Suppose we go back and try to assist the kindly Fates a little bit ?" The Fates which, in some dimly-perceived fashion, seem to shape our little successive phases of existence, were certainly in a kindly mood that "lovely night in June." The two Professors had retired to Franklin Marmion's sanctum for the discussion of whisky and soda and the possibilities of physical manifestations of the Occult.

Mrs van Huysman was frankly and comfortably sleeping in the deep, amply-cushioned armchair, and the two young men were almost as frankly pining for sweeter companionship than their own.
But the pairing off, which was so deftly managed by Nitocris, did not at first appear entirely satisfactory to them, yet a very few minutes' conversation sufficed to convince them of the wisdom of the arrangement.
Brenda, with all the delicate tact which makes every highly-trained woman a skilled diplomatist, managed, not only to completely charm Merrill as a man who is in love with another woman likes to be charmed, but also to make him understand even more clearly than he had done how greatly the Fates had blessed him by giving him the love of such a girl as Nitocris; and then, by a few very deftly conveyed suggestions, she further gave him to understand that, so far as Lord Leighton had ever been an unconscious obstacle in his path, he was even now engaged in removing himself.

Wherefore Commander Merrill enjoyed his smoke and stroll under the beeches a good deal more than he had anticipated.
More difficultly ambiguous, certainly, was the position in which Lord Leighton found himself with Nitocris, but here also her tact and perfect candour helped his own innate chivalry to accomplish all that was desirable with the slightest possible friction.

She began by telling him, as she had told Brenda, of the mysterious stealing of the Mummy, and made a sort of apology for her father having deputed the telling of it to her--of course, in perfect innocence of the real reason for his doing so.

He deplored with her the loss of what they both believed to be a priceless relic of the Golden Age of Egypt, but he passed it over lightly, chiefly for the reason that there was something in his mind just now that was much more serious than even the loss of the mummy of her long-dead namesake.
There had been a little silence between them after he had made his condolences, and then he said, with a hesitation which told quite plainly what was coming: "Miss Marmion, I have a rather awkward confession to make to you--I have got to tell you, in fact, I think it is my duty to--well, honestly I really don't quite know how to put it properly, but--but--er, something has happened to me to-day that is a good deal more important to me, at least, than the disappearance of half a dozen royal mummies." "Indeed ?" said Nitocris, with a demurely perfect assumption of ignorance.