that seemed beckoning to her to penetrate further and further into its
unknown obscurities.

Her brother's voice behind her brought her down to earth suddenly.
"You've been a confounded long time."

She turned to the table with a faint smile. "Don't be a bear, Aubrey.
It's all very well for you. You have Stephens to lather your chin and
to wash your hands, but thanks to that idiot Marie, I have to look
after myself."

Sir Aubrey took his heels down leisurely from the second chair, pitched
away his cigar, and, screwing his eyeglass into his eye with more than
usual truculence, looked at her with disapproval. "Are you going to rig
yourself out like that every evening for the benefit of Mustafa Ali and
the camel-drivers?"

"I do not propose to invite the worthy Mustafa to meals, and I am not
in the habit of 'rigging myself out,' as you so charmingly put it, for
any one's benefit. If you think I dress in camp to please you, my dear
Aubrey, you flatter yourself. I do it entirely to please myself. That
explorer woman we met in London that first year I began travelling with
you explained to me the real moral and physical value of changing into
comfortable, pretty clothes after a hard day in breeches and boots. You
change yourself. What's the difference?"

"All the difference," he snapped. "There is no need for you to make
yourself more attractive than you are already."

"Since when has it occurred to you that I am attractive? You must have