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Enough said. He felt Gerald's hand on his arm. He had what he wanted.
Samir helped him to his feet. They led the party out of the anteroom, through the hallway and onto the front veranda.
"Well done, Gerald," he said. "I'll call you if I need you. I'd appreciate your notifying Randolph about this. It's a little more than I can bear at the moment. But I'll write a long letter soon...."
"I'll soften everything. No need at all for him to know the details. When Henry's arrested, it's going to be dreadful enough."
"Let's worry about that when it happens."
Ramsey was clearly impatient. He started down the steps towards the waiting car. Elliott shook Gerald'
s hand and then followed.
"Are we quite finished with this little performance?" Ramsey said. "I am wasting valuable time here!"
"Well, you have a lot of time, don't you?" Elliott said with a polite smile. He was a little light-headed suddenly. They had won. The children could get out. "It's imperative that you come back to the hotel now," he said, "that you be seen there."
"Foolishness! And the idea of the opera tonight is positively ludicrous."
"Expediency!" said Elliott, climbing into the backseat of the car first. "Get in," he said.
Ramsey stood there, angry, dejected.
"Sire, what can we do until we have some further evidence of where she might be?" Samir asked. "On our own, we cannot find her."
This time the little room that moved did not scare her. She knew what it was, and that it was to serve the people of these times, as the railroad served them and the motor cars, and all the strange devices that had seemed to her earlier as instruments of horror, things exquisitely capable of bringing suffering and death.
They didn't torture people by packing them into the little room and making them travel up and down. They didn't drive the big locomotives into advancing armies. How strange that she had interpreted things in terms of their most malicious uses.
And he was explaining things to her now, freely and easily--in fact, he had been talking for hours. It wasn't important to ask him specific questions, except occasionally; he liked telling her all about the mummy of Ramses the Damned, and how Julie Stratford was a modern woman; and how Britain ran its great empire, and so forth and so on. That he had loved Julie Stratford was obvious; Ramsey had "stolen" her, but again, it didn't matter. Not at all. What he'd thought was love wasn't love but something paler, more convenient, and altogether too easy. But did she really want to hear about his family? No, talk of history, then, and Cairo, and Egypt, and the world....
It had been a great chore to keep him from calling his father. He felt guilty. But she had used all her persuasion and all her wiles. He did not require fresh garments; his shirt and jacket looked every bit as fine as they had last night.
And so off they were going now through the crowded lobby of Shepheard's, to drive in his Rolls-Royce, to see the Mamluke tombs and all the "history" that she had asked about; and the tapestry was becoming fuller and fuller.
But he'd remarked more than once on how changed she seemed from last night, when she had been almost playful. And that made her faintly afraid. How strong her affection was for him.
"And do you like this?" she asked as they moved towards the front doors.
He paused. It was as if he were seeing her for the first time. It was so simple to smile at him; he deserved one's tenderest smile. "You're the loveliest, most wonderful thing that's ever come into my life," he said. "I wish I could put into words the effect you have upon me. You are ..."
They stood amid the crowds of the lobby, lost in each other's gaze.
"Like a ghost?" she suggested. "A visitant from another realm?"
"No, you're much too ... too real for that!" He laughed softly. "You're altogether vivid and warm!"
They crossed the veranda together. His car was waiting, just as he'd said it would be. A long black saloon, he'd called it, with deep velvet seats and a roof. They would still feel the wind through the windows.
"Wait, let me just leave word at the desk for my father, that we'll see him tonight."
"I can do that for you, my lord," said the servant who held the door for them.
"Oh, thank you, I do appreciate it," Alex said politely, that same generosity evinced for the lowest underling. As he gave the man a small gratuity, he looked him directly in the eye. "Tonight, I shall see him at the opera--if you please."
She admired the subtle grace with which he did the smallest things. She took his arm as they went down the steps.
"And tell me," she said as he helped her into the front seat, "about this Julie Stratford. What is a modern woman?"
