thy. Her
jealousy was aroused at the very thought of another woman being
admitted into the privacy of the camp. Being a true woman, it gave her
intense satisfaction to be the only one, to be the chosen companion of
her brother and of Mike.

They were always eager for her companionship. If Freddy did not want
her, Mike did; if Mike had work to do which demanded perfect solitude,
she felt that Freddy was not sorry. Yet they were all three such good
friends that more often than not they played together delightfully
childish games. It was nevertheless rather a red-letter day for either
of the two men when circumstances so arranged it that Meg had to go off
with one of them alone on some excursion which combined business with
pleasure.

Margaret, womanlike, loved the nicest of all feelings--"being wanted."
She would have liked her life to go on for ever just as it was, her
society always desired by two of the dearest men in the world and her
days filled with this novel and extraordinary work.

But even in the desert, things do not stand still. If they did,
temples could not have been buried and cities lost. So after dinner,
when Freddy, like the dear human brother that he was, allowed Michael
and Margaret to spend some considerable time alone, the high gods took
in hand the affairs of these two human lives, lives which had been well
content to rest on their oars and drift with the tide.

Michael had had no prearranged desire to change the conditions of their
intimacy. It was beautiful. He had given no thought to himself as
Margaret's lover. He had been content to be her partner in that
tip-toe dance of expectation and in that state of undeclared devotion
which is the life and breath of a woman's existence.

On the evening of his return to the camp he felt a new joy in
Margaret's presence. Catching the sound of her voice in her coming and
going about their small hut was a delicious assurance of the happiness
that was to be his for some days to come. She illuminated the place
and vitalized his energies. Yet this deepened pleasure told him
nothing--nothing, at any rate, of what the gods had up their sleeves.

They were standing, as they had often stood before, on some high ridge
of the desert cliff which overlooked its desolation and immensity.
Margaret's face was star-lit; her beauty softened. As Michael gazed at
her, he lost himself.

As unexpectedly to Margaret as to himself, his arms enfolded her. He