Suppose it really were so!  Suppose she found Baroudi, told him all that had happened, told him her misery, begged him to let her remain with him!  He might be kind.  He might for once yield to her wishes instead of imposing upon her his commands.  There would be a great scandal; but what of that?  She did not care any longer for public opinion.  She only wanted now to escape from all that reminded her of Europe, of her former life, to sink into the bosom of the East and be lost in it for ever.  The far future was nothing to her.  All she thought about, all she cared for, was to escape at once and have the one thing she wanted, the thing for which the whole of her clamoured unceasingly.  She was obsessed by the one idea, as only the woman of her temperament, arrived at her critical age, can be obsessed.

She might never come back.  This might be her last day with Nigel.

In his room near to hers, Isaacson was sitting on his balcony, smoking the nargeeleh, and thinking that, too.  He was not at all sure, but he was inclined to believe that this departure of Bella Donna was going to be a flight.  Ought he to allow her to go?  Instead of writing those letters, he was pondering, considering this.  It was his duty, he supposed, not to allow her to go.  If everything were to be known, people, the world would say that he ought to have acted already, that in any case he ought to act now.  But he was not bothering about the world.  He was thinking of his friend, how to do the best thing by him.

When he took his long fingers from the nargeeleh he had decided that he would let Bella Donna go.

And that evening, a little before sunset, she kissed her husband and bade him good-bye, wondering whether she would ever see him again.  Then she held out her hand to Meyer Isaacson.

“Good-bye, Doctor!  Take great care of him,” she said, lightly.

Isaacson took her hand.  Again now, at this critical moment, despite his afternoon’s decision, he said to himself, not only “Ought I to let her go?” but “Shall I let her go?” And the influence of the latter question in his mind caused him unconsciously to grasp her hand arbitrarily, as if he meant to detain her.  Instantly there came into her eyes the look he had seen in them when in the sanctuary of Edfou she had stood face to face with him—­a look of startled terror.

“You promise only to stay two days, Ruby?”

Nigel’s voice spoke.

“You promise?”

“I promise faithfully, Nigel,” she said, with her eyes on Isaacson.

Isaacson dropped her hand.  She sighed, and went out quickly.

XLII