this desert and all deserts.' Then the sculptor made the Sphinx, and
gave it such grandeur, such mystery of countenance that instinctively
the souls of people recognized the _soul look_. You have a soul, and it
told you the secret. Only those who have no souls find the Sphinx heavy
or hideous, or utterly beyond their comprehension."

"Have I a soul?" Monny asked, dreamily. "Men I've known have told me I
haven't. Yet sometimes I've thought I felt it fluttering. And if I have
a soul, I shall find it in Egypt. Oh, I shall! Something--yes, the
Sphinx herself!--tells me that."

I was tempted to ask "What about a heart?" And then--in a violent
hurry, before anybody came--to mention my own, into which the moon
seemed pouring a little of the honey it had brought for the Sphinx. I
did feel that some one owed a moonlight proposal under the Sphinx's
nose (or the place where its nose had been) to such a girl as Monny.
Her Egyptian experience could never be perfect and complete unless she
were proposed to on the night of the full moon, with the Sphinx's
blessing; and as no better man was here to do it, I could not be
thought conceited if I took the duty upon myself. Besides, Brigit would
so thoroughly approve!

"Look here, Biddy, I mean Monny," I began hastily, "there's something I
want to tell you, something very important you ought to know, because
matters can't go on much longer as they are--"

"Is it something about 'Antoun'?" she broke in, with a little gasp, as
I paused for breath and courage. "If it is, maybe I know it already!"

Extraordinary, the relief I felt! I ought to have suffered a shock of