“Yes,” he said.

She hesitated.  There was always something in his appearance, in his manner, which seemed to fend her off from him.  She always felt as if with his mind and soul he was pushing her away.  At last she said: 

“Do you like me, Hamza?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“You have been to Mecca, haven’t you, with Mahmoud Baroudi?”

“Yes.”

He muttered the word this time.  His hands had been hanging at his sides, concealed in his loose sleeves, but now they were moved, and one went quickly up to his breast, and stayed there.

“What are you doing?” Mrs. Armine said, with a sudden sharpness; and, moved by an impulse she could not have explained, she seized the hand at his heart, and pulled it towards her.  By the light of the young moon she saw that it was grasping tightly a sort of tassel made of cowries which hung round his neck by a string.  He covered the shells with his fingers, and showed his teeth.  She let his hand go.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

She turned and went into the tent, and he flitted away like a shadow.

That night, when Nigel came in from Sennoures, she said to him: 

“What is the meaning of those tassels made of shells that Egyptians sometimes wear round their necks?”

“What sort of shells?” he asked.

“Cowries.”

“Cowries—­oh, they’re supposed to be a charm against the evil eye and bad spirits.  Where have you seen one?”

“On a donkey-boy up the Nile, at Luxor.”

She changed the conversation.

They were sitting at dinner on either side of a folding table that rested on iron legs.  Beneath their feet was a gaudy carpet, very thick and of a woolly texture, and so large that it completely concealed the hard earth within the circle of the canvas, which had a lining of deep red, covered with an elaborate pattern in black, white, yellow, blue, and green.  The tent was lit up by an oil-lamp, round which several night moths revolved, occasionally striking against the globe of glass.  The tent-door was open, and just outside stood Ibrahim, with his head and face wrapped up in a shawl with flowing fringes, to see that the native waiter did his duty properly.  Through the opening came the faint sound of running water and the distant noise of the persistent barking of dogs.  The opulent smell of the rich and humid land penetrated into the tent and mingled with the smell from the dishes.

Nigel’s face was radiant.  They had got right away from modern civilization into the wilds, and, manlike, he felt perfectly happy.  He looked at Ruby, seeking a reflection of his joy, yet a little doubtful, too, realizing that this was an experiment for her, while to him it was an old story to which she was supplying the beautiful interest of love.  She answered his look with one that set his mind at rest, which thrilled him, yet which only drew from him the prosaic remark: