He stopped, as if his mind had taken a turn towards some other line of thought; then he said: 

“Isn’t it odd that you and I should be established in Baroudi’s boat, when we’ve never seen him again since the day we had tea on it?  I almost thought—­”

“What?”

“I almost thought perhaps he’d run up by train to give us a sort of send-off.”

“Why should he?”

“Of course it wasn’t necessary.  Still, it would have been an act of pretty politeness to you.”

“Oh, I think the less pretty politeness European women have from these Orientals the better!” she said, almost with a sneer.

“You’re thinking of that horrible German woman in the Fayyum.  But Baroudi’s very well looked on by the English in Egypt.  I found that out in Cairo, when I left you to go to the Fayyum.  He’s quite a persona grata for an Egyptian.  Everybody seems ready to do him a good turn.  That’s partly why he’s been so successful in all he’s undertaken.”

“I dare say he’s not bad in his way, but as long as we’ve got his lovely boat I can do quite well without him” she said, smiling.  “Where are we going to tie up tonight, and when?”

“When it gets dark.  The Reis knows where.  Isn’t it glorious to be quite free and independent?  We can stop wherever we like, in the lonely places, where there’ll be no tourists to bother us.”

“Yes,” she said, echoing his enthusiasm, while she looked at him with smiling eyes.  “Let’s avoid the tourists and stop in the lonely places.  Well, I’m going down now.”

“Why?  What are you going to do?  The sun will soon be setting.  We ought to see the first afterglow from the Loulia together.”

“Call me, then, when it comes.  But I’m going to take a lesson in coffee-making as they do it out here.  It will amuse me to make our coffee after lunch.  Besides, it will be something to do.  And I want to take an interest in everything, in all the trifles of this odd new life.”

He put his arm around her shoulder.

“Splendid!” he said.

His hand tightened upon her.

“But you must come for the afterglow.”

“Call me, and I’ll come.”

As she went down the companion, he leaned over the rail and asked her: 

“Who’s going to give you your lesson in coffee-making?”

“Hamza,” she answered.

And she disappeared.

XXVI

“All the way up the Nile we shall hear the old shaduf songs,” Nigel had said, when the Loulia set sail from Keneh.