im.

Her gait seemed oddly familiar to Isaacson. Directly she stirred he was
once more in complete command of his brain. The chill died away from his
nerves. The normal man in him started up, alert, composed, enquiring.

The woman came up to him where he stood at the entrance to the
sanctuary. Her eyes looked keenly into his eyes, as she was about to
pass him. Then she did not pass him. She did not draw back. She just
stood where she was and looked at him, looked at him as if she saw what
her mind told her, told her loudly, fiercely, she could not be seeing,
was not seeing. After an instant of this contemplation she shut her
eyes.

"Mrs. Armine!" said Meyer Isaacson.

When he spoke, Mrs. Armine opened her eyes.

"Mrs. Armine!" he repeated.

He took off his hat and held out his hand.

"Then it was the _Loulia_ I saw!" he said.

She gave him her hand and drew it away.

"You are in Egypt!" she said.

Although in the darkness her walk had been familiar to him, had prepared
him for the coming up to him of Bella Donna, her voice now seemed
utterly unfamiliar. It was ugly and grating. He remembered that in
London he had thought her voice one of her greatest charms, one of her
most perfectly tempered weapons. Had he been mistaken? Had he never
heard it aright? Or had he not heard it aright now?

"What are you doing in Egypt?" she said.

Her voice was ugly, almost hideous. But now he realized that its timbre
was completely changed by some emotion which had for the moment entire
possession of her.

"What are you doing in Egypt?" she repeated.

Isaacson cleared his throat. Afterwards he knew that he had done this
because of the horrible hoarseness of Mrs. Armine's voice.

"I was feeling overworked, run down. I thought I would take a holiday."

She was silent for a minute. Then she said:

"Did you let my husband know you were coming? Does he know you are in
Egypt?"

In saying this her voice became more ugly, less like hers, as if the
emotion that governed her just then made a crescendo, became more vital
and more complex.

"No. I left England unexpectedly. A sudden impulse!"

He was speaking almost apologetically, without meaning to do so. He
realized this, and pulled himself up sharply.

"I told no one of my plans. I thought I would give Nigel a surprise."

He said it coolly, with quite a different manner.

"Nigel!" she said.

Isaacson was aware when she spoke that he had called his friend by his
Ch