During the dinner, almost everything, every look, tone, gesture, attitude, that was expressive of Ruby, confirmed him in self-rebuke.  She was certainly changed.  The rather weary and wistful woman who had stayed alone in the garden when he went to the dahabeeyah had given place to a woman more resolute, brilliant, animated—­a woman who could hold her own, who could be daring, almost defiant, and a woman who could pain him in return, perhaps, for the pain he had inflicted on her.  The dinner was quite good.  Their Nubian cook had been trained in a big hotel, and Mrs. Armine had nothing to apologize for.  Baroudi politely praised the cooking.  Yet she felt that behind his praise there lurked immeasurable reservations, and she remembered the time when her chef was the most famous in London, a marvel who had been bribed by a millionaire lover of hers to leave the service of a royalty to bring his gift to her.  She mentioned this fact to Baroudi.  It was a vulgar thing to do, and at heart she was not vulgar; but she was prompted by two desires.  She felt in her guest the Oriental’s curious and almost romantic admiration of riches, and wished to draw this admiration towards herself; and she wanted to inflict some more punishment on Nigel.

“You seem to be something of an epicure, Mahmoud Baroudi,” she said.  “I suppose you have heard of Armand Carrier?”

“The best chef in Europe, madame?  How should I not have heard of him among my friends of Paris?”

“He was in my service for five years.”

There was a pause.  Nigel suddenly turned red.  Baroudi moved his large eyes slowly from Mrs. Armine to him, and at length observed calmly: 

“I felicitate you both.  You must have had a treasure.  But why did you let him go?”

He addressed the question to Nigel.

“He was not in my service,” said Nigel, with a sudden, very English stiffness that was almost like haughtiness.  “It was long before we were married.”

“Oh—­I see.  But what a pity!  Then you did not have the benefit of eating his marvellous plats.”

“No.  I don’t care about that sort of thing.”

“Really!”

They talked of other matters, but Nigel had lost all his bonhomie, and seemed unable to recover it.

Baroudi, like a good Mohammedan, declined to drink any wine, but when the fruit was brought, Mrs. Armine got up.

“I’ll leave you for a little while,” she said.  “You’ll find me on the terrace.  Although Mahmoud Baroudi drinks nothing, I am sure he likes men’s talk better than woman’s chatter.”

Baroudi politely but rather perfunctorily denied this.

“But what do you say,” he added, “to coming as my guest to take a cup of coffee and a liqueur at the Winter Palace Hotel?  To-night there is the first performance of a Hungarian band which I introduced last winter to Egypt, and which—­I am told; I am not, perhaps, a judge of your Western music—­plays remarkably.  What do you say?  Would it please you, madame?”