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By Root 1935 0

with an arched ceiling and tiled floor. One end was raised, with rugs covering the floor, and two divans. I cannot describe to persons of fastidious tastes (as my Readers certainly are) the condition of the place. It was all I could do to refrain from rolling up my sleeves and seizing a broom. Since this was impossible, I threw myself into my role as elderly harridan and began shouting out directions. I doubt the flustered females had ever moved so fast. The rugs and cushions were removed to be beaten and fumigated, the floor was swept and scrubbed, the dust and cobwebs covering all the flat surfaces were removed. When the room was habitable, and we had been supplied with a jug of warm water, I sent the whole lot of them off to the bath chamber, assuring them I would come soon to make certain they had cleaned it thoroughly.

Nefret had remained modestly silent; her Arabic was less fluent than mine. I wondered what Ramses would think of the transformation in her appearance. She had darkened her skin a shade or two, and her hair was now a pretty shade of russet brown. The cornflower-blue eyes could not be concealed, but they could be explained by the assumption that she was of light-skinned Circassian or Berber ancestry. There were a good many girls of that complexion in Turkish harems.

“You certainly look like an old man’s darling,” I remarked in French. We had decided it was safer to use that language, even in private conversation, in case we were overheard.

Nefret made a face and plucked at the embroidered gibbeh that covered several other layers of garments. “I don’t smell like one. I’d give anything for a bath and a change of clothing.”

“So would I. It will have to wait. But you may as well remove the gibbeh and freshen up a bit. Curse it, here are some of the women come back.”

They had brought our luggage, including the mats on which I intended we should sit and sleep. Emerson had howled at the amount of baggage I had considered necessary—he would have gone off to Timbuktu with only the clothes on his back—but I absolutely refused to share my bed with the interesting variety of insect life that I had good reason to expect. The women spread the mats over the divans and unpacked a few more things, including my traveling tea set, which included a silver kettle and a spirit lamp. (This had produced a particularly sarcastic string of remarks from Emerson.)

I was preparing an emphatic speech of dismissal for the ladies when the appearance of Emerson spared me that effort. The women at once fled, drawing folds of their garments over their faces, and closed the doors.

Hands on hips, feet apart, Emerson inspected the room and us with a lordly sneer. He looked magnificent! I repressed the thrill of admiration that ran through my limbs, since it was unlikely I could do anything about it for some time. Regret was mitigated by the presence of the beard. It looked splendid, but I knew how it would feel—like a bramble bush.

“Well, this is very pleasant,” he remarked.

“French, Emerson,” I said.

“Merde,” said Emerson, whose command of that language is limited. He does know most of the swearwords, though.

“I have ordered dinner to be brought here,” he went on. “It is a condescension on my part, but I am an uxorious, indulgent husband. You will serve me kneeling, of course.”

“Don’t get carried away, Emerson,” I warned.

“En français, ma chérie, s’il vous plaît,” said Emerson, grinning broadly. He went on in his version of that language, with occasional lapses into English when his vocabulary failed him. “Selim is in a condition because of the motorcar. He injured the—er—bonnet when he passed it between the gate.”

Through the window I could hear Selim’s voice, raised in vehement commentary, and understood enough to comprehend that he was trying to sort out the servant situation. I deduced that dinner would be late.

“Well, we are here,” I remarked, “and although some of our habits will undoubtedly strike the servants as peculiar, they won’t think much about it. But how is Ramses to reach us? He can’t come here as himself.”