the Nile.  And for a moment it seemed to her that the hidden Egyptian who was working the shaduf was calling to them from a stage, that this garden of oranges was only a wonderful decor.  But the illusion was too perfect for the stage.  Reality broke in with its rough, tremendous touch that cannot be gainsaid, and she walked on in something that had a strangeness of truth—­that naked wonder, and sometimes terror—­more strange than that to be found in the most compelling art.

And yet she was walking in the Villa Nuit d’Or, a name evidently given to his property by the child of the gilded ball, a name that might be in place, surely, on the most stagey stage.  She knew that, felt it, smiled at it—­and yet mentally caressed the name, caressed the thing in Baroudi which had sought and found it appropriate.

“What hundreds and hundreds of orange-trees!  We are losing ourselves in them,” she said.

The little house was lost to sight in the trees.

“Where are we going?” she added.

“Wait a moment and you will see.”

He walked on slowly, with his easy, determined gait, which, in its lightness, denoted a strength that had been trained.

“Now to the right.”

He was walking on her left.  She obeyed his direction, and, turning towards the Nile, saw before her a high arbour made of bamboo and encircled by a hedge of wild geranium.  Its opening was towards the Nile, and when she entered it she perceived, far off, at the end of a long alley of orange-trees, the uneven line of the bank.  Just where she saw it the ground had crumbled, the line wavered, and was depressed, and though the water was not visible the high lateen sails of the native boats, going southward in the sun, showed themselves to her strangely behind the fretwork of the leaves.  At her approach a hoopoo rose and flew away above the trees.  Somewhere a lark was singing.

In the arbour was spread an exquisite prayer-rug, and for her there was a low chair, with a cushion before it for her feet.  On a table was Turkish coffee.  In silver boxes were cigarettes, matches, soft sweetmeats shrouded in powdered sugar, through which they showed rose-colour, amber, and emerald green.  At the edge of the table, close to the place where the chair was set, there was a pretty case of gilded silver, the top of which was made of looking-glass.  She took it up at once.

“What is in this?” she said.

He opened the case, and showed her gravely a powder-puff, powder, kohl, with a tiny blunt instrument of ivory used in Egypt for its appliance, a glass bottle of rose-water, paste of henna, of smoke-black with oil and quick-lime, and other preparations commonly used in the East for the decoration of women.  She examined them curiously and minutely, then looked up at him and smiled, thinking of Nigel’s gentle but ardent protest.  Yes, she could be strangely at home with Baroudi.  But—­now to turn inside out that long glove.