The Mummy Case - Elizabeth Peters [20]
“Let us eschew the amenities on this occasion,” I exclaimed. “Get it off your chest, Emerson, before you explode. Only avoid profanity, if at all possible.”
“It is not possible,” Emerson cried in an anguished voice. “I cannot speak without expletives concerning that villain—that vile—that…that—de Morgan!”
“He has refused you the firman for Dahshoor.”
Emerson kicked a stool, sending it flying across the room. The head of Bastet, which had cautiously protruded from under the bed, vanished again.
“He means to work at Dahshoor himself this season,” said Emerson in a strangled voice. “He had the effrontery to tell me I was too late in applying.”
My lips parted. Before I could speak, Emerson turned a hideous glare upon me. “If you say ‘I told you so,’ Peabody, I will—I will—kick the bed to splinters!”
“By all means do so, if it will relieve your feelings, Emerson. I am deeply wounded by your accusation, which I feel sure you would never have made had you been in control of your emotions. You know I abhor the phrase you mentioned and that I never in all the years of our marriage—”
“The devil you haven’t,” Emerson snarled.
“De devil you haven’t,” echoed Ramses. “Don’t you remember, Mama, yesterday on de train from Alexandria, and de day before dat, when Papa forgot—”
“Ramses!” Emerson turned, more in sorrow than in wrath, to his offending heir. “You must not use such language, particularly to your dear mama. Apologize at once.”
“I apologize,” Ramses said. “I meant no offense, Mama, but I do not see what is wrong wit’ dat expression. It has a quality of colorful emphasis dat appeals strongly—”
“Enough, my son.”
“Yes, Papa.”
The silence that ensued was like the hush after a tempest, when the leaves hang limp in the quiet air and nature seems to catch her breath. Emerson sat down on the bed and mopped his streaming brow. His complexion subsided to the handsome walnut shade that is its normal color in Egypt, and a tender, affectionate smile transformed his face. “Were you waiting for me before lunching? That was kind, my dears. Let us go down at once.”
“We must discuss this, Emerson,” I said.
“Certainly, Amelia. We will discuss it over luncheon.”
“Not if you are going to lose your temper. Shepheard’s is a respectable hotel. Guests who shout obscenities and throw china across the dining salon—”
“I cannot imagine where you get such notions, Amelia,” Emerson said in a hurt voice. “I never lose my temper. Ah—there is Bastet. That is a very handsome collar she is wearing. What is she doing under the bed?”
Bastet declined Ramses’ invitation to lunch—an invitation made, I hardly need say, without reference to me—so the three of us went down. I was not deceived by Emerson’s apparent calm; the blow had been cruel, the disappointment grievous, and I felt it hardly less than he. Of course it was Emerson’s fault for not doing as I had suggested, but I would not for all the world have reminded him of that. After we had taken our places and the waiters had been dispatched in quest of the sustenance we had ordered, I said, “Perhaps I might have a little chat with M. de Morgan. He is a Frenchman, after all, and young; his reputation for gallantry—”
“Is only too well deserved,” Emerson growled. “You are not to go near him, Amelia. Do you suppose I have forgotten the abominable way he behaved the last time we met?”
M. de Morgan’s abominable behavior had consisted of kissing my hand and paying me a few flowery French compliments. However, I was touched by Emerson’s assumption that every man I met had amorous designs on me. It was a delusion of his, but a pleasant delusion.
“What did he do?” Ramses asked interestedly.
“Never mind, my boy,” Emerson said. “He is a Frenchman, and Frenchmen are all alike. They are not to be trusted with ladies or with antiquities. I don’t know a single Frenchman who has the slightest notion of how to conduct an excavation.”
Knowing that Emerson was capable of lecturing on this subject interminably