On the moment Eglington had a temptation to say something with an edge, which would show David that his success in Egypt hung upon the course that he himself and the weak Foreign Minister, under whom he served, would take. And this course would be his own course largely, since he had been appointed to be a force and strength in the Foreign Office which his chief did not supply. He refrained, however, and, on the moment, remembered the promise he had given to Faith to help David. A wave of feeling passed over him. His wife was beautiful, a creature of various charms, a centre of attraction. Yet he had never really loved her--so many sordid elements had entered into the thought of marriage with her, lowering the character of his affection. With a perversity which only such men know, such heart as he had turned to the unknown Quaker girl who had rebuked him, scathed him, laid bare his soul before himself, as no one ever had done. To Eglington it was a relief that there was one human being--he thought there was only one--who read him through and through; and that knowledge was in itself as powerful an influence as was the secret between David and Hylda. It was a kind of confessional, comforting to a nature not self-contained. Now he restrained his cynical intention to deal David a side-thrust, and quietly said: “We shall meet at Hamley, shall we not? Let us talk there, and not at the Foreign Office. You would care to go to Egypt, Hylda?” She forced a smile. “Let us talk it over at Hamley.” With a smile to David she turned away to some friends. Eglington offered to introduce David to some notable people, but he said that he must go--he was fatigued after his journey. He had no wish to be lionised. As he left the salon, the band was playing a tune that made him close his eyes, as though against something he would not see. The band in Kaid’s Palace had played it that night when he had killed Foorgat Bey. CHAPTER XX. EACH AFTER HIS OWN ORDER With the passing years new feelings had grown up in the heart of Luke Claridge. Once David’s destiny and career were his own peculiar and self-assumed responsibility. “Inwardly convicted,” he had wrenched the lad away from the natural circumstances of his life, and created a scheme of existence for him out of his own conscience--a pious egoist. After David went to Egypt, however, his mind involuntarily formed the resolution that “Davy and God should work it out together.” He had grown very old in appearance, and his quiet face was almost painfully white; but the eyes burned with more fire than in the past. As the day approached when David should arrive in England, he walked by himself continuously, oblivious of the world round him. He spoke to no one, save the wizened Elder Meacham, and to John Fairley, who rightly felt that he had a share in the making of Claridge Pasha.