“For Egypt!” she repeated; and a chorus of voices instantly echoed the exclamation.  “For Egypt!  Nonsense!  You are jesting.”

“No, I am not jesting,” said Victor Clare, lifting himself on one elbow:  “I am in earnest.  I received a letter from ——­” (naming a distinguished officer) “to-day, offering me a position if I would join him in Cairo.  I say nothing about what the position is, because my mind is not yet made up to accept it; and even if it were, such things should not be published on the house-tops.  But if anybody here has a fancy for joining the army of the khedive, I may be able to give him a few important particulars.”

Nobody responded.  The gentlemen seemed to prefer enlisting under Mrs. Lancaster’s banner for the White Sulphur.  The ladies shrugged their shoulders and said the idea was dreadful, Victor Clare sank back in the grass and addressed himself to Miss Milbourne.

“There is nothing else for me to do,” he said in an argumentative tone.  “I only waste money on the impoverished acres of that old place of mine.  The house itself is falling down over my head.  What remains, then, but to go forth and tempt Fortune to do her best—­or worst?  At least the profession of arms has been in all ages the calling of a gentleman.”

For a minute Eleanor Milbourne did not speak.  She sat in the starlight a graceful, shadowy figure, furling and unfurling her fan with a slightly nervous motion.  Perhaps she was uncertain what to answer.  But at last she spoke in a very low tone:  “Yet you said you had not decided.”

“No, I have not decided.  In truth, I have been rooted in idleness and indifference so long that I scarcely feel as if I cared enough about myself to take advantage of the offer.  Then I cannot bring myself to think of selling Claremont, though I know that a penniless man has no right to the luxury of sentimental attachments.  If I were in Egypt it would not matter to me that some upstart speculator owned the old place.”

“I think it would,” said Miss Milbourne.

“No, it would not” was the obstinate reply.  “I should take care to find a lotos as soon as I reached the Nile.  Whoever eats of that forgets his past life, you know.  I have scant reason for wishing to remember mine,” he added a little bitterly.

“Memory is certainly more often a sting than a pleasure,” said Miss Milbourne.  “It is strange,” she added, “that we should both have thought of obtaining forgetfulness through the same means.  When Mr. Brent asked me what he should bring me from Egypt, I said a lotos of the Nile.  If he fulfills his promise I will share it with you.”

“I am not sure that I care to be indebted even for forgetfulness to Mr. Brent,” said Victor Clare ungratefully.

He was sorry the moment after for having spoken so curtly, and would have made amends by promising to accept a dozen lotoses if she desired to bestow so many upon him; but Miss Milbourne had already turned to her neighbor on the other side and plunged into conversation.  “Is it not strange that Egypt should be waking from her sleep of centuries?” she said; and—­while the gentleman whom she addressed took up the theme readily—­Mrs. Lancaster rose and sauntered round the group to where Victor Clare was lying.