Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XII THE SPHINX BY MOONLIGHT It was with a feeling of intense and real relief that the Princess Cecile parted from her husband and saw him embark on the steamer which was to carry him away to Ceylon, Bombay and numerous other places, which she did not care in the least to visit with him. She took a suite of rooms in one of the principal hotels of Cairo and settled there quietly with the intention of spending a winter far from the worries of Berlin, during which she would be able to do whatever she liked, and to see whomever she cared to know. Madame von Thiele Winkler had accompanied her, and it was then that the difference of character of the two ladies became more and more accentuated, and that sometimes unpleasant discussions took place between them. Cecile wished to lead the existence of a simple tourist, and to go about as any ordinary mortal would do. She took long rides, either on horseback or on a donkey, according to her fancy; she wandered in the Arab quarters of Cairo; she spent hours sketching in the Island of Rhodes, or at Memphis, the ruins of which had an immense attraction for her, and in short she enjoyed herself in a perfectly innocent, but at the same time perfectly unconventional fashion, which caused her faithful Mistress of the Robes many heart-burnings, for her imagination recoiled with horror at the thought of her beloved princess running about with a Baedeker under her arm and chatting with DEGREESall the dirty donkey boys she met. She thought such conduct undignified, and she remonstrated with Cecile on the subject of her levity, adding that she must not forget that she was the object of the general attention of the gay and cosmopolitan society of Cairo, who gossiped to its heart's content concerning
