eaten _daraboukkeh_,
sounding almost like some strange and perpetual ground-swell of the
night, that flood of shadowy mystery and beauty in which they and the
world were drowned. The distant music added to her sense of excitement
and to his.

"Ruby--try to see--I think it was partly a humble feeling that made me
wonder--a difficulty in believing you had cared very much for me."

"Why should you, or any one, think I have it in me to care?"

"I thought so in London, I think so here, I have always thought
so--always. If others have--have disbelieved in you ever, I haven't been
like them. You doubt it?"

He moved a step forward, and stood looking down on her.

"But I could prove it."

"Oh--how?"

"Meyer Isaacson knows it."

He did not refer to his marrying her as a proof already given, for that
might have meant something else than belief in the hidden unworldliness
of her, and in her hidden desire for that which was good and beautiful.

"And don't you--don't you know it, even after this morning?"

"After this morning--I don't want to hurt you--but after this morning
you will have to prove it to me, thoroughly prove it, or else I shall
not believe it."

The solo voice of the Nubian sailor was lost in the chorus of voices
which came floating over the Nile.

"I don't want to be cold," she continued, "and I don't want to be
unkind, but one can't help certain things. I have been driven, forced,
into scepticism about men. I don't want to go back into my life, I don't
want to trot out the old 'more sinned against than sinning' _cliche_. I
don't mean to play the winey-piney woman. I never have done that, and I
believe I've got a little grit in me to prevent me ever doing it. But
such a thing as happened this morning must breed doubts and suspicions
in a woman who has had the experience I have had. I might very easily
tell you a lie, Nigel. I might very easily fall into your arms and say
I've forgotten all about it, and I'll never think of it again, and all
that sort of thing. It would be the simplest thing in the world for me
to act a part to you. But you've been good to me when I was lonely, and
you've cared for me enough to marry me, and--well, I won't. I'll tell
you the truth. It's this: I can't help knowing you did doubt me, and I'm
not really a bit surprised, and I don't know that I'd any right to be
hurt; but whether I had any right or not, I was hurt, and it will take
a little time to make me feel quite safe w