the first great step towards the realization of her scheme; and then she had suddenly come upon catastrophe.  And now her thoughts began to turn away from London.  The London thoughts were dying with the London hopes.  “All that is useless now.”  That was what her mind was saying, bitterly, but also with decision.  Schooled by a life filled with varying experiences, Mrs. Armine had learnt one lesson very thoroughly—­she had learnt to cut her losses.  How was she going to cut this loss?

She was in the Eastern house of Baroudi.

Only a few hours ago she had looked out upon Egypt and things Egyptian almost as a traveller looks upon a world through which he is rushing in a train, a world presented to him for a brief moment, but with whose inhabitants he will never have anything to do, in whose life he will never take part.  She had to be in Egypt for a while, but all her desires and hopes and intentions were centred in London.  There her destiny would be played out, there and in the land of which London was the beating heart.

Now she must centre her desires, her hopes, her intentions elsewhere, if she centred them anywhere.  She must centre them upon Nigel, must centre them in the Fayyum, in the making of crops to grow where only sand had been, both in the Fayyum and in another place, or she must centre them—­

She smelt the heavy perfume; she smoothed the silken pillows with her long fingers; she stretched her body on the soft divan; she listened to the liquid whisper of the faskeeyeh.

There were many sorts of lives in the world.  She had had many experiences, but how many experiences she had never had!  No longer did she feel herself to be a traveller rushing onward through a land of which she would never know, or care to know, anything.  The train was slackening speed.  She saw the land more clearly.  Details came into view, making their strange and ardent appeal.  The train would presently stop.  And she would step out of it, would face the new surroundings, would face the novel life.

Suddenly she distended her nostrils to inhale the perfume more strongly, her hands closed upon the silken cushions with a grip that was almost angry, and something within her, the something that tries to command from its secret place, scourged her imagination to force it to more violent efforts—­in the Eastern house of Baroudi.

“Ruby!  Ruby!”

One of the sliding doors was pushed back, the sunlight came in, tempered by the shade thrown by the awning, and she saw the little ball dancing in the faskeeyeh, and her husband looking inquiringly upon her, framed in the oblong of the doorway.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“Nothing!” she said, sitting up with a brusque movement.

He laughed.

“I believe you were taking a nap.”

She got up.

“To tell the truth, I was almost asleep.”

She stood up, put her hands to her hat, to her hair, and with a slight but very intelligent movement sent the skirt of her gown into place.