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When we got there, it was too late, for already some time had passed since Mr. Sheridan saw Bedr. Rechid's gate-man said that Mabella Hanem was suddenly better, and had gone away with her husband. He could talk a little French, so we understood perfectly and, anyhow, you know I'm studying Arabic. It's so discouraging when Arabs answer me in Cockney English, or say "Sure" in American!
I am determined never to run such a risk! Now, do you think I shall? 'Marry? O no; never, said Pierston drily. 'That's very satisfying. But Mabella was scarcely comfortable under his answer, even though jestingly returned, and she added: 'But sometimes I think I may, just for the fun of it. Now we'll steer across to her, and catch her, and I'll introduce you.
"Not the least pretension, and her clothes are marvellous. You are abominably severe, Etta. I am quite sure if she wanted to she could succeed in New York." "Mabella, you simple creature! She just cajoles you all the time she has specialised in cajoling important great ladies! No American would be taken in by her, and we resent it in our country when an outsider like that barges in.
Lord Channelcliffe became absorbed into some adjoining dignitary of the Church, and Pierston was left to pursue his quest alone. A young friend of his the Lady Mabella Buttermead, who appeared in a cloud of muslin and was going on to a ball had been brought against him by the tide. A warm-hearted, emotional girl was Lady Mabella, who laughed at the humorousness of being alive.
Rechid might have tired of playing dragon, as Antoun prophesied; yet it would be strange if he had not given instructions that no European ladies were to visit his wife. Mabella Hanem had been snatched in haste from Asiut, but if she were still in Luxor with her husband, she and her women in the harem would be guarded by eunuchs, as in the more ambitious villa which Rechid called his home.
They were seated at a low table where no forks or knives or even plates were laid. In the centre of the white cloth stood a large dish of something sweet and rich-looking, from which everybody pretended to eat; but at sight of me, Brigit and Monny began talking together. They told me breathlessly how they had been informed by the gatekeeper that "Mabella Hanem" was not well.
This subject was inexhaustible, and kept cropping up in the midst of others; but that of Mabella Hanem, her escape from bondage and from "conversion" to Islam, and what revenge Rechid was likely to take, was almost as engrossing.
I felt myself overflowing with a sudden, new tenderness for the Set, so often troublesome. This that was going to happen unless we could stop it was in truth the affair of Monny and Brigit, Mabella Hanem and the Bronsons, Anthony Fenton and me; but all would be involved, the innocent with the guilty, unless very quickly the duffer of the company could think of some way out.
Virtue may be its own reward, but it makes you very lonely! I hadn't another easy moment for dreaming the Nile-dream. And we all woke out of it when, with the pink dawn of a certain morning, we saw a vast temple, repeated column for column, in the clear river, as in a mirror of glass. We were at Luxor; and somewhere not far off, Mabella Hanem was praying for release.
The third day was to be the Great Day for us, the day big with fate for Mabella Hanem; and the first thing that happened was a letter sent by hand from the Bronsons at the Villa Sirius. They had arrived. The fireworks could begin. Not half an hour after the first word from Bronson, came another hurried note. An unexpected obstacle had cropped up. So confident had he and Mrs.
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