"It was wonderful!" and Tamara leant back and looked into distance.
"There were no tourists, and it made me think a number of new
things--we seem such ordinary people, Millicent."

Mrs. Hardcastle glanced up surprised, not to say offended, with coffee
cup poised in the air.

"Yes--you may wonder, but it is true, Milly--we do the same things
every day, and think the same thoughts, and are just thoroughly
commonplace and uninteresting."

"And you came to these conclusions from gazing at the Sphinx?" Mrs.
Hardcastle asked.

"Yes," said Tamara, the pink deepening for a moment in her cheeks. In
her whole life she hardly ever had had a secret. "I sat there,
Millicent, in the sand opposite the strange image, and it seemed to
smile and mock at all little things; it appeared perfectly ridiculous
that we pay so much attention to what the world says or thinks. I could
not help looking back to the time when you and I were at Dresden
together. What dull lives we have both led since! Yours perhaps more
filled than mine has been, because you have children; but really we
have both been browsing like sheep."

Mrs. Hardcastle now was almost irritated.

"I cannot agree with you," she said. "Our lives have been full of good
and pleasant things--and I hope, dear, we have both done our duty."