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In Luxor the fine European hotels were closed, so he found accommodation in the house of one of Abdul's friends, a clean, well-managed native inn. Luxor in May was without one blot or blemish of foreign life. The next day he travelled by train to Cairo. The new moon was just appearing in the evening sky when he found himself nearing the Iretons' ancient Mameluke mansion.
If Millicent Mervill was with him, he did not for one moment believe that even Mike would be proof against such temptation. "If he is ill," Meg said, "the Iretons will find out. They are in such close touch with native life. Anyhow, they understood Mike and I want to see them." Meg's last words were a little cry. Freddy could only feel pity for her, although her words stung him.
She told him that she was now her own mistress, so much so that she had that morning almost completed the purchase of her trousseau, and that she was free to stay out as long as she liked. "But I want you," she said, "to return with me now to Clarges Street, to the Iretons. They are in town, and Hadassah says we can be married from their rooms to-morrow."
Then I took down my father's sword from its deer-horn brackets over the chimney-piece, and set myself to fine its edge and point with a bit of Scotch whinstone. It was a good blade; a true old Andrea Ferara got in battle in the seventeenth century by one of the Nottingham Iretons. I whetted it well and carefully.
Through a labyrinth of narrow streets, echoing with native cries and Oriental traffic, a wonderful sight and sensation to strangers unfamiliar with Cairene commercial life, Margaret Lampton found her way to "the home of enchantment," as she afterwards called the Iretons' ancient mansion. It was a native house, typical and expressive of the most resplendent years of the Mameluke rule in Egypt.
Two hours later the bride and the bridegroom, the two happiest people in London, drove away from the Iretons' rooms in Clarges Street. Hadassah and Michael Ireton watched them until the taxi was out of sight.
The great university-mosque of el-Azhar would, Michael knew, remain open all night, all but one small portion, the principal place of prayer. When he reached the Iretons' house, he rang the bell at the door of the outer courtyard. The Nubian who was stretched out on the mastaba behind it did not trouble to rouse himself.
Margaret rather timidly entered the second courtyard. She scarcely knew what to expect. She was certainly not prepared for the vision of beauty which she saw directly the door was opened. She had heard nothing at all of the fantastic beauty of the superb old Mameluke palaces in Cairo; she did not know that the Iretons lived in one.
Her first reading of it had been very hurried, for it had arrived by the first post, and she had only found time to devour it with eager eyes, eyes which searched its pages for one precious item of news. She was scarcely conscious of her desire for news of Michael's whereabouts. There was always the hope, unexpressed even to herself, that he had written to the Iretons.
He did not know what to do; the absence of the Iretons from Cairo had shattered his last hope. Surely it was ordained? He was to realize that he was reaping the punishment he deserved for his weakness and folly. It was obvious to his tired nerves and hypercritical senses that Margaret had purposely returned to England without leaving any indication of her destination.
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