diplomatist, managed, not only to completely charm
Merrill as a man who is in love with another woman likes to be charmed,
but also to make him understand even more clearly than he had done how
greatly the Fates had blessed him by giving him the love of such a girl
as Nitocris; and then, by a few very deftly conveyed suggestions, she
further gave him to understand that, so far as Lord Leighton had ever
been an unconscious obstacle in his path, he was even now engaged in
removing himself. Wherefore Commander Merrill enjoyed his smoke and
stroll under the beeches a good deal more than he had anticipated.

More difficultly ambiguous, certainly, was the position in which Lord
Leighton found himself with Nitocris, but here also her tact and
perfect candour helped his own innate chivalry to accomplish all that
was desirable with the slightest possible friction. She began by telling
him, as she had told Brenda, of the mysterious stealing of the Mummy,
and made a sort of apology for her father having deputed the telling of
it to her--of course, in perfect innocence of the real reason for his
doing so. He deplored with her the loss of what they both believed to be
a priceless relic of the Golden Age of Egypt, but he passed it over
lightly, chiefly for the reason that there was something in his mind
just now that was much more serious than even the loss of the mummy of
her long-dead namesake.

There had been a little silence between them after he had made his
condolences, and then he said, with a hesitation which told quite
plainly what was coming:

"Miss Marmion, I have a rather awkward confession to make to you--I have
got to tell you, in fact, I think it is my duty to--well, honestly I
really don't quite know how to put it properly, but--but--er, something
has happened to me to-day that is a good deal more important to me, at
least, than the disappearance of half a dozen royal mummies."

"Indeed?" said Nitocris, with a demurely perfect assumption of
ignorance. "A good many things seem somehow to have happened to-day. It
is something connected with that wonderful Adept's marvels, perhaps?
They have certainly astonished most of us, I think."

"No," he replied, still a trifle hesitatingly, "it is nothing connected
with him or his miracles, as far as I know, except that there was
certainly something decidedly queer about the man and the impression he
made upon one. Of course I have seen something like the same thing in
Egypt