good servants.
Mohammed Ali's table-waiting really pleased him. He thought Meg would
approve of him. He was an intelligent lad and proud of his English
master, who seemed to think that telling a lie for the sake of being
polite or kind was really a sin. In fact, the Effendi was very rarely
cross, except when Mohammed forgot and told a lie. Sometimes it was
very hard to tell the truth when a lie would, he knew, make his master
happy. While he set the table he felt his master's eyes were on him,
even though he was reading a love story which was so beautiful that he
had seen, or thought he had seen, tears in the eyes of Effendi Amory,
when he was reading it the night before.

Teddy was not finding the beautiful story of the Frenchwoman go
interesting as Mohammed Ali imagined. He had allowed the days to pass,
with all their engrossing interest, without giving much thought to
Margaret's coming or what she would do with herself, or how her
presence would affect their daily life.

Now in a few hours she would be with them. This was, in fact, his last
meal alone with Mike. He had never bothered about the matter because
Meg was such a good sort and so jolly well able to amuse and look after
herself. The days had just passed, and now she was coming, Meg, who
was his best friend in the whole world, Meg who in his eyes had the
mind of a boy and the sympathy of a woman.

CHAPTER II

At five o'clock Michael Amory, true to his word, was down at the ferry,
awaiting the arrival of Margaret Lampton. The ferry-boat was pulling
across the Nile; he would soon be able to distinguish her. In all
probability no other Englishwoman would be crossing to the western bank
of the river at so late an hour. Tourists who came to visit the
Colossi of Memnon, whose song to the dawn never dies, or to "do" the
ruins of the Hundred-Gated city of Thebes, came much earlier in the day.

While the boat was drifting slowly across, Michael's eyes rested
lovingly on his surroundings. If the girl was appreciative of Nile
scenery, how greatly it must be impressing her!

Boats, like white birds with big crossed wings, flew past him on the
pale blue river. Heavy, flat-bottomed barges, coming up from the
pottery factories, laden with jars which were to be used for the
building of native houses, drifted past, with their well-stacked,
squarely-built cargoes piled high like stacks of grain. One barge,
with a wide brown sail, was full of fresh