"Precisely, Elliott, precisely."
  
  "You know, you might say no to your son once hi a while."  A deep sigh came from 
Randolph. Elliott didn't press it. He knew as well as anyone did that Henry's 
deterioration was no joke any longer; it had nothing to do with sowing wild oats, or 
going through a rough period. There was something thoroughly rotten in Henry Stratford 
and there always had been. There was very little that was rotten in Randolph. And so it 
was a tragedy; and Elliott, who loved his own son, Alex, excessively, had only sympathy 
for Randolph on that score.
  
  More assurances; a positive din of assurance. You'll get your twenty thousand pounds. 
But Elliott wasn't listening. He was watching the dancers again-his good and gentle son 
whispering passionately to Julie, whose face wore that look of determination that 
flattered her for reasons that Elliott could never fully understand.
  
  Some women must smile to be beautiful. Some women must weep. But with Julie, the real 
radiance shone only when she was serious-perhaps because her eyes were too softly brown 
otherwise, her mouth too guileless, her porcelain cheeks too smooth.
  
  Fired with determination, she was a vision. And Alex, for all
  
  his breeding, and all his proffered passion, seemed no more than **a partner"  for her; 
one of a thousand elegant young men who might have guided her across the marble floor.
  
  ft was the" Morning Papers Waltz"  and Julie loved it; she had always loved it. There 
came back to her now a faint memory of dancing once to the" Morning Papers Waltz"  with 
her father. Was ft when they had first brought home the gramophone, and they had danced 
all through the Egyptian room and the library and the drawing rooms-she and Father-until 
the light came through the shutters, and he had said:
  
  "Oh, my dear, no more. No more."
  
  Now the music made her drowsy and almost sad. And Alex kept talking to her, telling her 
in one way or another that he loved her, and mere was that panic inside her, that fear of 
speaking harsh or cold words.
  
  "And if you want to live in Egypt,"  Alex said breathlessly," and dig for mummies with 
your father, well then, we'll go to Egypt. We'll go straight after the wedding. And if 
you want to in arch for the vote, well then, I shall march at your side."
  
  "Oh, yes,"  Julie answered," that's what you say now, and I know you mean it with all 
your heart, but Alex, I'm just not ready. I cannot."
  
  She couldn't bear to see him so deadly earnest. She couldn't bear to see him hurt. If 
only there were a little wickedness in Alex; just a little bit of meanness as there was 
in everyone else. His good looks would nave been improved by a little meanness. Tall, 
lean and brown-haired, he was too angelic. His quick dark eyes revealed his entire soul 
too easily. At twenty-five, he was an eager and innocent boy.
  
  '"What do you want with a suffragette for a wife?"  she asked." With an explorer? You 
know I could very well be an explorer, or an archaeologist. I wish I was in Egypt with 
Father right now."
  
  "Dearest, we'll go there. Only marry me before we go."
  
  He leaned forward as if he meant to lass her. And she moved back a step, the waltz 
carrying them almost recklessly fast, so that for a moment she felt light-headed and 
almost as if she were truly in love.
  
  "What can I do to win you, Julie?"  he whispered in her ear." I'll bring the Great 
Pyramids to London."
  
  "Alex, you won me a long time ago,"  she said, smiling. But
  
  that was a lie, wasn't it? There was something truly terrible about this moment-about 
the music with its lovely compelling rhythm, and the desperate look on Alex's face.
  
  "The simple truth is ... I don't want to be married. Not yet."  And perhaps not at all?
  
  He didn't answer her. She'd been too blunt, too much to the point. She knew that sudden 
shrinking. It wasn't unmanly; on the contrary, it was gentlemanly. She had hurt him, and 
when he smiled again now, there was a sweetness and a courage in it that touched her and 
made her feel all the more sad.
  
  "Father will be back in a few months, Alex. We'll all talk then. Marriage, the future, 
the rights of women, married and unmarried, and the possibility that you deserve far 
better than a modern woman like me who's very likely to turn your hair grey within the 
first year and send you running into the arms of an old-fashioned mistress."
  
  "Oh, how you love to be shocking,"  he said." And I love to be shocked."
  
  "But do you, dearest, really love to be shocked?"
  
  Suddenly he did kiss her. They had stopped in the middle of the dance floor, other 
couples swirling around them as the music swept on. He kissed her and she allowed it, 
yielding to him completely as if she must somehow love him; must somehow meet him halfway.
  
  It didn't matter that others must be looking at them. It didn't matter that his hands 
were trembling as he held her.
  
  What mattered was that, though she loved him terribly, it was not enough.
  
  It was cool now. There was noise out there; cars arriving. The braying of a donkey; and 
the sharp high-pitched sound of a woman laughing, an American woman, who had driven all 
the way from Cairo as soon as she had heard.
  
  Lawrence and Samir sat together in their camp chairs at the ancient writing table, with 
the papyri spread out before them.