pushed crisply forward by the white hood, now it was out of the sun's
glamour, there was more brown than gold in it. I said to myself, that
the face with the firm cleft chin was only just pretty enough to give a
great heiress or a youthful princess the reputation of a beauty; a
combination desired and generally produced by journalists. Then, as I
was thinking this, while Brigit explained me, Miss Gilder suddenly
smiled. I was dazzled. No wonder Biddy loved her. It would be a wonder
if I didn't love her myself before I knew what was happening.

And so I should instantly have done, perhaps, if it hadn't been for
Biddy's eyes seeming to come between mine and Miss Gilder's: and the
fact that at the moment I was in quest of another treasure than a
woman's heart. My thoughts were running ahead of the ship to
Alexandria, to find out from Anthony Fenton ("Antoun Effendi" the
biggest boys used to nickname him at school) more about the true
history of that treasure than he dared trust to paper and ink and the
post office.

So I put off falling in love with Rosamond Gilder till I should have
seen Anthony, and tidied up my distracted mind. A little later would
do, I told myself, because (owing to the fact that my ancestral castle
had figured in Biddy's tales of long ago) I was annexed as one of the
_proteges_; allowed to make a fifth at the small, flowery table under a
desirable porthole in the green and white restaurant; also I was
invited to go about with the ladies and show them Cairo. Just how much
"going about," and falling in love, I should be able to do there,
depended on "Antoun Effendi." But when Biddy congratulated me on my
luck, and chance of success in the "scheme," I said nothing of Anthony.