The Rosary

CHAPTER XII

THE DOC­TOR’S PRE­SCRIP­TION

The Hon­ourable Jane Cham­pi­on stood on the sum­mit of the Great Pyra­mid and looked around her. The four ex­haust­ed Arabs whose ex­er­tions, com­bined with her own ac­tiv­ity, had placed her there, dropped in the pic­turesque at­ti­tudes in­to which an Arab falls by na­ture. They had hoist­ed the Hon­ourable Jane’s eleven stone ten from the bot­tom to the top in record time, and now lay around, proud of their achieve­ment and sure of their “back­sheesh.”

The whole thing had gone as if by clock-​work. Two ma­hogany-​coloured, fine­ly pro­por­tioned fel­lows, in scanty white gar­ments, sprang with the ease of an­telopes to the top of a high step, turn­ing to reach down ea­ger­ly and seize Jane’s up­stretched hands. One re­mained be­hind, un­seen but in­dis­pens­able, to lend time­ly aid at ex­act­ly the right mo­ment. Then came the ap­par­ent­ly im­pos­si­ble task for Jane, of plac­ing the sole of her foot on the edge of a stone four feet above the one up­on which she was stand­ing. It seemed rather like step­ping up on to the draw­ing-​room man­tel­piece. But en­cour­aged by cries of “Ei­wa! Ei­wa!” she did it; when in­stant­ly a voice be­hind said, “Tyeb!” two voic­es above shout­ed, “Ke­teer!” the grip on her hands tight­ened, the Arab be­hind hoist­ed, and Jane had stepped up, with an ease which sur­prised her­self. As a mat­ter of fact, un­der those cir­cum­stances the im­pos­si­ble thing would have been not to have stepped up.

Arab num­ber four was wa­ter-​car­ri­er, and of­fered wa­ter from a gourd at in­ter­vals; and once, when Jane had to cry halt for a few min­utes’ breath­ing space, Schehati, hand­somest of all, and lead­er of the en­ter­prise, of­fered to re­cite En­glish Shake­speare-​po­et­ry. This proved to be:

“Jack-​an-​Jill Went up­py hill, To fetchy pai­ly wa­ter; Jack fell down-​an Broke his crown-​an Jill came tum­bling af­ter.”

Jane had laughed; and Schehati, en­cour­aged by the suc­cess of his at­tempt to ed­ify and amuse, used lines of the im­mor­tal nurs­ery epic as sig­nals for unit­ed ac­tion dur­ing the re­main­der of the climb. There­fore Jane mount­ed one step to the fact that Jack fell down, and scaled the next to in­for­ma­tion as to the se­ri­ous na­ture of his in­juries, and at the third, Schehati, bend­ing over, con­fi­den­tial­ly men­tioned in her ear, while Ali shoved be­hind, that “Jill came tum­bling af­ter.”

The fa­mil­iar words, heard un­der such nov­el cir­cum­stances, took on fresh mean­ing. Jane com­menced spec­ulat­ing as to whether the down­fall of Jack need nec­es­sar­ily have caused so com­plete a loss of self- con­trol and equi­lib­ri­um on the part of Jill. Would she not have proved her de­vo­tion bet­ter by bring­ing the mu­tu­al pail safe­ly to the bot­tom of the hill, and there at­tend­ing to the wounds of her fall­en hero? Jane, in her time, had wit­nessed the trag­ic down­fall of var­ious de­light­ful jacks, and had her­self min­is­tered ten­der­ly to their bro­ken crowns; for in each case the Jill had re­mained on the top of the hill, flirt­ing with that ob­jec­tion­able per­son of the name of Horner, whose cool, cal­cu­lat­ing way of set­ting to work–so un­like poor Jack’s head­long method–in­vari­ably se­cured him the plum; up­on which he re­marked “What a good boy am I!” and was usu­al­ly tak­en at his own smug val­ua­tion. But Jane’s en­tire sym­pa­thy on these oc­ca­sions was with the de­feat­ed lover, and more than one Jack was now on his feet again, brave­ly fac­ing life, be­cause that kind hand had been held out to him as he lay in his val­ley of hu­mil­ia­tion, and that com­pre­hend­ing sym­pa­thy had proved balm to his bro­ken crown.

“Dick­ery, dick­ery, dock!” chant­ed Schehati solemn­ly, as he hauled again; “Moses ran up the clock. The clock struck ‘one’–“

THE CLOCK STRUCK “ONE”?–It was near­ly three years since that night at Shen­stone when the clock had struck “one,” and Jane had ar­rived at her de­ci­sion,–the de­ci­sion which pre­cip­itat­ed her Jack from his Pis­gah of fu­ture promise. And yet–no. He had not fall­en be­fore the blow. He had tak­en it erect, and his light step had been even firmer than usu­al as he walked down the church and left her, af­ter qui­et­ly and de­lib­er­ate­ly ac­cept­ing her de­ci­sion. It was Jane her­self, left alone, who fell hope­less­ly over the pail. She shiv­ered even now when she re­mem­bered how its icy wa­ters drenched her heart. Ah, what would have hap­pened if Garth had come back in an­swer to her cry dur­ing those first mo­ments of in­tol­er­able suf­fer­ing and lone­li­ness? But Garth was not the sort of man who, when a door has been shut up­on him, waits on the mat out­side, hop­ing to be re­called. When she put him from her, and he re­alised that she meant it he passed com­plete­ly out of her life. He was at the rail­way sta­tion by the time she reached the house, and from that day to this they had nev­er met. Garth ev­ident­ly con­sid­ered the avoid­ance of meet­ings to be his re­spon­si­bil­ity, and he nev­er failed her in this. Once or twice she went on a vis­it to hous­es where she knew him to be stay­ing. He al­ways hap­pened to have left that morn­ing, if she ar­rived in time for lun­cheon; or by an ear­ly af­ter­noon train, if she was due for tea. He nev­er timed it so that there should be trag­ic pass­ings of each oth­er, with set faces, at the rail­way sta­tions; or a for­mal word of greet­ing as she ar­rived and he de­part­ed,–just enough to awak­en all the slum­ber­ing pain and set peo­ple won­der­ing. Jane re­mem­bered with shame that this was the sort of pic­turesque tragedy she would have ex­pect­ed from Garth Dal­main. But the man who had sur­prised her by his dig­ni­fied ac­qui­es­cence in her de­ci­sion, con­tin­ued to sur­prise her by the strength with which he silent­ly ac­cept­ed it as fi­nal and kept out of her way. Jane had not probed the depth of the wound she had in­flict­ed.

Nev­er once was his de­par­ture con­nect­ed, in the minds of oth­ers, with her ar­rival. There was al­ways some ex­cel­lent and per­fect­ly nat­ural rea­son why he had been obliged to leave, and he was open­ly talked of and re­gret­ted, and Jane heard all the lat­est “Dal sto­ries,” and found her­self sur­round­ed by the at­mo­sphere of his ex­ot­ic, beau­ty- lov­ing na­ture. And there was usu­al­ly a girl–al­ways the loveli­est of the par­ty–con­fi­den­tial­ly point­ed out to Jane, by the rest, as a cer­tain­ty, if on­ly Dal had had an­oth­er twen­ty-​four hours of her so­ci­ety. But the girl her­self would ap­pear quite heart-​whole, on­ly very full of an ev­ident­ly de­light­ful friend­ship, ex­press­ing all Dal’s ideas on art and colour, as her own, and con­fi­dent­ly hap­py in an as­sured sense of her own love­li­ness and charm and pow­er to please. Nev­er did he leave be­hind him traces which the wom­an who loved him re­gret­ted to find. But he was al­ways gone–ir­re­vo­ca­bly gone. Garth Dal­main was not the sort of man to wait on the door-​mat of a wom­an’s in­de­ci­sion.

Nei­ther did this Jack of hers break his crown. His por­trait of Pauline Lis­ter, paint­ed six months af­ter the Shen­stone vis­it, had proved the finest bit of work he had as yet ac­com­plished. He had paint­ed the love­ly Amer­ican, in creamy white satin, stand­ing on a dark oak stair­case, one hand rest­ing on the balustrade, the oth­er, full of yel­low ros­es, held out to­wards an un­seen friend be­low. Be­hind and above her shone a stained-​glass win­dow, cen­turies old, the arms, crest, and mot­toes of the no­ble fam­ily to whom the place be­longed, shin­ing there­on in rose-​coloured and gold­en glass. He had won­der­ful­ly caught the charm and vi­vac­ity of the girl. She was gai­ly up-​to-​date, and frankly Amer­ican, from the crown of her queen­ly lit­tle head, to the point of her satin shoe; and the sug­ges­tive­ness of plac­ing her in sur­round­ings which breathed an at­mo­sphere of the best tra­di­tions of Eng­land’s an­cient an­ces­tral homes, the fear­less wed­ding of the new world with the old, the putting of this sparkling gem from the new in­to the beau­ti­ful mel­low set­ting of the old and there show­ing it at its best,–all this was the mak­ing of the pic­ture. Peo­ple smiled, and said the painter had done on can­vas what he short­ly in­tend­ed do­ing in re­al­ity; but the tie be­tween artist and sit­ter nev­er grew in­to any­thing clos­er than a pleas­ant friend­ship, and it was the no­ble own­er of the stair­case and win­dow who even­tu­al­ly per­suad­ed Miss Lis­ter to re­main in sur­round­ings which suit­ed her so ad­mirably.

One sto­ry about that por­trait Jane had heard dis­cussed more than once in cir­cles where both were known. Pauline Lis­ter had come to the first sit­tings wear­ing her beau­ti­ful string of pearls, and Garth had paint­ed them won­der­ful­ly, spend­ing hours over the del­icate per­fect­ing of each sep­arate gleam­ing drop. Sud­den­ly one day he seized his palette-​knife, scraped the whole neck­lace off the can­vas with a stroke and, de­clared she must wear her rose-​topazes in or­der to car­ry out his scheme of colour. She was wear­ing her rose-​topazes when Jane saw the pic­ture in the Acade­my, and very love­ly they looked on the del­icate white­ness of her neck. But peo­ple who had seen Garth’s paint­ing of the pearls main­tained that that scrape of the palette-​knife had de­stroyed work which would have been the talk of the year. And Pauline Lis­ter, just af­ter it had hap­pened, was re­port­ed to have said, with a shrug of her pret­ty shoul­ders: “Schemes of colour are all very well. But he scraped my pearls off the can­vas be­cause some one who came in hummed a tune while look­ing at the pic­ture. I would be obliged if peo­ple who walk around the stu­dio while I am be­ing paint­ed will in fu­ture re­frain from hum­ming tunes. I don’t want him to scoop off my topazes and call for my emer­alds. Al­so I feel like of­fer­ing a re­ward for the dis­cov­ery of that tune. I want to know what it has to do with my scheme of colour, any­way.”

When Jane heard the sto­ry, she was spend­ing a few days with the Brands in Wim­pole Street. It was told at tea, in La­dy Brand’s pret­ty boudoir. The duchess’s Con­cert, at which Garth had heard her sing THE ROSARY, was a thing of the past. Near­ly a year had elapsed since their fi­nal part­ing, and this was the very first thought or word or sign of his re­mem­brance, which di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, had come her way. She could not doubt that the tune hummed had been THE ROSARY.

“The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls to me; I count them over, ev­ery one, apart.”

She seemed to hear Garth’s voice on the ter­race, as she heard it in those first star­tled mo­ments of re­al­is­ing the gift which was be­ing laid at her feet–“I have learned to count pearls, beloved.”

Jane’s heart was grow­ing cold and frozen in its empti­ness. This in­ci­dent of the stu­dio warmed and woke it for the mo­ment, and with the wak­ing came sharp pain. When the vis­itors had left, and La­dy Brand had gone to the nurs­ery, she walked over to the pi­ano, sat down, and soft­ly played the ac­com­pa­ni­ment of “The Rosary.” The fine un­ex­pect­ed chords, full of dis­cords work­ing in­to har­mo­ny, seemed to suit her mood and her mem­ories.

Sud­den­ly a voice be­hind her said: “Sing it, Jane.” She turned quick­ly. The doc­tor had come in, and was ly­ing back lux­uri­ous­ly in a large arm-​chair at her el­bow, his hands clasped be­hind his head. “Sing it, Jane,” he said.

“I can’t, Deryck,” she an­swered, still soft­ly sound­ing the chords. “I have not sung for months.”

“What has been the mat­ter–for months?”

Jane took her hands off the keys, and swung round im­pul­sive­ly.

“Oh, boy,” she said. “I have made a bad mess of my life! And yet I know I did right. I would do the same again; at least–at least, I hope I would.”

The doc­tor sat in si­lence for a minute, look­ing at her and pon­der­ing these short, quick sen­tences. Al­so he wait­ed for more, know­ing it would come more eas­ily if he wait­ed silent­ly.

It came.

“Boy–I gave up some­thing, which was more than life it­self to me, for the sake of an­oth­er, and I can’t get over it. I know I did right, and yet–I can’t get over it.”

The doc­tor leaned for­ward and took the clenched hands be­tween his.

“Can you tell me about it, Jeanette?”

“I can tell no one, Deryck; not even you.”

“If ev­er you find you must tell some one, Jane, will you promise to come to me?”

“Glad­ly.”

“Good! Now, my dear girl, here is a pre­scrip­tion for you. Go abroad. And, mind, I do not mean by that, just to Paris and back, or Switzer­land this sum­mer, and the Riv­iera in the au­tumn. Go to Amer­ica and see a few big things. See Ni­agara. And all your life af­ter­wards, when triv­ial­ities are try­ing you, you will love to let your mind go back to the vast green mass of wa­ter sweep­ing over the falls; to the thun­der­ous roar, and the up­ward rush of spray; to the huge per­pet­ual on­ward­ness of it all. You will like to re­mem­ber, when you are both­er­ing about pour­ing wa­ter in and out of teacups, ‘Ni­agara is flow­ing still.’ Stay in a ho­tel so near the falls that you can hear their great voice night and day, thun­der­ing out themes of pow­er and progress. Spend hours walk­ing round and view­ing it from ev­ery point. Go to the Cave of the Winds, across the frail bridges, where the guide will turn and shout to you: ‘Are your rings on tight?’ Learn, in pass­ing, the true mean­ing of the Rock of Ages. Re­ceive Ni­agara in­to your life and soul as a pos­ses­sion, and thank God for it.”

“Then go in for oth­er big things in Amer­ica. Try spir­itu­al­ity and hu­man­ity; love and life. Seek out Mrs. Balling­ton Booth, the great ‘Lit­tle Moth­er’ of all Amer­ican pris­on­ers. I know her well, I am proud to say, and can give you a let­ter of in­tro­duc­tion. Ask her to take you with her to Sing-​Sing, or to Colum­bus State Prison, and to let you hear her ad­dress an au­di­ence of two thou­sand con­victs, hold­ing out to them the gospel of hope and love,–her own in­spired and in­spir­ing be­lief in fresh pos­si­bil­ities even for the most de­spair­ing.”

“Go to New York City and see how, when a man wants a big build­ing and has on­ly a small plot of ground, he makes the most of that ground by run­ning his build­ing up in­to the sky. Learn to do like­wise.–And then, when the great-​souled, large-​heart­ed, rapid- mind­ed peo­ple of Amer­ica have waked you to en­thu­si­asm with their big­ness, go off to Japan and see a lit­tle peo­ple nobly do­ing their best to be­come great.–Then to Pales­tine, and spend months in trac­ing the foot­steps of the great­est hu­man life ev­er lived. Take Egypt on your way home, just to re­mind your­self that there are still, in this very mod­ern world of ours, a few pass­ably an­cient things,–a well-​pre­served wood­en man, for in­stance, with eyes of opaque white quartz, a piece of rock crys­tal in the cen­tre for a pupil. These glit­ter­ing eyes looked out up­on the world from be­neath their eye­lids of bronze, in the time of Abra­ham. You will find it in the mu­se­um at Cairo. Ride a don­key in the Moos­kee if you want re­al sport; and if you feel a lit­tle slack, climb the Great Pyra­mid. Ask for an Arab named Schehati, and tell him you want to do it one minute quick­er than any la­dy has ev­er done it be­fore.”

“Then come home, my dear girl, ring me up and ask for an ap­point­ment; or chance it, and let Stod­dart slip you in­to my con­sult­ing-​room be­tween pa­tients, and re­port how the pre­scrip­tion has worked. I nev­er gave a bet­ter; and you need not of­fer me a guinea! I at­tend old friends gratis.”

Jane laughed, and gripped his hand. “Oh, boy,” she said, “I be­lieve you are right. My whole ideas of life have been fo­cussed on my­self and my own in­di­vid­ual pains and loss­es. I will do as you say; and God bless you for say­ing it.–Here comes Flow­er. Flow­er,” she said, as the doc­tor’s wife trailed in, wear­ing a soft tea-​gown, and turn­ing on the elec­tric lights as she passed, “will this boy of ours ev­er grow old? Here he is, se­ri­ous­ly ad­vis­ing that a stout, mid­dle- aged wom­an should climb the Great Pyra­mid as a cure for de­pres­sion, and do it in record time!”

“Dar­ling,” said the doc­tor’s wife, seat­ing her­self on the arm of his chair, “whom have you been see­ing who is stout, or de­pressed, or mid­dle-​aged? If you mean Mrs. Park­er Bangs, she is not mid­dle-​aged, be­cause she is an Amer­ican, and no Amer­ican is ev­er mid­dle-​aged. And she is on­ly de­pressed be­cause, even af­ter paint­ing her love­ly niece’s por­trait, Garth Dal­main has failed to pro­pose to her. And it is no good ad­vis­ing her to climb the Great Pyra­mid, though she is do­ing Egypt this win­ter, be­cause I heard her say yes­ter­day that she should nev­er think of go­ing up the pyra­mids un­til the chil­dren of Is­rael, or who­ev­er the na­tives are who live around those parts, have the sense to put an el­eva­tor right up the cen­tre.”

Jane and the doc­tor laughed, and Flow­er, set­tling her­self more com­fort­ably, for the doc­tor’s arm had stolen around her, said: “Jane, I heard you play­ing THE ROSARY just now, such a favourite of mine, and it is months since I heard it. Do sing it, dear.”

Jane met the doc­tor’s eyes and smiled re­as­sur­ing­ly; then turned with­out any hes­ita­tion and did as Flow­er asked. The pre­scrip­tion had al­ready done her good.

At the last words of the song the doc­tor’s wife bent over and laid a ten­der lit­tle kiss just above his tem­ple, where the thick dark hair was streaked with sil­ver. But the doc­tor’s mind was in­tent on Jane, and be­fore the fi­nal chords were struck he knew he had di­ag­nosed her case cor­rect­ly. “But she had bet­ter go abroad,” he thought. “It will take her mind off her­self al­to­geth­er, giv­ing her a larg­er view of things in gen­er­al, and a bet­ter pro­por­tioned view of things in par­tic­ular. And the boy won’t change; or, if he does, Jane will be proved right, to her own sat­is­fac­tion. But, if this is HER side, good heav­ens, what must HIS be! I had won­dered what was sap­ping all his buoy­ant youth­ful­ness. To care for Jane would be an ed­uca­tion; but to have made Jane care! And then to have lost her! He must have nerves of steel, to be fac­ing life at all. What is this cross they are both learn­ing to kiss, and hold­ing up be­tween them? Per­haps Ni­agara will sweep it away, and she will ca­ble him from there.”

Then the doc­tor took the dear lit­tle hand rest­ing on his shoul­der and kissed it soft­ly, while Jane’s back was still turned. For the doc­tor had had past ex­pe­ri­ence of the cross, and now the pearls were very pre­cious.

So Jane took the pre­scrip­tion, and two years went by in the tak­ing; and here she was, on the top of the Great Pyra­mid, and, more­over, she had done it in record time, and laughed as she thought of how she should re­port the fact to Deryck.

Her Arabs lay around, very hot and shiny, and con­tent. Large back­sheesh was as­sured, and they looked up at her with pleased pos­ses­sive eyes, as an achieve­ment of their own; hard­ly re­al­is­ing how large a part her fine­ly de­vel­oped ath­let­ic pow­ers and elas­tic limbs had played in the speed of the as­cent.

And Jane stood there, sound in wind and limb, and with the ex­hil­arat­ing sense, al­ways help­ful to the mind, of a bod­ily feat ac­com­plished.

She was look­ing her best in her Nor­folk coat and skirt of brown tweed with hints of green and or­ange in it, plen­ty of use­ful pock­ets piped with leather, leather but­tons, and a broad band of leather round the bot­tom of the skirt. A con­nois­seur would have named at once the one and on­ly firm from which that cos­tume could have come, and the hat­ter who sup­plied the soft green Ty­ro­lian hat–for Jane scorned pith hel­mets–which matched it so ad­mirably. But Schehati was no con­nois­seur of cloth­ing, though a pret­ty shrewd judge of ways and man­ners, and he summed up Jane thus: “Nice gen­tle­man-​la­dy! Give good back­sheesh, and not sit down halfway and say: `No top’! But re­al la­dy-​gen­tle­man! Give back­sheesh with kind face, and not send poor Arab to As­souan.”

Jane was deeply tanned by the East­ern sun. Burn­ing a splen­did brown, and en­joy­ing the pro­cess, she had no need of veils or para­sols; and her strong eyes faced the gold­en light of the desert with­out the aid of smoked glass­es. She had once heard Garth re­mark that a sight which made him feel re­al­ly ill, was the back view of a wom­an in a mo­tor-​veil, and Jane had laugh­ing­ly agreed, for to her veils of any kind had al­ways seemed su­per­flu­ous. The heavy coils of her brown hair nev­er blew about in­to fas­ci­nat­ing lit­tle curls and wisps, but re­mained where, with a few well-​di­rect­ed hair­pins, she each morn­ing solid­ly placed them.

Jane had nev­er looked bet­ter than she did on this March day, stand­ing on the sum­mit of the Great Pyra­mid. Strong, brown, and well-​knit, a re­li­able mind in a ca­pa­ble body, the un­de­ni­able plain­ness of her face re­deemed by its kind­ly ex­pres­sion of in­ter­est and en­joy­ment; her wide, pleas­ant smile re­veal­ing her fine white teeth, wit­ness­es to her per­fect sound­ness and health, with­in and with­out.

“Nice gen­tle­man-​la­dy,” mur­mured Schehati again: and had Jane over­heard the re­mark it would not have of­fend­ed her; for, though she held a mas­cu­line wom­an on­ly one de­gree less in ab­hor­rence than an ef­fem­inate man, she would have tak­en Schehati’s com­pound noun as a trib­ute to the fact that she was well-​groomed and in­de­pen­dent, know­ing her own mind, and, when she start­ed out to go to a place, reach­ing it in the short­est pos­si­ble time, with­out fid­get, fuss, or flur­ry. These three fem­inine at­tributes were held in scorn by Jane, who knew her­self so deeply wom­an­ly that she could af­ford in mi­nor ways to be frankly un­fem­inine.

The doc­tor’s pre­scrip­tion had worked ad­mirably. That look of falling to pieces and age­ing pre­ma­ture­ly–a gen­er­al di­lap­ida­tion of mind and body–which it had grieved and star­tled him to see in Jane as she sat be­fore him on the mu­sic-​stool, was gone com­plete­ly. She looked a calm, pleas­ant thir­ty; ready to go hap­pi­ly on, year by year, to­wards an equal­ly agree­able and de­light­ful forty; and not afraid of fifty, when that time should come. Her clear eyes looked frankly out up­on the world, and her sane mind formed sound opin­ions and pro­nounced fair judg­ments, tem­pered by the kind­li­ness of an un­usu­al­ly large and gen­er­ous heart.

Just now she was con­sid­er­ing the view and find­ing it very good. Its strong con­trasts held her.

On one side lay the fer­tile Delta, with its groves of wav­ing palm, or­ange, and olive trees, grow­ing in rich pro­fu­sion on the banks of the Nile, a broad band of gleam­ing sil­ver. On the oth­er, the Desert, with its far-​dis­tant hori­zon, stretch­ing away in un­du­la­tions of gold­en sand; not a tree, not a leaf, not a blade of grass, but bound­less lib­er­ty, an ocean of sol­id gold­en glo­ry. For the sun was set­ting, and the sky flamed in­to colour.

“A part­ing of the ways,” said Jane; “a place of choice. How dif­fi­cult to know which to choose–lib­er­ty or fruit­ful­ness. One would have to con­sult the Sphinx–wise old guardian of the ages, silent keep­er of Time’s se­crets, gaz­ing on in­to the fu­ture as It has al­ways gazed, while fu­ture be­came present, and present glid­ed in­to past.–Come, Schehati, let us de­scend. Oh, yes, I will cer­tain­ly sit up­on the stone on which the King sat when he was Prince of Wales. Thank you for men­tion­ing it. It will sup­ply a de­light­ful top­ic of con­ver­sa­tion next time I am hon­oured by a few min­utes of his gra­cious Majesty’s at­ten­tion, and will save me from floun­der­ing in­to trite re­marks about the weath­er.–And now take me to the Sphinx, Schehati. There is a ques­tion I would ask of It, just as the sun dips be­low the hori­zon.”