That night after dinner the music was already sounding in the ball-room of the great hotel adjacent to the palm-gardens when Mrs. Gerald found Lester smoking on one of the verandas with Jennie by his side. The latter was in white satin and white slippers, her hair lying a heavy, enticing mass about her forehead and ears. Lester was brooding over the history of Egypt, its successive tides or waves of rather weak-bodied people; the thin, narrow strip of soil along either side of the Nile that had given these successive waves of population sustenance; the wonder of heat and tropic life, and this hotel with its modern conveniences and fashionable crowd set down among ancient, soul-weary, almost despairing conditions. He and Jennie had looked this morning on the pyramids. They had taken a trolley to the Sphinx! They had watched swarms of ragged, half-clad, curiously costumed men and boys moving through narrow, smelly, albeit brightly coloured, lanes and alleys.

“It all seems such a mess to me,” Jennie had said at one place. “They are so dirty and oily. I like it, but somehow they seem tangled up, like a lot of worms.”

Lester chuckled. “You’re almost right. But climate does it. Heat. The tropics. Life is always mushy and sensual under these conditions. They can’t help it.”

“Oh, I know that. I don’t blame them. They’re just queer.”

To-night he was brooding over this, the moon shining down into the grounds with an exuberant, sensuous luster.

“Well, at last I’ve found you!” Mrs. Gerald exclaimed. “I couldn’t get down to dinner, after all. Our party was so late getting back. I’ve made your husband agree to dance with me, Mrs. Kane,” she went on smilingly. She, like Lester and Jennie, was under the sensuous influence of the warmth, the spring, the moonlight. There were rich odours abroad, floating subtly from groves and gardens; from the remote distance camel-bells were sounding and exotic cries, “Ayah!” and “oosh! oosh!” as though a drove of strange animals were being rounded up and driven through the crowded streets.

“You’re welcome to him,” replied Jennie pleasantly. “He ought to dance. I sometimes wish I did.”

“You ought to take lessons right away then,” replied Lester genially. “I’ll do my best to keep you company. I’m not as light on my feet as I was once, but I guess I can get around.”

“Oh, I don’t want to dance that badly,” smiled Jennie. “But you two go on, I’m going upstairs in a little while, anyway.”

“Why don’t you come sit in the ball-room? I can’t do more than a few rounds. Then we can watch the others,” said Lester rising.

“No. I think I’ll stay here. It’s so pleasant. You go. Take him, Mrs. Gerald.”

Lester and Letty strolled away. They made a striking pair — Mrs. Gerald in dark wine-coloured silk, covered with glistening black beads, her shapely arms and neck bare, and a flashing diamond of great size set just above her forehead in her dark hair. Her lips were red, and she had an engaging smile, showing an even row of white teeth between wide, full, friendly lips. Lester’s strong, vigorous figure was well set off by his evening clothes, he looked distinguished.

“That is the woman he should have married,” said Jennie to herself as he disappeared. She fell into a reverie, going over the steps of her past life. Sometimes it seemed to her now as if she had been living in a dream. At other times she felt as though she were in that dream yet. Life sounded in her ears much as this night did. She heard its cries. She knew its large-mass features. But back of it were subtleties that shaded and changed one into the other like the shifting of dreams. Why had she been so attractive to men? Why had Lester been so eager to follow her? Could she have prevented him? She thought of her life in Columbus, when she carried coal; to-night she was in Egypt, at this great hotel, the chatelaine of a suite of rooms, surrounded by every luxury, Lester still devoted to her. He had endured so many things for her! Why? Was she so wonderful? Brander had said so. Lester had told her so. Still she felt humble, out of place, holding handfuls of jewels that did not belong to her. Again she experienced that peculiar feeling which had come over her the first time she went to New York with Lester — namely, that this fairy existence could not endure. Her life was fated. Something............