There was a King in Egypt. Norma Lorimer
if not learnedly, to Michael about things Egyptian. She had been reading what Ebers had to say about the tragedy of Isis and Osiris being the foundation of many latter-day Egyptian romances. It had even found its way into The Thousand and One Nights.
Mrs. Mervill was much more word-fluent than Margaret. Often her imagery was charming.
"Because it fills my heart, Michael. It is the background of everything. I saw the birth of hatred in her eyes—she has never hated before."
"I don't think she knows what hate means," he said, "and I wish you would leave her alone."
"I have not spoken about her before."
"You said she would be fat and coarse at forty."
Millicent Mervill caught his hands in hers. "You dear silly boy, so she will, both fat and complacent, but then I shall be thin and shrewish and shrivelled."
Michael laughed. "You are a tease!" he said good-naturedly.
"'The Rogue in Porcelain' used to be my name at school. But tell me—how long is that dark-haired girl going to stay with her brother?"
"I don't know," Michael said. "If she doesn't feel the heat, perhaps until he returns to England and the camp breaks up."
Mrs. Mervill clenched her pretty teeth. "And you expect me to be good and quiet and submissive and stay here?"
"I want you to be reasonable."
"That's out of the question—I very seldom am, and I am not going to be to please Miss Lampton, I can tell you!"
"Then what are you going to do?" He could not be hard on the woman for loving him; he wished he could help her and induce her to be reasonable. If she had been free, he would have felt himself bound to marry her.
"I will arrange something," she said. "I don't know what."
"What sort of thing?" he said. "Nothing foolish! Do look at things dispassionately."
"I won't!" she said. Her face was upraised to the stars. "I won't give you up to that dark-haired girl."
He swung round and spoke roughly. "Don't you know I can't be yours, and you can't be mine?"
"And you want me not to be a dog in the manger, while you enjoy the next best thing that comes along!"
"I never said so. Your mind jumps at conclusions. I hate such ideas and conversation. I wish you would stop it."
"I will be worse than a dog in the manger," she said, "if you make love to that girl in the desert."
"Hush!" Michael cried. His grasp of her wrist hurt her. "Hush! You will make me hate you."
"No, you won't, Michael," she said, "because you have kissed me. Words were made to hide our feelings, kisses to reveal them." She suddenly paused and looked as sad and innocent as a corrected child. "I would be a saint, if you would let yourself love me, Michael."
"What would be the good?" he said. "You belong to some one else."
"A nice sort of belonging!" she said, disconsolately. "He doesn't care a scrap what becomes of me."
"Can't you possibly divorce him?" Michael did not mean that he would marry her if she did; his mind was groping for some solution of the problem.
Millicent Mervill remained silent. "I could let him divorce me," she said at last.
"Don't!" Michael said intuitively. His voice amused the woman.
"I don't mean to," she said. "Why should any woman be divorced because she lives the same life as her husband does when he is apart from her?"
"You don't, and aren't going to," Michael said earnestly.
"I would, Michael, with you—only with you."
"I wish you could have been friends with Miss Lampton instead of hating her," he said sadly.
"Pouf!" Millicent Mervill cried. "Thanks for your Miss Lampton—I can do without her friendship! I prefer hating her."
"You are so perverse and foolish and … " Michael paused " … and difficult."
"No, loving, you mean, loving, Michael—that's all I'm difficult about."
CHAPTER VIII
They were back in the valley again and splendid work was going on at the camp. Another two weeks' hard digging had done wonders, and Margaret and Michael had found each other again.
In the dawn, two mornings after the dance, when the mysterious figures, heralding the light, were abandoning themselves to their God on the desert sands, Mike had seen Margaret standing at her hut-door, watching, as he himself so often watched, for the glory which was of Aton to flood the desert with light. Meg's eyes the day before had told Michael that she was unhappy; he knew now that she had not slept.
While the white figures were still bent earthwards and the little streak of light was scarcely more than visible, Michael went to her and asked her forgiveness.
"Forgive me," he said. "I need forgiveness."
Meg took his hand. "I hate not being friends. Thank you."
"It made me miserable," he said.
"Then let's forget. I was stupid. This is all too big and great for such smallness." She indicated the coming of the unearthly light.
"Thy dawning, O Aton," Michael said.
Margaret smiled. "He was very far from us at Assuan."
"He was there. I stifled my consciousness of him, Meg."
"Don't," she said. "Let's go forward."
"I know what you mean," he said. "Regrets are weak, foolish."
"I don't want to bring the hotel at Assuan into this valley. Let's just watch the sun transform its infinite mystery into our waking, working, everyday world—if Egypt can be an everyday world."
"May I say Akhnaton's beautiful hymn to you? It is about the sunrise.
He must often have seen it just as we are seeing it now."
"Akhnaton's? Yes, do. How wonderful to think that he wrote hymns!"
Michael began the famous hymn. "'The world is in darkness, like the dead. Every lion cometh forth from his den; all serpents sting. Darkness reigns.'"
"We might substitute jackals," Margaret said gently.
"'When thou risest in the horizon … the darkness is banished. Then in all the world they do their work.
"'All trees and plants flourish, the birds flutter in their marshes, all sheep dance upon their feet.'"
"Oh," Margaret said delightedly, "how like it is to the hundred and fourth Psalm! Do you remember how David said: 'The trees of the Lord are full of sap. … Where the birds make their nests. … The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats'? I think that's how it goes. I love that Psalm."
"Yes," Michael said, "verse for verse, the idea is absolutely similar and the similes are strikingly alike. The next verse is just as much alike. Listen. … I am so glad you like it."
"First look," Margaret said, "at that light. Yes, now go on—I love hearing it."
"'The ships sail up stream and down stream alike. The fish in the river leap up before Thee and Thy rays are in the midst of the great sea. How manifold are Thy works. Thou didst create the earth according to Thy desire, men, all cattle, all that are upon the earth.'"
"How extraordinarily like!" Margaret said. "How do you account for it? I suppose it is still allowed that David wrote the Psalms? Did he live before Akhnaton or after