“I don’t think Miss Beecher cares a twopence who Robert is,” said Lady Claire honestly.  “When I told her he was going to stand for Roxham she answered that she had a very poor opinion of M.P.s—­from reading Mrs. Ward.  I can’t quite see what she meant—­but as for her drawing him on, a moment ago, dear, you were accusing her of luring Mr. Hill back from Cairo.”

“I said he followed.  I daresay she lured, too.  The second string——­”

“Then it’s quite nice of me, isn’t it, to carry off her second string to the bazaars and prevent her playing him against Robert!”

Lady Claire laughed mischievously, in a flight of daring so foreign to her usual reticence that Miss Falconer grimly perceived that she was changed indeed.  She thought helplessly that it was a great pity that young people couldn’t be treated as the children they were—­smacked and made to do what was best for them.

“And after all this dreadful gossiping how can we face our guests at tea?” the girl continued in mock chiding.

“If they are much later we shall not be facing them at all,” the older woman declared.  “I shall certainly have my tea at the proper time.”

The sight of an Arab servant with a tray of dishes had stirred her to this declaration, and promptly she gave her order.  In the middle of it, “I’m always late!” said a merry voice, and little Miss Beecher and Falconer were standing on the grass beside them.

“This time we had no following engagement,” said Miss Falconer, unpleasantly reminiscent of another tea time in Cairo, ten days before, but even with her resentment of this American girl’s intrusion into her long-cherished plans, she could not prevent the softening of her regard as she gazed upon her.

“You don’t look as if you had been riding very hard at the Tombs of the Kings,” she observed, in reluctant admiration.

“Oh, but we have!  We did quite a lot of Tombs—­not anything like thoroughly, of course!—­and then we rode back early and made ourselves tidy for your tea party,” Arlee blithely explained, and Miss Falconer perceived that her brother Robert had returned to the hotel without seeking them out, had arrayed himself in fresh white flannels and returned to the boat to escort Miss Beecher across the road into the hotel garden.

Absently she sighed.  Her eyes fell away from the peach-blossom prettiness of Arlee’s lovely face to the subtle simplicity of her white frock of loosely woven silk, and she wondered if that heavy embroidery meant money—­or merely spending money.  And then she looked across at Lady Claire, and sighed again for her dream of an aristocratic alliance.

“Mrs. Eversham—?” she thought to inquire.

“They’re having the vicar—­or is it the rector?—­to tea.  They asked him this morning before your message came,” Arlee explained.  She did not explain that the vicar, or the rector, had imagined, in accepting, that she, too, was to be of that tea party on the boat and was even now inquiring zealously of her of the Evershams.