“Yes!” said Hamza.

He went away with the card.  There was a pause.

Then abruptly, the sound of the piano ceased.

XXXIV

After the cessation of the music there was a pause, which seemed to Isaacson almost interminably prolonged.  In it he felt no excitement.  In a man of his type excitement is the child of uncertainty.  Now all uncertainty as to what he meant to do had left him.  Calm, decided, master of himself as when he sat in his consulting-room to receive the suffering world, he waited quietly for the return of his messenger.  The many dark eyes stared solemnly at him, and he looked back at them, and he knew that his eyes told them no more than theirs told him.

When Hamza went with the card, he had shut behind him the door at the foot of the stairs, which divided the rooms on the Loulia from the deck.  Presently as no one came, Isaacson looked at this door.  He saw above it the Arabic inscription which Baroudi had translated for Mrs. Armine and he wondered what it meant.  His eyes were almost fascinated by it and he felt it must be significant, that the man he had seen crouching beneath the black roof of the hashish cafe had set it there to be the motto of his wonderful boat.  But he knew no Arabic, and there was no one to translate the golden characters.  For Ibrahim that night was unwell, and was sleeping smothered in his haik.

The white door opened gently, and Hamza reappeared.  He made a gesture which invited Isaacson to come to him.  Isaacson felt that he consciously braced himself, as a strong man braces himself for a conflict.  Then he went over the deck, down the shallow steps, and was led by Hamza into the first saloon of the Loulia, that room which Baroudi had called his “den,” and which Mrs. Armine had taken as her boudoir.  It was lit up.  The door on the far side, beyond the dining-room, was shut.  And Mrs. Armine was standing by the writing-table, holding Isaacson’s card in her hand.

As soon as Isaacson had crossed the threshold, Hamza went out and shut the door gently.

Mrs. Armine was dressed in black, and on her cheeks were two patches of vivid red, of red that was artificial and not well put on.  Isaacson believed that she had rushed from the piano to make up her face when she had learnt of his coming.  She looked towards him with hard interrogation, at the same time lifting her hand.

“Hush, please!” she said, in a low voice.  “He doesn’t know you are here.  He’s asleep.”

Her eyes went over his face with a horrible swiftness, and she added, “I was playing.  I have been playing him to sleep.”

As if remembering, she held out her hand to Isaacson.  He went over to her softly and took it.  As he did so, she made what seemed an involuntary and almost violent movement to draw it away, checked herself, and left her hand in his, setting her lips together.  He noticed that in one of her eyelids a pulse was beating.  He held her hand with a gentle, an almost caressing decision, while he said, imitating her withdrawn way of speaking: