With a mental shudder, sometimes he watched the cheap tourist
horde go laughing, chattering past within view of its ancient,
half-closed eyes. It was like defying deity. For, to his stirred imagination the sublimity of the Desert dwarfed
humanity. These people had been wiser to choose another place for the
flaunting of their tawdry insignificance. Any minute this Wilderness,
"huddled in grey annihilation," might awake and notice them ...! In his own hotel were several "smart," so-called "Society" people who
emphasised the protest in him to the point of definite contempt. Overdressed, the latest worldly novel under their arms, they strutted
the narrow pavements of their tiny world, immensely pleased with
themselves. Their vacuous minds expressed themselves in the slang of
their exclusive circle--value being the element excluded. The pettiness
of their outlook hardly distressed him--he was too familiar with it at
home--but their essential vulgarity, their innate ugliness, seemed more
than usually offensive in the grandeur of its present setting. Into the
mighty sands they took the latest London scandal, gabbling it over even
among the Tombs and Temples. And "it was to laugh," the pains they spent
wondering whom they might condescend to know, never dreaming that they
themselves were not worth knowing. Against the background of the noble
Desert their titles seemed the cap and bells of clowns. And Henriot, knowing some of them personally, could not always escape
their insipid company. Yet he was the gainer. They little guessed how
their commonness heightened contrast, set mercilessly thus beside the
strange, eternal beauty of the sand. Occasionally the protest in his soul betrayed itself in words, which
of course they did not understand. "He is so clever, isn't he?" And then, having relieved his feelings, he would comfort himself
characteristically:

"The Desert has not noticed them. The Sand is not aware of their
existence. How should the sea take note of rubbish that lies above its
tide-line?" For Henriot drew near to its great shifting altars in an attitude of
worship. The wilderness made him kneel in heart. Its shining reaches led
to the oldest Temple in the world, and every journey that he made was
like a sacrament. For him the Desert was a consecrated place. It was
sacred. And his tactful hosts, knowing his peculiarities, left their house open
to him when he cared to come--they lived upon the northern edge of the
oasis--and he was as free as though he were absolutely alone. He blessed
them; he rejoiced that he had come. Little Helouan accepted him. The
Desert knew that he was there. *       *       *       *       *

From his corner of the big dining-room he could see the other guests,
but his roving eye always returned to the figure of a solitary man who
sat at an adjoining table, and whose personality stirred his interest. While affecting to look elsewhere, he studied him as closely as might
be. There was something about the stranger that touched his
curiosity--a certain air of expectation that he wore. But it was more
than that: it was anticipation, apprehension in it somewhere. The man
was nervous, uneasy. His restless way of suddenly looking about him
proved it. Henriot tried every one else in the room as well; but, though
his thought settled on others too, he always came back to the figure of
this solitary being opposite, who ate his dinner as if afraid of being
seen, and glanced up sometimes as if fearful of being watched. Henriot's
curiosity, before he knew it, became suspicion. There was mystery here. The table, he noticed, was laid for two. "Is he an actor, a priest of some strange religion, an enquiry agent, or
just--a crank?" was the thought that first occurred to him. And the
question suggested itself without amusement. The impression of
subterfuge and caution he conveyed left his observer unsatisfied. The face was clean shaven, dark, and strong; thick hair, straight yet
bushy, was slightly unkempt; it was streaked with grey; and an
unexpected mobility when he smiled ran over the features that he seemed
to hold rigid by deliberate effort. The man was cut to no quite common
measure. Henriot jumped to an intuitive conclusion: "He's not here for
pleasure or merely sight-seeing. Something serious has brought him out
to Egypt." For the face combined too ill-assorted qualities: an
obstinate tenacity that might even mean brutality, and was certainly
repulsive, yet, with it, an undecipherable dreaminess betrayed by lines
of the mouth, but above all in the very light blue eyes, so rarely
raised. Those eyes, he felt, had looked upon unusual things;
"dreaminess" was not an adequate description; "searching" conveyed it
better. The true source of the queer impression remained elusive. And
hence, perhaps, the incongruous marriage in the face--mobility laid upon
a matter-of-fact foundation underneath. The face showed conflict. And Henriot, watching him, felt decidedly intrigued. "I'd like to know
that man, and all about him." His name, he learned later, was Richard
Vance; from Birmingham; a business man. But it was not the Birmingham he
wished to know; it was the--other: cause of the elusive, dreamy
searching. Though facing one another at so short a distance, their eyes,
however, did not meet. And this, Henriot well knew, was a sure sign that
he himself was also under observation. Richard Vance, from Birmingham,
was equally taking careful note of Felix Henriot, from London. Thus, he could wait his time. They would come together later. An
opportunity would certainly present itself. The first links in a curious
chain had already caught; soon the chain would tighten, pull as though
by chance, and bring their lives into one and the same circle. Wondering
in particular for what kind of a companion the second cover was laid,
Henriot felt certain that their eventual coming together was inevitable. He possessed this kind of divination from first impressions, and not
uncommonly it proved correct. Following instinct, therefore, he took no steps towards acquaintance,
and for several days, owing to the fact that he dined frequently with
his hosts, he saw nothing more of Richard Vance, the business man from
Birmingham. Then, one night, coming home late from his friend's house,
he had passed along the great corridor, and was actually a step or so
into his bedroom, when a drawling voice sounded close behind him. It was
an unpleasant sound. It was very near him too--

"I beg your pardon, but have you, by any chance, such a thing as a
compass you could lend me?" The voice was so close that he started. Vance stood within touching
distance of his body. He had stolen up like a ghostly Arab, must have
followed him, too, some little distance, for further down the passage
the light of an open door--he had passed it on his way--showed where he
came from. "Eh? I beg your pardon? A--compass, did you say?" He felt disconcerted
for a moment. How short the man was, now that he saw him standing.