u so much here. You sit with the distaff; he throws the
dice."

Hylda's lips tightened a little. Her own inner life, what Eglington was
to her or she to Eglington, was for the ears of no human being, however
friendly. She had seen little of him of late, but in one sense that had
been a relief, though she would have done anything to make that feeling
impossible. His rather precise courtesy and consideration, when he
was with her, emphasised the distance between "the first fine careless
rapture" and this grey quiet. And, strange to say, though in the first
five years after the Cairo days and deeds, Egypt seemed an infinite
space away, and David a distant, almost legendary figure, now Egypt
seemed but beyond the door--as though, opening it, she would stand
near him who represented the best of all that she might be capable of
thinking. Yet all the time she longed for Eglington to come and say one
word, which would be like touching the lever of the sluice-gates of
her heart, to let loose the flood. As the space grew between her and
Eglington, her spirit trembled, she shrank back, because she saw that
sea towards which she was drifting.

As she did not answer the last words of the Duchess, the latter said
presently: "When do you expect Eglington?"

"Not till the week-end; it is a busy week with him," Hylda answered;
then added hastily, though she had not thought of it till this moment:
"I shall probably go up to town with you to-morrow."

She did not know that Eglington was already in the house, and had given
orders to the butler that she was not to be informed of his arrival for
the present.

"Well, if you get that far, will you come with me to the Riviera, or
to Florence, or Sicily--or Cairo?" the other asked, adjusting her
gold-brown wig with her babyish hands.

Cairo! Cairo! A light shot up into Hylda's eyes. The Duchess had spoken
without thought, but, as she spoke, she watched the sudden change in
Hylda. What did it mean? Cairo--why should Cairo have waked her so?
Suddenly she recalled certain vague references of Lord Windlehurst, and,
for the first time, she associated Hylda with Claridge Pasha in a way
which might mean much, account for much, in this life she was leading.

"Perhaps! Perhaps!" answered Hylda abstractedly, after a moment.

The Duchess got to her feet. She had made progress. She would let her
medicine work.

"I'm going to bed, my dear. I'm sixty-five, and I take my sleep when I
can get it. Thi