She unclasped her hands, and took hold of the rudimentary arms of her chair.

“No.  But I felt expansive—­riotously well—­when I was writing, and I just stuck it down with all the rest.”

“And the rest?”

She leaned forward a little, as if she wanted to see the sunset better, but soon she looked at him.

“Oh, I let him understand just how it is between you and me.  And I told him about the dahabeeyah, what a marvel it is, and about Baroudi, and how Ibrahim put Baroudi up to the idea of letting it to us.”

“I see.”

“How these chairs creak!” he said.  “Yours is making a regular row.”

She got up.

“You aren’t going down again?”

“No.  Let us walk about.”

“All right.”

He joined her and they began slowly to pace up and down, while the gold grew fainter in the sky, fainter upon the river.  She kept silence, and perhaps communicated her wish for silence to him, for he did not speak until the sunset had faded away, and the world of water, green flats, desert, and arid hills grew pale in the pause before the afterglow.  Then at last he said: 

“What is it, Ruby?  What are you thinking about so seriously?”

“I don’t know.”

She looked at him, and seemed to take a resolve.

“Yes, I do.”

“Have I said something that has vexed you?  Are you vexed at my writing to Isaacson to tell him about our happiness?”

“Not vexed, no.  But somehow it seems to take off the edge of it a little.  But men don’t understand such things, so it’s no use talking of it.”

“But I want to understand everything.  You see, Isaacson is my friend.  Isn’t it natural that I should let him know of my happiness?”

“Oh, yes, I suppose so.  Never mind.  What does it matter?”

“You dislike my having written to him?”

“I’m a fool, Nigel—­that’s the truth.  I’m afraid of everything and everybody.”

“Afraid!  You’re surely not afraid of Isaacson?”

“I tell you I’m afraid of everybody.”

She stopped by the rail, and looked towards the west.

“To me happiness seems such a brittle thing that any one might break it.  And men—­forgive me!—­men generally have such clumsy hands.”

He leaned on the rail beside her, turning himself towards her.

“You don’t mean to say that you think Isaacson could ever break our happiness, even if he wished to?”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you understand me at all?”

There was in his voice a tremor of deep feeling.

“Do you think,” he went on, “that a man who is worth anything at all would allow even his dearest friend to come between him and the woman whom he loved and who was his?  Do you think that I would allow any one, woman or man, to come between me and you?”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t?”

“What a tragedy it must be to be so distrustful of love as you are!” he said, almost with violence.