his hopes of happiness, and all his moral designs, and as if he had
brought her to be punished by the Sphinx. In the grasp of the monster
she writhed, and she hated herself for writhing. Once in her presence
Baroudi had sneered at the Sphinx. Now she remembered his very words:
"We Egyptians, we have other things to do than to go and stare at the
Sphinx. We prefer to enjoy our lives while we can, and not to trouble
about it." She remembered the shrug of his mighty shoulders that had
accompanied the words. Almost she could see them and their disdainful
movement before her. Yes, the Sphinx was fading away in the night, and
Baroudi was there in front of her. His strong outline blotted out from
her the outline of the Sphinx. The evening star came out, and the breeze
arose again from its distant place in the sands, and whispered round the
Sphinx.

She shivered, and got up.

"Let us go; I want to go," she said.

"Isn't it wonderful, Ruby?"

"Yes. Where are the Arabs?"

She could no longer quite conceal her secret agitation, but Nigel
attributed it to a wrong cause, and respected it. The Sphinx always
stirred powerfully the spiritual part of him, made him feel in every
fibre of his being that man is created not for time, but for Eternity.
He believed that it had produced a similar effect in Ruby. That this
effect should distress her did not surprise him, but roused in his heart
a great tenderness towards her, not unlike the tenderness of a parent
who sees the tears of a child flow after a punishment the justice of
which is realized. The Sphinx had made her understand intensely the
hatefulness of certain things.

When he had helped her on to her donkey he kept his arm about her.

"Do you realize what it has been to me to see the Sphinx with you?" he
whispered.

The night had fallen. In the darkness they went away across the desert.

And the Sphinx lay looking towards the East, where the lights of Cairo
shone across the flats under the ridges of the Mokattam.

XXII

The Fayyum is a great and superb oasis situated upon a plateau of the
desert of Libya, wonderfully fertile, rich, and bland, with a splendid
climate, and springs of sweet waters which, carefully directed into a
network of channels, spreading like wrinkles over the face of the land,
carry life and a smiling of joy through the crowding palms, the olive
and fruit trees, the corn and the brakes of the sugar-cane. The
Egyptians often call it "the coun