Nigel would have to reckon with that some day.

The gold was fading from the river now, the water was becoming like liquid silver, then, in a moment, like liquid steel.  On the dahabeeyah, which began to look as if it were a long way off and were receding from her, shone a red and a blue light.  Still the vehement voices of the brown fellahin at work by the shaduf rose unwearied along the Nile.  During the last days Mrs. Armine’s ears had grown accustomed to these voices, so accustomed to them that it was already becoming difficult to her to realize that but a short time ago she had never heard them, never felt their curious influence, their driving power, which, mingled with other powers of sun and air, flogs the souls of men and women into desire of ungentle joys and of sometimes cruel pleasures.  And now, with the fading away of the daylight, those powerful, savage, and sad voices gained in meaning, seemed no more to be issuing from the throats of toiling and sweating Egyptians, but to be issuing from the throat of this land of ruins and gold, where the green runs flush with the sand, and the lark sings in the morning, where the jackal whines by night.

For a long time Mrs. Armine listened, sitting absolutely still.  Then suddenly she moved, got up, and went swiftly towards the house.  Nigel was coming back.  Mingling with the voices of the shaduf men she heard the voices of Baroudi’s Nubians.

When she had reached the house, she went up at once to her bedroom, shut the door, and stood by the open window that gave on to a balcony which faced towards the Nile.  The voices of the shaduf men had now suddenly died away.  With the rapid falling of night the singers’ time for repose had come; they had slipped on their purple garments, and were walking to their villages.  Those other voices drew nearer and nearer, murmuring deeply, rather than actually singing, their fatalistic chaunt which set the time for the oars.

Darkness came.  The voices ceased.

Mrs. Armine leaned forward, with one hand on the window-frame.  Her white teeth showed on her lower lip.

In the garden she heard two voices talking, and moving towards the house.

* * * * *

“Marie!  Marie!”

Her maid came running.

“V’la, madame?  What does madame want?”

“I am going to change my gown.”

“Madame is going to dress for the evening?”

“No.  I don’t dine for two hours.”

“Then madame—­”

“Don’t talk so much.  Get me out a white gown, that white linen gown I got at Paquin’s and have never worn yet.  And put me out—­”

She gave some directions about stockings and shoes, and went in to her dressing-room, where she stood before the mirror, carefully examining her face.  Then she took off the hat she was wearing.

“Lock the bedroom door and the door into monsieur’s room!” she called, in a moment.