He studied her
intently. She was a woman who had none of the external feminine signals
in either dress or manner, no graces, no little womanly hesitations and
alarms, no daintiness, yet neither anything distinctly masculine. Her
charm was strong, possessing; only he kept forgetting that he was
talking to a--woman; and the thing she inspired in him included, with
respect and wonder, somewhere also this curious hint of dread. This
instinct to protect her fled as soon as it was born, for the interest of
the conversation in which she so quickly plunged him obliterated all
minor emotions whatsoever. Here, for the first time, he drew close to
Egypt, the Egypt he had sought so long. It was not to be explained. He
_felt_ it. Beginning with commonplaces, such as "You like Egypt? You find here what
you expected?" she led him into better regions with "One finds here what
one brings." He knew the delightful experience of talking fluently on
subjects he was at home in, and to some one who understood. The feeling
at first that to this woman he could not say mere anythings, slipped
into its opposite--that he could say everything. Strangers ten minutes
ago, they were at once in deep and intimate talk together. He found his
ideas readily followed, agreed with up to a point--the point which
permits discussion to start from a basis of general accord towards
speculation. In the excitement of ideas he neglected the uncomfortable
note that had stirred his caution, forgot the warning too. Her mind,
moreover, seemed known to him; he was often aware of what she was going
to say before he actually heard it; the current of her thoughts struck a
familiar gait, and more than once he experienced vividly again the odd
sensation that it all had happened before. The very sentences and
phrases with which she pointed the turns of her unusual ideas were never
wholly unexpected. For her ideas were decidedly unusual, in the sense that she accepted
without question speculations not commonly deemed worth consideration at
all, indeed not ordinarily even known. Henriot knew them, because he had
read in many fields. It was the strength of her belief that fascinated
him. She offered no apologies. She knew. And while he talked, she
listening with folded arms and her black eyes fixed upon his own,
Richard Vance watched with vigilant eyes and listened too, ceaselessly
alert. Vance joined in little enough, however, gave no opinions, his
attitude one of general acquiescence. Twice, when pauses of slackening
interest made it possible, Henriot fancied he surprised another quality
in this negative attitude. Interpreting it each time differently, he yet
dismissed both interpretations with a smile. His imagination leaped so
absurdly to violent conclusions. They were not tenable: Vance was
neither her keeper, nor was he in some fashion a detective. Yet in his
manner was sometimes this suggestion of the detective order. He watched
with such deep attention, and he concealed it so clumsily with an
affectation of careless indifference. There is nothing more dangerous than that impulsive intimacy strangers
sometimes adopt when an atmosphere of mutual sympathy takes them by
surprise, for it is akin to the false frankness friends affect when
telling "candidly" one another's faults. The mood is invariably
regretted later. Henriot, however, yielded to it now with something like
abandon. The pleasure of talking with this woman was so unexpected, and
so keen. For Lady Statham believed apparently in some Egypt of her dreams. Her
interest was neither historical, archaeological, nor political. It was
religious--yet hardly of this earth at all. The conversation turned upon
the knowledge of the ancient Egyptians from an unearthly point of view,
and even while he talked he was vaguely aware that it was _her_ mind
talking through his own. She drew out his ideas and made him say them. But this he was properly aware of only afterwards--that she had
cleverly, mercilessly pumped him of all he had ever known or read upon
the subject. Moreover, what Vance watched so intently was himself, and
the reactions in himself this remarkable woman produced. That also he
realised later. His first impression that these two belonged to what may be called the
"crank" order was justified by the conversation. But, at least, it was
interesting crankiness, and the belief behind it made it even
fascinating. Long before the end he surprised in her a more vital form
of his own attitude that anything _may_ be true, since knowledge has
never yet found final answers to any of the biggest questions. He understood, from sentences dropped early in the talk, that she was
among those few "superstitious" folk who think that the old Egyptians
came closer to reading the eternal riddles of the world than any
others, and that their knowledge was a remnant of that ancient Wisdom
Religion which existed in the superb, dark civilization of the sunken
Atlantis, lost continent that once joined Africa to Mexico. Eighty
thousand years ago the dim sands of Poseidonis, great island adjoining
the main continent which itself had vanished a vast period before, sank
down beneath the waves, and the entire known world to-day was descended
from its survivors. Hence the significant fact that all religions and "mythological" systems
begin with a story of a flood--some cataclysmic upheaval that destroyed
the world. Egypt itself was colonised by a group of Atlantean priests
who brought their curious, deep knowledge with them. They had foreseen
the cataclysm. Lady Statham talked well, bringing into her great dream this strong,
insistent quality of belief and fact. She knew, from Plato to Donelly,
all that the minds of men have ever speculated upon the gorgeous legend. The evidence for such a sunken continent--Henriot had skimmed it too in
years gone by--she made bewilderingly complete. He had heard Baconians
demolish Shakespeare with an array of evidence equally overwhelming. It
catches the imagination though not the mind. Yet out of her facts, as
she presented them, grew a strange likelihood. The force of this woman's
personality, and her calm and quiet way of believing all she talked
about, took her listener to some extent--further than ever before,
certainly--into the great dream after her. And the dream, to say the
least, was a picturesque one, laden with wonderful possibilities. For as
she talked the spirit of old Egypt moved up, staring down upon him out
of eyes lidded so curiously level. Hitherto all had prated to him of the
Arabs, their ancient faith and customs, and the splendour of the
Bedouins, those Princes of the Desert. But what he sought, barely
confessed in words even to himself, was something older far than this. And this strange, dark woman brought it close. Deeps in his soul, long
slumbering, awoke. He heard forgotten questions. Only in this brief way could he attempt to sum up the storm she roused
in him.