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There was something so cold in his smile. When he kissed her, his lips hurt her a little; and his fingers bit into the soft flesh of her upper arms. She felt a vague chill move up her spine; her mouth tingled. She kissed him again and when he led her into the bedroom she didn't say a word.
"I'll get you your motor car," he whispered into her ear as he tore off the peignoir and pressed her against him so that her nipples touched the scratchy surface of his starched shirt. She kissed his cheek, then his chin, licking the faint stubble of his beard. Lovely to feel him breathe this way, to feel his hands on her shoulders.
"Not too rough, sir," she whispered.
"Why not?"
The telephone rang. She could have ripped it from the wall.
She unbuttoned his shirt for him as he answered.
"I told you not to call again, Sharples."
Oh, that bloody son of a bitch, she thought miserably. She wished he was dead. She'd worked for Sharples before Henry Stratford had rescued her. And Sharples was a mean one, plain and simple. He had left his scar on her, a tiny half-moon on the back of her neck.
"I told you I'd pay you when I got back, didn't I? Suppose you give me time to unpack my trunk!" He jammed down the little cone of a receiver into the hook. She pushed the phone back out of the way on the marble-top table.
"Come here to me, sweetheart," she said as she sat on the bed.
But her eyes dulled slightly as she watched him staring at the telephone. He was broke still, wasn't he? Stone broke.
Strange. There had been no wake in this house for her father. And now the painted coffin of Ramses the Great was being carried carefully through the double drawing rooms as if by pallbearers, and into the library, which he had always called the Egyptian room. A wake for the mummy; and the chief mourner was not here.
Julie watched as Samir directed the men from the museum to place the coffin carefully upright in the southeast corner, to the left of the open conservatory doors. A perfect position. Anyone entering the house could see it immediately. All those in the drawing rooms would have a good view of it; and the mummy himself would appear to have a view of all assembled to pay him homage when the lid was lifted and the body itself was revealed.
The scrolls and alabaster jars would be arranged on the long marble table beneath the mirror to the left of the upright coffin, along the east wall. The bust of Cleopatra was already being placed on a stand in the centre of the room. The gold coins would go in a special display case beside the marble table. And other miscellaneous treasures could now be arranged any way that Samir saw fit.
The soft afternoon sunlight poured in from the conservatory, throwing its intricate dancing patterns over the golden mask of the King's face and his folded arms.
Gorgeous it was, authentic obviously. Only a fool would question such a treasure. But what did the whole story mean?
Oh, if only they were all gone, Julie thought, and she could be alone now to study it. But the men would be here forever examining the exhibit. And Alex, what to do about Alex, who stood beside her, and gave her not a moment to herself?
Of course she'd been glad to see Samir, though it had stirred her own pain to see the pain in him.
And he looked stiff and uncomfortable in his black Western suit and starched white shirt. In the silks of his native dress, he was a dark-eyed prince, quite removed from the dreary routines of this noisy century and its bludgeoning drive to progress. Here he looked foreign, and almost servile in spite of the imperious manner in which he ordered the workmen about.
Alex stared at the workmen and their relics with the strangest expression. What was it? These things meant nothing to him; they had to do with some other world. But did he not find them beautiful? Ah, it was so difficult for her to understand.
"I wonder if there is a curse," he whispered softly.
"Oh, please, don't be ridiculous," Julie answered. "Now, they're going to be working for some time. Why don't we go on back into the conservatory and have tea?"
"Yes, we should do that," he said. It was dislike in his face, wasn't it? Not confusion. He felt nothing for these treasures. They were alien to him; they did not matter one way or the other. She might have felt the same way gazing at a modern machine she did not understand.
It saddened her. But everything saddened her now--and most of all the fact that her father had had so little time with these many treasures, that he had died on the very day of his greatest discovery. And that she was the one who must savour each and every article that he had uncovered in this mysterious and controversial grave.
Perhaps after tea, Alex would understand that she wanted to be alone. She led him down the hall now, past the double doors of the drawing rooms, past the doors of the library and out through the marble alcove into the glass room of ferns and flowers that ran across the entire back of the house.
This had been Father's favourite place when he was not in the library. No accident that his desk and his books were only a few feet away, through those glass doors.
They sat down at the wicker table together, the sun playing beautifully on the silver tea service before them.
"You pour, dearest," she said to Alex. She laid out the cakes on the plates. Now that gave him something to do which he understood.
Had she ever known a human being who could do all the little things so well? Alex could ride, dance, shoot, pour tea, mix delicious American cocktails, slip into the protocol of Buckingham Palace without batting an eyelash. He could read an occasional poem with such a simulation of feeling that it made her weep. He could kiss very well, too, and there was no doubt that marriage with him would have its deeply sensuous moments. No doubt whatsoever. But what else would it have?
She felt selfish suddenly. Wasn't all that enough? It hadn't been for her father, a merchant prince whose manners were indistinguishable from those of aristocratic friends. It had meant nothing at all.
