is meant for me!" she thought.

At that moment she knew quite certainly that this boat had come to the
garden because she lived in the garden, that it paused so that she might
be sure that the music was directed to her, was meant for no one but
her. It was not for her and Nigel. Nigel had nothing to do with it. He
did not understand its meaning.

At last the boat moved on, the flickering spears of light on the water
travelled on and turned away, the voices floated away under the stars
till the night enfolded them, the light and the music were taken and
kept by the sleepless mystery of Egypt.

"Shall we go into the villa, Ruby?" said Nigel, almost diffidently, yet
with a thrill in his voice.

She did not answer for a moment, then she said,

"Yes, I suppose it is time to go to bed."

Nigel drew her arm again through his, and they went away towards the
house, while Ibrahim looked after them, smiling.

XIII

"Ruby," said Nigel, a fortnight later, coming into his wife's bedroom
after the morning walk on the river bank which invariably succeeded his
plunge into the Nile, "whom do you think I've just met in Luxor?"

He was holding a packet of letters and papers in his hand. The post had
just arrived.

Mrs. Armine, wrapped in a long white gown which did not define her
figure, with her shining hair coiled loosely at the back of her neck,
was sitting before the toilet-table, and looked round over her shoulder.

"Some one we both know, Nigel?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Not the magenta and red together, then?"

"The Haymans--no, though I believe they are here at the Winter Palace."

"God bless them!" she murmured, with a slight contraction of her
forehead. "Is it a man or a woman?"

"A man."

"A man!" She turned right round, with a sharp movement, holding the arms
of her chair tightly. "Not Meyer Isaacson?"

"Isaacson! Good heavens! He never takes a holiday except in August. Dear
old chap! No, this is some one not specially interesting, but not bad;
only Baroudi."

Mrs. Armine's hands dropped from the arms of the chair, as she turned
towards the glass.

"Baroudi!" she said, as if the name meant nothing to her. "Why do you
string one up for nothing, Nigel?"

She took up a powder-puff.

"Do you mean the man on the _Hohenzollern_? What has he to do with us?"

Nigel crossed the room, and sat down on a chair by the side of the
toilet-table, facing his wife and holding in his lap the bundle of
lette