th his admixture of foreign blood, was philosopher
as well as vagabond, a strong poetic and religious strain sometimes
breaking out through fissures in his complex nature. He had seen much
life; had read many books. The passionate desire of youth to solve the
world's big riddles had given place to a resignation filled to the brim
with wonder. Anything _might_ be true. Nothing surprised him. The most
outlandish beliefs, for all he knew, might fringe truth somewhere. He
had escaped that cheap cynicism with which disappointed men soothe their
vanity when they realise that an intelligible explanation of the
universe lies beyond their powers. He no longer expected final answers.

For him, even the smallest journeys held the spice of some adventure;
all minutes were loaded with enticing potentialities. And they shaped
for themselves somehow a dramatic form. "It's like a story," his friends
said when he told his travels. It always was a story.

But the adventure that lay waiting for him where the silent streets of
little Helouan kiss the great Desert's lips, was of a different kind to
any Henriot had yet encountered. Looking back, he has often asked
himself, "How in the world can I accept it?"

And, perhaps, he never yet has accepted it. It was sand that brought it.
For the Desert, the stupendous thing that mothers little Helouan,
produced it.

II

He slipped through Cairo with the same relief that he left the Riviera,
resenting its social vulgarity so close to the imperial aristocracy of
the Desert; he settled down into the peace of soft and silent little
Helouan. The hotel in which he had a room on the top floor had been
formerly a Khedivial Palace. It had the air of a palace still. He felt
himself in a country-house, with lofty ceilings, cool and airy
corridors, spacious halls. Soft-footed Arabs attended to his wants;
white walls let in light and air without a sign of heat; there was a
feeling of a large, spread tent pitched on the very sand; and the wind
that stirred the oleanders in the shady gardens also crept in to rustle
the palm leaves of his favourite corner seat. Through the large windows
where once the Khedive held high court, the sunshine blazed upon vistaed
leagues of Desert.

And from his bedroom windows he watched the sun dip into gold and
crimson behind the swelling Libyan sands. This side of the pyramids he
saw the Nile meander among palm groves and tilled fields. Across his
balcony railings th