Corinna apologised. Tea was prepared. Miss Banditch talked on the One and Only Topic. Martin listened politely. During a pause, while he stood offering a cup for Corinna to fill for the second time, she remarked casually: “By the way, you met Miss Merriton, didn’t you?” The question was like a knock on the head. He nearly dropped the cup. “Miss Merriton?” “She’s a friend of mine. I had a note from her at Christmas to say that she had been to Brantôme and made your acquaintance, and had carried off Félise to the south of France. Why haven’t you told me about her?” Under her calm, smiling gaze he felt himself grow hot and red and angry. He fenced. “You must remember my position in Brantôme.” She poured the milk into his cup. “She said she was going to Egypt. Sugar?” Miss Banditch resumed her argument. The remainder of the visit was intolerable. As soon as he could swallow his tea, he took his leave. Corinna followed him into the tiny passage by the flat-door. “My dear old Martin,” she said, impulsively throwing an arm round him and gripping his shoulder. “I’m a beast, and a brute, and I hate everybody and everything in this infernal world. But I do wish you the very best of good luck.” She opened the door and with both hands thrust him gently forth; then quickly she closed the door all but a few inches behind him, and through the slit she cried: “Give my love to Lucilla!” The door banged, and Martin descended the five flights of stairs, lost in the maze of the Eternal Feminine. CHAPTER XVIII CAIRO station. An illumination of livid blue. A horde of brown-legged turbaned figures wearing red jerseys on which flaunted in white the names of hotels, and reconstructing Babel. An urbane official, lifting a gold-banded cap in the middle of a small oasis of silence and inviting Martin in the name of the Semiramis Hotel, to surrender luggage and all other cares to his keeping, and to follow the stream through the exit to the hotel motor. A phantasmagoria of East and West rendered more fantastic by the shadows cast by the high arc-lamps. He had lost sight of Fortinbras, who bag in hand—his impedimenta being of the scantiest—had disappeared in quest of the palm-tree against whose trunk he presumably was to pass the night. Martin emerged from the station, entered the automobile, one of a long row, and waited with his fellow passengers until the roof was stacked with luggage. Then the drive through European streets suggestive of Paris and the sudden halt at the hotel. A dazzling vision of a lounge, a swift upward journey in a lift worked by a Nubian gorgeous in scarlet and gold, a walk down a corridor, a door flung open, and Martin found himself in his bedroom. An Arab brought hot water and retired.