Before he could say a word she had crossed a little terrace, disappeared through a French window, and vanished into the villa.

Ibrahim smiled, hung his head, and then murmured in a deep contralto voice: 

“The wife of my Lord Arminigel, she does not want Ibrahim any more, she does not want the Nile, she wants to be all alone.”

He shook his head, which drooped on his long and gentle brown neck, sighed, and repeated dreamily: 

“She wants to be all alone.”

“We’ll leave her alone for a little and go and look at the gold.”

Meanwhile within the house Mrs. Armine was calling impatiently for her maid.

“For mercy’s sake, undress me.  I am a mass of dust, and looking perfectly dreadful.  Is the bath ready?” she asked, as the girl, who had come running, showed her into a good-sized bedroom.

The maid, who was not the red-eyed maid Nigel had met at the Savoy, shrugged up her small shoulders, and extended her little, greedy hands.

“It is ready, madame; but the water—­oh, la, la!”

“What’s the matter.  What do you mean?”

“The water is the colour of madame’s morning chocolate.”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Armine, almost with a sound of despair.

She sank into a chair, taking in with a glance every detail of the chamber, which had been furnished and arranged by a rich and consumptive Frenchman who had lived there with his mistress and had recently died at Cairo.

“Bring me the mirror from my dressing-case, and get me out of this gown.”

Marie hastened to fetch the mirror, into which, after unpinning and removing her hat and veil, Mrs. Armine looked long and earnestly.

“There are no women servants, madame.”

* * * * *

“All the servants here are men, madame, and all are as black as boots.”

“Shut the door into monsieur’s room, and don’t chatter so much.  My head is simply splitting.”

* * * * *

“What are you doing?  One would think you had never seen a corset before.  Don’t fumble!  If you fumble, I shall pack you off to Paris by the first train to-morrow morning.  Now where’s the bath?”

Marie, wrinkling up her nose, which looked like a note of interrogation, led the way into the bathroom, and pointed to the water with a grimace.

“Voila, madame!”

“Mon Dieu!” said Mrs. Armine.

She stared at the water, and repeated her exclamation.

“That makes pity to think that madame—­”

“Have you put in the eau de paradis?”

“But certainly, madame.”

“Very well then—­ugh!”

She shuddered with disgust as the rich brown water of the Nile came up to her breast, to her chin.

“And to think that it looked golden,” she murmured, “when we were standing on the bank!”