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When the eye of Horus was once more, with Freddy's assistance, securely fastened on to the gold chain, and the coffee had been drunk and cigarettes were being indulged in, Mrs. Mervill's American friend appeared at the hut. He was a very agreeable and cultured man. His chief interest in things Egyptian was centred in the subject of ancient festivals.
This woman was going to come between herself and Michael; that there was great intimacy between them she felt certain, also that Michael, even though he might care for the woman, was not himself under her influence. She had never seen him look as he looked now. The partner who had brought Margaret out on to the balcony constituted himself Mrs. Mervill's cavalier.
If Michael Amory had seen Millicent Mervill's attitude towards her companion, he might have felt and very naturally a certain amount of vanity. Born with little or no sense of honour or morals, she was extremely fastidious. No one could have been more selective. Ninety-nine per cent. of the men she met bored her not to tears, but to rudeness; for the hundredth she might feel an unbridled passion.
Margaret's dark eyes were resting on her. She felt them. "Thank you," she said to Mohammed Ali. "I'm so glad." Her hand shook a little as she lifted her cup. "Heaven's eye is not withdrawn," she said gaily to Michael. "Where did you find it, Mohammed?" Michael asked the question innocently. Mohammed Ali's eyes met Mrs. Mervill's. In them he saw the promise of a handsome baksheesh.
"If she wasn't beautiful and tiny, I'd like to wring her neck and throw her to the crocodiles below!" This was what might be interpreted as Margaret's true feelings as she answered Mrs. Mervill's question and succeeded in making some banal remarks about the view and the magnificence of the hotel. When she had said all that politeness demanded of her, she turned away, a trifle disconsolately.
Mervill's kisses still burning into his soul, he banished the thought of the divine King. The seed of evil which she had planted in the garden of his soul many weeks ago had been watered and nourished to-night. It had sprung forth like the green blades on the banks of the Nile after the inundation.
Her eyes gazed familiarly into Michael's; they were inviting and exquisitely lovely. Even Mrs. Mervill's bitterest enemies had to admit the charm of her eyes. Hard and cruel they could be, just like the uncut amethysts which in colour they resembled eyes of a deep, bluish purple. They had looked their cruellest a moment ago, for envy had crossed her path.
How dared she call Michael "dear"? How dared she intrude herself uninvited upon their simple life? Her beauty, her foolish feminine clothes, angered her. She hated Millicent's fine skin, which was, even in the desert heat, as poreless as a baby's. It was a wonderful skin for a grown person, let alone for a woman of Millicent Mervill's age. Meg thought of the dried mummy's lips.
A gnat's life would be long enough if it was to be passed with the woman whom she knew, in the coming struggle, would fight with tools which she, Meg, would not dare or deign to touch. As vivid as her vision of the tomb was her memory of Millicent Mervill's beauty.
"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."
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