondered, very unhappily, with no fine glow of altruism at all,
if he had rescued her for another man. Those things happened, they
happened with dismal frequency. Billy distinctly recalled the
experience of a college friend who had carried a girl out of a
burning hotel, to have her wildly embrace an unstirring youth below.
Yes, such things happened. But he had never contemplated having
anything like that happen to him.
He contemplated it now, however, contemplated it long and bitterly,
when Arlee had gone back to her compartment and he sat silent in his
beside the chattering Copts while the train rattled on and on. There
would be three days at Luxor before the boat proceeded upon its
southern journey. And then----
Three days.... Three miserable, paltry, insufficient days, blighted
by the chaperoning Evershams.... Frantically he hoped against his
dark foreboding that one menace at least might be averted--that by
now Luxor would have ceased to shelter a certain sandy-haired young
Englishman.
CHAPTER XXI
CROSS PURPOSES
Luxor was warm and drowsy with afternoon sun. Motionless the fronds
of the tall palms along the water front; motionless the columns of
the temple reflected in the blue Nile. Even the almost continuous
commotion of the landing stage was stilled.
The two big Nile steamers, of rival lines, lay quietly at rest,
emptied of their tourists, and on the embankment the dragomans, the
donkey boys, the innumerable venders, were lounging in the shade at
dominoes or dice.
In the big white hotels facing the river many drawn blinds spoke of
napping travelers, and in the shade of the garden of the Grand other
travelers were whiling away the listless inertia of the hour before
tea.
"I suppose it's _quite_ too early?" murmured a girl at one of the
tables, in the shade of a big acacia. Her companion, fussing with a
pastel sketch, answered absently, without looking up, "Oh, quite,"
and then with a note of brisker attention, "I thought we were
waiting for Robert?"
"Do you think he'll be back? It's _such_ a trip to the Tombs of the
Kings, you know!"
"To be sure he'll be back!" Miss Falconer spoke with asperity. "And
why he wanted to go over it again--it's odd you didn't care to go,
too, Claire," she added, most inconsequently. "It was such an
excellent opportunity--and you had already spoken of wishing to go
again."
"But not so exhaustively. They are doing the entire programme. I
only wanted some particular things."
"You could have done them."
"And it was hot."
"It must have been just as hot in the bazaars with Mr. Hill."
"Was it?"
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