Mrs. Morgan, wife of a judge of the High Court of Bombay, and I sat amidships on the cool side in the Suez Canal. She was outlining ‘Soiled Linen’ in chain-stitch on a green canvas bag; I was admiring the Egyptian sands. ‘How charming,’ said I, ‘is this solitary desert in the endless oasis we are compelled to cross!’

‘Oasis in the desert, you mean,’ said Mrs. Morgan; ‘I haven’t noticed any, but I happened to look up this morning as I was putting on my stockings, and I saw through my port-hole the most lovely mirage.’

I had been at school with Mrs. Morgan more than twenty years agone, but she had come to the special enjoyment of the dignities of life while I still liked doing things. Mrs. Morgan was the kind of person to make one realize how distressing a medium is middle age. Contemplating her precipitous lap, to which conventional attitudes were certainly more becoming, I crossed my own knees with energy, and once more resolved to be young until I was old.

‘How perfectly delightful for you to be taking Cecily out!’ said Mrs. Morgan placidly.

‘Isn’t it?’ I responded, watching the gliding sands.

‘But she was born in sixty-nine — that makes her twenty-one. Quite time, I should say.’

‘Oh, we couldn’t put it off any longer. I mean — her father has such a horror of early debuts. He simply would not hear of her coming before.’

‘Doesn’t want her to marry in India, I dare say — the only one,’ purred Mrs. Morgan.

‘Oh, I don’t know. It isn’t such a bad place. I was brought out there to marry, and I married. I’ve found it very satisfactory.’

‘You always did say exactly what you thought, Helena,’ said Mrs. Morgan excusingly.

‘I haven’t much patience with people who bring their daughters out to give them the chance they never would have in England, and then go about devoutly hoping they won’t marry in India,’ I said. ‘I shall be very pleased if Cecily does as well as your girls have done.’

‘Mary in the Indian Civil and Jessie in the Imperial Service Troops,’ sighed Mrs. Morgan complacently. ‘And both, my dear, within a year. It WAS a blow.’

‘Oh, it must have been!’ I said civilly.

There was no use in bandying words with Emily Morgan.

‘There is nothing in the world like the satisfaction and pleasure one takes in one’s daughters,’ Mrs. Morgan went on limpidly. ‘And one can be in such CLOSE sympathy with one’s girls. I have never regretted having no sons.’

‘Dear me, yes. To watch oneself growing up again — call back the lovely April of one’s prime, etcetera — to read every thought and anticipate every wish — there is no more golden privilege in life, dear Emily. Such a direct and natural avenue for affection, such a wide field for interest!’

I paused, lost in the volume of my admirable sentiments.

‘How beautifully you talk, Helena! I wish I had the gift.’

‘It doesn’t mean very much,’ I said truthfully.

‘Oh, I think it’s everything! And how companionable a girl is! I quite envy you, this season, having Cecily constantly with you and taking her about everywhere. Something quite new for you, isn’t it?’

‘Absolutely,’ said I; ‘I am looking forward to it immensely. But it is likely she will make her own friends, don’t you think?’ I added anxiously.

‘Hardly the first season. My girls didn’t. I was practically their only intimate for months. Don’t be afraid; you won’t be obliged to go shares in Cecily with anybody for a good long while,’ added Mrs. Morgan kindly. ‘I know just how you feel about THAT.’

The muddy water of the Ditch chafed up from under us against its banks with a smell that enabled me to hide the emotions Mrs. Morgan evoked behind my handkerchief. The pale desert was pictorial with the drifting, deepening purple shadows of clouds, and in the midst a blue glimmer of the Bitter Lakes, with a white sail on them. A little frantic Arab boy ran alongside keeping pace with the ship. Except for the smell, it was like a dream, we moved so quietly; on, gently on and on between the ridgy clay banks and the rows of piles. Peace was on the ship; you could hear what the Fourth in his white ducks said to the quartermaster in his blue denims; you could count the strokes of the electric bell in the wheel-house; peace was on the ship as she pushed on, an ever-venturing, double-funneled impertinence, through the sands of the ages. My eyes wandered along a plank-line in the deck till they were arrested by a petticoat I knew, when they returned of their own accord. I seemed to be always seeing that petticoat.

‘I think,’ resumed Mrs. Morgan, whose glance had wandered in the same direction, ‘that Cecily is a very fine type of our English girls. With those dark grey eyes, a LITTLE prominent possibly, and that good colour — it’s rather high now perhaps, but she will lose quite enough of it in India — and those regular features, she would make a splendid Britannia. Do you know, I fancy she must have a great deal of character. Has she?’

‘Any amount. And all of it good,’ I responded, with private dejection.

‘No faults at all?’ chaffed Mrs. Morgan.

I shook my head. ‘Nothing,’ I said sadly, ‘that I can put my finger on. But I hope to discover a few later. The sun may bring them out.’

‘Like freckles. Well, you are a lucky woman. Mine had plenty, I assure you. Untidiness was no name for Jessie, and Mary — I’m SORRY to say that Mary sometimes fibbed.’

‘How lovable of her! Cecily’s neatness is a painful example to me, and I don’t believe she would tell a fib to save my life.’

‘Tell me,’ said Mrs. Morgan, as the lunch-bell rang and she gathered her occupation into her work-basket, ‘who is that talking to her?’

‘Oh, an old friend,’ I replied easily; ‘Dacres Tottenham, a dear fellow, and most benevolent. He is trying on my behalf to reconcile her to the life she’ll have to lead in India.’

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