It Happened in Egypt

								

Why, I saw the papers on board this ship! They were old ones. Papers on
ships always are. But I think they came on at Algiers or somewhere."
"Probably 'somewhere,'" I witheringly replied. "I didn't come on at
Algiers, so I don't know anything about it."
"Diplomatists never do know anything official, do they, Duffer dear?"
smiled Biddy. "I'll wager your friend is interesting, even if he does
spell himself with an 'H', and weighs two stone less than his namesake
from Rome. Mrs. East believes in reincarnation, and I'm not sure I
don't, though Monny's so young she doesn't believe in anything. Just
suppose your friend is a reincarnation of Antony without an 'H'? And
suppose, too, by some strange trick of fate he should meet you in
Alexandria or Cairo? You'd introduce him to us, wouldn't you?"
"It's the most unlikely thing in the world. And he'd be no good to you.
He's a man's man. He thinks he doesn't like women."
"Doesn't like women!" echoed Monny Gilder. "He must be a curmudgeon. Or
has he been jilted?"
"Rather not!" Too impulsively I defended the absent. "Girls go mad
about him. He has to keep them off with a stick. He's got other things
to think of than girls, things he believes are more important--though,
of course, he's mistaken. He'll find that out some day, when he has
more time. So far, he's been hunting other game, often in wild places.
A book might be written on his adventures."
"What kind of adventures? Tell us about them," said Biddy, "up to the
Balkan one, which you deny having heard of."
"You wouldn't care about his sort of adventures. There aren't any women
in them," said I. "Women want love stories. It's only the heroines they
care for, not the heroes, and I don't somehow see the right heroine for
Fenton's story."
I noticed an expression dawning on Cleopatra's face, as I thus bereft
her of a possible Antony (with an "H"). There was a softening of the
long eyes, and the glimmer of a smile which said "Am I Cleopatra for
nothing?"
Never had she looked handsomer. Never before had I thought of her as
really dangerous. I'd been inclined to poke fun at the lady for her
superstition and her cartouche, and Cleopatra-hood in general. But
suddenly I realized that her make-up was no more exaggerated than that
of many a beauty of the stage and of society: and that nowadays, women
who are--well, forty-ish--can be formidable rivals for younger and
simpler sisters. Not that I feared much for Anthony from Cleopatra or
any other female thing, for I'd come to consider him practically
woman-proof; still, I saw danger that the lady might make a dead set at
him, if she got the chance, and all through my stupidity in giving away
his name. "Antony" was a thrilling password to that mysterious "something"
which she expected to happen in Egypt: and already she regarded my
friend as a ram caught in the bushes, for a sacrifice on her altar.
Instead of screening him I had dragged him in front of the footlights.