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By Root 1102 0

hotel in Cairo, when this conversation took place. Emerson had graciously agreed to my suggestion that we spend a few days there before leaving the city. My excuse for removing to the hotel was that it would be more convenient for making arrangements for my annual dinner party; but though I was loath to admit the fact, the dear old dahabeeyah was inconveniently small for our enlarged family. It had only four staterooms and a single bath chamber, and with all of us engaged in professional pursuits the saloon was so full of desks and books and reference materials there was no room for a dining table. Fatima could not be expected to sleep on the lower deck with the crewmen, which meant that one of the staterooms had to be given to her. (She had proposed sleeping on a pallet in the corridor, or on the floor in Nefret’s room—both out of the question.) So David and Ramses had to share a bedroom, and I believe I need not describe the condition of that room to any mother of young male persons. One had to wade through books and discarded garments to reach the beds.

With a mournful sigh I admitted the truth, to myself if not to Emerson (who, being a man, did not even notice the inconveniences I have reported). While the children were with us, the Amelia did not offer adequate living quarters. That state of affairs would not continue indefinitely, though, I reminded myself. David was twenty-one, and already establishing a reputation as an artist and designer. He would strike out on his own one day, as was only proper. Nefret would certainly marry; I was only surprised she had not yet accepted one of the numerous suitors who constantly besieged her. Ramses . . . It was impossible for any normal human being to predict what Ramses would do. I was fairly certain it was something I would not like, but at least he would eventually go off and do it somewhere else. The prospect ought to have been pleasing. To be alone again with Emerson, without those dear but distracting young persons, would once have been my fondest dream. It still was, of course . . .

After a useful conversation with M. Baehler making arrangements for my dinner party, I had retired to the terrace to wait for Emerson and Nefret to join me for tea. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, brightening the flamboyant tarbooshes and gold-trimmed vests of the dragomen gathered round the steps of the hotel; the scent of roses and jasmine on the carts of the flower vendors was wafted to my appreciative nostrils by a soft breeze. Even the rolling of wheels and the shouts of the cabdrivers, the braying of donkeys and bellowing of camels fell pleasantly on my ears because they were the sounds of Egypt, hallowed by familiarity and affection. Emerson had said he was going to the French Institute. Nefret had said she meant to do some shopping. In deference to what she was pleased to call my old-fashioned principles, she had taken Fatima with her. The boys had gone off somewhere; they no longer accounted to me for their activities, but I had no reason to suppose they were doing anything they ought not. Why then did vague forebodings trouble a mind that ought to have been at ease?

Those forebodings were not prompted by my old adversary and (as he claimed) admirer, the Master Criminal. Emerson had got in the habit of assuming that Sethos was behind every threatening incident or mysterious event. The fact that he was usually wrong had not lessened his suspicions, and I knew (though he had tried to conceal it from me) that he had been prowling the suks and the coffee shops looking for evidence that Sethos had followed us to Egypt.

I had my own reasons for feeling certain this was not the case—and this certainty, to be entirely candid, was one cause of my discontent. For the first time in many years there was no prospect of an interesting adventure, not even a threatening letter from villains unknown! I hadn’t realized how accustomed I had become to that sort of thing. Admittedly our adventures were often more enjoyable in retrospect than in actuality, but if I must choose between danger and