When the Hohenzollern sighted Alexandria, Baroudi went below for a moment.  He reappeared wearing the fez.  They bade each other good-bye in the harbour, with the usual vague hopes of a further meeting that do duty on such occasions, and that generally end in nothing.

Mrs. Armine seemed glad to be rid of him and to be alone with her husband.

“Don’t let us stay in Cairo,” she said.  “I want to go up the river.  I want to be in the Villa Androud.”

After one night at Shepheard’s they started for Luxor, or rather for Keneh, where they got out in the early morning to visit the temple of Denderah, taking a later train which brought them to Luxor towards evening, just as the gold of the sunset was beginning to steal into the sky and to cover the river with glory.

Mrs. Armine was fatigued by the journey, and by the long day at Denderah, which had secretly depressed her.  She looked out of the window of their compartment at the green plains of doura, at the almost naked brown men bending rhythmically by the shadufs, at the children passing on donkeys, and the women standing at gaze with corners of their dingy garments held fast between their teeth; and she felt as if she still saw the dark courts of Hathor’s dwelling, as if she still heard the cries of the enormous bats that inhabit them.  When the train stopped, she got up slowly, and let Nigel help her down to the platform.

“Is the villa far away?” she said, looking round on the crowd of staring Egyptians.

“No, I want you to walk to it.  Do you mind?”

His eyes demanded a “no,” and she gave it him with a good grace that ought to have been written down to her credit by the pen of the recording angel.  They set out to walk to the villa.  As they went through the little town, Nigel pointed out the various “objects of interest”:  the antiquity shops, where may be purchased rings, necklaces, and amulets, blue and green “servants of the dead,” scarabs, winged discs, and mummy-cases; the mosque, a Coptic church, cafes, the garden of the Hotel de Luxor.  He greeted several friends of humble origin:  the black barber who called himself “Mr. White”; Ahri Achmed, the Folly of Luxor, who danced and gibbered at Mrs. Armine and cried out a welcome in many languages; Hassan, the one-eyed pipe-player; and Hamza, the praying donkey-boy, who in winter stole all the millionaires from his protesting comrades and in summer sat with the dervishes in the deep shadows of the mosques.

“You seem to be as much at home here as in London,” said Mrs. Armine, in a voice that was rather vague.

“Ten times more, Ruby.  And so will you be soon.  I love a little place.”

“Yes?”

After a pause she added: 

“Are there many villas here?”

“Only two on the bank of the Nile.  One belongs to a Dutchman.  Our villa is the other.”

“Only two—­and one belongs to a Dutchman!” she thought.