Mrs. Armine spoke to him, instantly his rigid calm
returned. He answered "Yes," and his almond-shaped eyes became
impenetrable.

"What are they really?" she thought now, as she heard them talking.

She could not tell, but at least there was in this air a scent of
spices, a sharp and aromatic savour. And she had been--perhaps would be
again--a reckless woman. She loved the aromatic savour. It made her feel
as if, despite her many experiences, she had lived till now perpetually
in a groove; as if she had known far less of life than she had hitherto
supposed.

They gained the edge of the orange-grove, passed between it and the
Nile, and came presently to a broad earth-track, which led to the right.
Along this they went, and reached a house that stood in the very midst
of the grove, in a delicious solitude, a very delicate calm. From about
it on every hand stretched away the precisely ordered rows of small,
umbrageous, already fruit-bearing trees, not tall, with narrow stems,
forked branches, shining leaves, among which the round balls, some
green, some in the way of becoming gold, a few already gold, hung in
masses that looked artificial because so curiously decorative. The
breeze that had filled the sails of the felucca had either died down or
was the possession of the river. For here stillness reigned. In a warm
silence the fruit was ripening to bring gold to the pockets of Baroudi.
The wrinkled earth beneath the trees was a dark grey in the shade, a
warmer hue, in which pale brown and an earthy yellow were mingled,
where the sunlight lay upon it.

Mrs. Armine got down before the house, which was painted a very faint
pink, through which white seemed trying to break. It had only one
storey. A door of palm-wood in the facade was approached by two short
flights of steps, descending on the right and left of a small terrace.
At this door Baroudi now appeared, dressed in a suit of flannel, wearing
the tarbush, and holding in his hand a great palm-leaf fan. Hamza led
away the donkey, going round to the back of the house. Ibrahim followed
him. Mrs. Armine went slowly up the steps and joined Baroudi on the
terrace.

He did not speak, and she stood by his side in silence for a moment,
looking into the orange-grove. The world seemed planted with the
beautiful little trees, the almost meretricious, carefully nurtured, and
pampered belles of their tribe. And their aspect of artificiality,
completely--indeed, quite wonderfully--