l of beauty. And as the gold
on the river deepened in hue, it spread swiftly upon the water, it
travelled down towards Luxor, it crept from the western bank to the
eastern bank of the Nile, from the dahabeeyah of Baroudi almost to the
feet of Mrs. Armine.

"Mahmoud Baroudi is rich! Mahmoud Baroudi is rich!"

Why had Hassan said that? What had it to do with her? She looked across
at Baroudi's great white boat, which now was turning into a black jewel
on the gold of the moving river, and she felt as if, like some magician
who understood her nature, he was trying to comfort her to-day by
showering gold towards her. It was an absurd fancy, at which, in a
moment, she was smiling bitterly enough.

She almost hated Nigel to-day. When she had left him in the garden
before luncheon, she had quite hated him for his unworldliness, combined
with a sort of boyish simplicity and wistfulness. Of course he had
known, he must have known, that Zoe Harwich was going to have a child;
he must have known it when he was shooting with his brother in the
autumn. And he had never said a word of it to her. And now he was cut
out of the succession. He might never have succeeded his brother; but
there had been a great chance that he would, that some day she would be
reigning as Lady Harwich. That thought had swayed her towards him, had
had very much to do with the part she had played in London which had won
her Nigel as a husband. If what was now a fact had been a fact a few
weeks ago, would she ever have schemed to marry him, would such an
alliance have been "worth her while"?

How Lady Hayman and all her tribe, a tribe which once had petted and
entertained the beautiful Mrs. Chepstow, had dubbed her "Bella Donna,"
how they must be rejoicing to-day! She could almost hear what they were
saying as she sat in the sunset by the Nile. "What a mercy that woman
has overreached herself!" "How furious she must, be, now Harwich has got
sons!" "What a delicious slap in the face for her after catching that
foolish Nigel Armine!" Hundreds of women were smiling over her
discomfiture at this moment, and probably also hundreds of men. For no
one would give her credit for having married Nigel for himself, for
having honestly fallen in love with him and acted "squarely" towards
him. And, of course, she had not fallen in love with him. He was not,
indeed, the type of man with whom a nature and a temperament like hers
could fall in love. She had liked him before