ed on the road close by the camp when the Armines were having tea,
and Nigel had asked Ibrahim about them. Mrs. Armine remembered the look
on his face when, having heard their history, he had said to her, "Those
are the women who ruin the Europeans' prestige out here." She had
answered, "_That_ is a thing I could never understand!" and had begun to
talk of other matters, but she had not forgotten his look. If--certain
things--she might be afraid of Nigel.

Dogs barked in the distance. She heard a faint noise from the runlet of
water in front of the camp. From the heavily-cumbered ground, smothered
with growing things except just where the tents were pitched, rose a
smell that seemed to her autumnal. Along the narrow road that led
between the palms and the crops to the town, came two of their men
leading in riding camels. A moment later a bitter snarling rose up,
mingling with the barking of the dogs and the sound of the water. The
camels were being picketed for the night's repose. The atmosphere was
not actually cold, but there was no golden warmth in the air, and the
wonderful and exquisitely clean dryness of Upper Egypt was replaced by a
sort of rich humidity, now that the sun was gone. The vapour around the
moon, the smell of the earth, the distant sound of the dogs and the
near sound of the water, the feeling of dew which hung wetly about her,
and the gleam of the light from that tent distant among the palm-trees,
made Mrs. Armine feel almost unbearably depressed. She longed with all
her soul to be back at Luxor. And it seemed to her incredible that any
one could be happy here. Yet Nigel was perfectly happy and every
Egyptian longed to be in the Fayyum.

The sound of the name seemed to her desolate and sad.

But Baroudi meant something. Even now she saw Hamza, straight as a reed,
coming down the shadowy track from the town. She must make Nigel
happy--and wait. She must make Nigel very happy, lest she should fall
below Baroudi's estimate of her, lest she should prove herself less
clever, less subtle, than she felt him to be.

Hamza's shadowy figure crossed a little bridge of palm-wood that spanned
the runlet of water, turned and came over the waste ground noiselessly
into the camp. He was walking with naked feet. He came to the men's
tent, where, in a row, with their faces towards the tent door, the
camels were lying, eating barley that had been spread out for them on
bits of sacking. When he reached it he stood s