It Happened in Egypt

								

love, may not do Mrs. East justice. The fact is, Monny's aunt is a
handsome creature, distinctly a charmer who may at most have reached
the age when Cleopatra--Antony's and Caesar's Cleopatra--died in the
prime of her beauty. If Mrs. East chooses to date herself at thirty-three,
any man not a confirmed misanthrope must believe her. Biddy says
that until Peter Gilder was safely dead, Clara East was just an
ordinary, well-dressed, pleasure-loving, novel-reading,
chocolate-eating, respectable widow of a New York stockbroker:
superstitious perhaps; fond of consulting palmists, and possessing
Billikens or other mascots: (how many women are free from
superstition?) slightly oriental in her love of sumptuous colours
and jewellery; but then her mother (Peter Gilder's step-mother)
was a beautiful Jewish opera singer. After Peter's death, his
half-sister gave up novels for Egyptian and Roman history,
took to studying hieroglyphics, and learning translations of
Greek poetry. She invited a clairvoyant and crystal-gazer, claiming
Egyptian origin, to visit at her Madison Square flat. Sayda Sabri,
banished from Bond Street years ago, took up her residence in New York,
accompanied by her tame mummy. Of course, it is the mummy of a
princess, and she keeps it illuminated with blue lights, in an inner
sanctum, where the bored-looking thing stands upright in its
brilliantly painted mummy case, facing the door. About the time of
Sayda's visit, it was noticed by Mrs. East's friends (this, according
to Biddy) that the colour of the lady's hair was slowly but surely
changing from black to chestnut, then to auburn; she was heard to
remark casually that Queen Cleopatra's hair had been red. She took to
rich Eastern scents, to whitening her face as Eastern women of rank
have whitened theirs since time immemorial. The shadows round her
almond-shaped eyes were intensified: her full lips turned from
healthful pink to carmine. The ends of her tapering fingers blushed
rosily as sticks of coral. The style of her dress changed, at the
moment of going into purple as "second mourning" for Peter, and became
oriental, even to the turban-like shape of her hats, and the design of
her jewellery. She did away with crests and monograms on handkerchiefs,
stationery, luggage and so on, substituting a curious little oval
containing strange devices, which Monny discovered to be the
"cartouche" of Cleopatra. Then the whole truth burst forth. Sayda
Sabri's crystal had shown that Clara East, n�e Gilder, was the
reincarnation of Cleopatra the Great of Egypt. There had been another
incarnation in between, but it was of no account, and, like a poor
relation who has disgraced a family, the less said about it the better.
The lady did not proclaim her identity from the housetops. Rare souls
possessing knowledge of Egyptian lore might draw their own conclusions
from the cartouche on her note-paper and other things. Only Monny and a
few intimates were told the truth at first; but afterward it leaked