humiliated her. She felt he had laughed at her prim propriety in
wishing to get rid of him before the gate. Indeed, she suddenly felt he
might laugh at a good many of the things she did. And this ruffled her
serenity. She put up her slender hands and pushed the thick hair back
from her forehead with an impatient gesture. It all made her
dissatisfied with herself and full of unrest.

"You don't tell me a thing about your Sphinx excursion last night,
Tamara," Millicent Hardcastle said at breakfast, rather peevishly. They
were sipping coffee together in the latter's room in dressing-gowns.
"Was it nice, and had the tourists quite departed?"

"It was wonderful!" and Tamara leant back and looked into distance.
"There were no tourists, and it made me think a number of new
things--we seem such ordinary people, Millicent."

Mrs. Hardcastle glanced up surprised, not to say offended, with coffee
cup poised in the air.

"Yes--you may wonder, but it is true, Milly--we do the same things
every day, and think the same thoughts, and are just thoroughly
commonplace and uninteresting."

"And you came to these conclusions from gazing at the Sphinx?" Mrs.
Hardcastle asked.

"Yes," said Tamara, the pink deepening for a moment in her cheeks. In
her whole life she hardly ever had had a secret. "I sat there,
Millicent, in the sand opposite the strange image, and it seemed to
smile and mock at all little things; it appeared perfectly ridiculous