ureanism of women; knew their uneasy
appetites, their lack of self-restraint; and, adding to this sum of
knowledge her personal knowledge of Baroudi as a young, strong, and
untrammelled man of the East, she was confronted with visions which
tortured her cruelly. There were times when her mind ran riot, throwing
him among all the sensual pleasures which he loved. And then she was
more than heart-sick; she was actually body-sick. She felt ill; she felt
that she ached with jealousy, as another may ache with some physical
disease. She had a longing to perform some frantic physical act.

And then she remembered her beauty, and that, at all costs, she must
preserve it as long as possible, and she secretly cursed the unbridled
nature within her. But the climate of the Fayyum was very kind to her,
and this life in the open, in the unvitiated air that blew through the
palms from the virgin deserts of Libya, gave to her health such as she
had never known till now, despite her mental torture. And that
body-sickness which came from her jealousy was like a fit which seized
her and passed away.

Egypt brought back her youth, or, at the least, prolonged and increased
steadily the shining and warmth of her Indian summer. And with that
shining and warmth the desire to live fully, to use her present powers
in the way that would bring her happiness, grew perpetually in strength
and ardour. She longed for the man who suited her, and for the _luxe_
that he could give her. With her genuine physical passion for Baroudi
there woke the ugly greed that was an essential part of her nature, the
greed of the true materialist who cares nothing for a simplicity that
has not cost the eyes out of somebody's head. She was a woman who loved
to know that some one was ruining himself for her. She took an almost
physical pleasure in the spending of money. And often her mind echoed
the words of Hassan, when he looked across the Nile to the tapering mast
of the _Loulia_ and murmured, "Mahmoud Baroudi is rich! Mahmoud Baroudi
is rich!" And she yearned to go, not only to Baroudi, but to his gold,
and she remembered her fancy when she sat by the Nile, that the
gleaming gold on the water was showered towards her by him to comfort
her in her solitude.

At last a crisis came.

After staying for a short time at Sennoures, the camp had been moved
from the village to the outskirts of the oasis, so that Nigel might be
close to his land. Here the rich fertility, the