re had not
been all that it was, if there had been the slightest touch of the
feminine about him. There was not. Yet in spite of his good looks and
astonishing colouring, Meg was right in her consciousness that for
women there was more magnetic attraction in Mike's mobile plainness, in
his sensitive, irregular features. When the two men were talking
together, the senses and eyes of women would be drawn to the plain man.

During lunch Millicent Mervill was very good. She was interested in
hearing about the tomb and, Freddy thought, wonderfully intelligent
upon the subject. She was, as he expressed it, as clever as a monkey.
What little knowledge she had she used to the utmost advantage, to its
extreme limit. All her intellectual goods she displayed in her shop
window. She had a telling way of saying, "I am completely ignorant
upon this or that subject," suggestive of the fact that she really did
know a great deal about many other things. She seldom "gave herself
away."

Freddy came to the conclusion that she was so quick that it was quite
impossible to discover what she really did or did not know or grasp,
and, as he said to Mike afterwards, "What she did not know, she will
set about knowing when she gets home. That brain won't rest still
under ignorance, or let Meg know what it doesn't know."

The description of the fine effigy of the queen thrilled her; her
appetite for details was insatiable. There was plenty to talk about,
so conversation did not flag and personal topics were avoided.

Freddy thought that she was nicer than she had ever been before and
even prettier. He enjoyed his lunch; it certainly was a change to have
a beautiful woman, who was not his sister, and who did her best to make
herself attractive, lunching with them in their desert home. After his
tremendous efforts of the last three or four days her presence was
pleasing. Even the modern clothes and aggressively-manicured
finger-nails gave him healthy sensations. His manhood enjoyed her
super-femininity.

The little room palpitated with life, the antagonism of the two women
was a thing he could feel. He felt it as surely as he had felt the hot
air of the tomb. Freddy enjoyed looking at his sister; her combative
mood vitalized her.

Her dark hair, so soft and abundant, looked tempting to touch, after
the dragged and matted "something" which clung to the skull of the
mummy.

Nothing in the room was intrinsically worth a couple o