Dr. Gerard entered and plumped down in a chair, wiping his hot forehead. "Phew! That woman should be poisoned!" he declared.

Sarah started. "Mrs. Boynton?"

"Mrs. Boynton! No, I meant that Lady Westholme! It is incredible to me that she has had a husband for many years and that he has not already done so. What can he be made of, that husband?"

Sarah laughed. "Oh, he's the 'huntin', fishin', shootin'' kind," she explained.

"Psychologically that is very sound! He appeases his lust to kill on the (so-called) lower creations."

"I believe he is very proud of his wife's activities."

The Frenchman suggested: "Because they take her a good deal away from home? That is understandable." Then he went on. "What did you say just now? Mrs. Boynton? Undoubtedly it would be a very good idea to poison her, too. Undeniably the simplest solution of that family problem! In fact, a great many women would be better poisoned. All women who have grown old and ugly." He made an expressive face.

Sarah cried out, laughing: "Oh, you Frenchmen! You've got no use for any woman who isn't young and attractive."

Gerard shrugged his shoulders. "We are more honest about it, that is all. Englishmen, they do not get up in tubes and trains for ugly women—no, no."

"How depressing life is," said Sarah with a sigh.

"There is no need for you to sigh. Mademoiselle."

"Well, I feel thoroughly disgruntled today."

"Naturally."

"What do you mean—naturally?" snapped Sarah.

"You could find the reason very easily if you examine your state of mind honestly."

"I think it's our fellow travelers who depress me," said Sarah. "It's awful, isn't it, but I do hate women! When they're inefficient and idiotic like Miss Pierce, they infuriate me, and when they're efficient like Lady Westholme, they annoy me more still."

"It is, I should say, unavoidable that these two people should annoy you. Lady Westholme is exactly fitted to the life she leads and is completely happy and successful. Miss Pierce has worked for years as a nursery governess and has suddenly come into a small legacy which has enabled her to fulfill her lifelong wish and travel. So far, travel has lived up to her expectations. Consequently you, who have just been thwarted in obtaining what you want, naturally resent the existence of people who have been more successful in life than you are."

"I suppose you're right," said Sarah gloomily. "What a horribly accurate mind reader you are. I keep trying to humbug myself and you won't let me."

At this moment the others returned. The guide seemed the most exhausted of the three. He was quite subdued and hardly exuded any information on the way to Amman. He did not even mention the Jews. For which everyone was profoundly grateful. His voluble and frenzied account of their iniquities had done much to try everyone's temper on the journey from Jerusalem.

Now the road wound upward from the Jordan, twisting and turning with clumps of oleanders showing rose-colored flowers.