ey two had been isolated
together on the _Loulia_, she had been on the edge of telling him at
least some fragments of the truth. Her nerves had nearly betrayed her
when through the long and shining hours the dahabeeyah lay still on the
glassy river, far away from the haunts of men, and she, sick with ennui,
nearly mad because of the dulness of her life, had been forced to play
at love with the man whose former strength and beauty diminished day by
day.

Would it never end? Each day seemed to her an eternity, each hour almost
a year. But she knew that she must be patient, though patience was no
part of her character. All through her life she had been an impatient
and greedy woman, seizing on what she wanted and holding to it
tenaciously. She had hidden her impatience with her charm, and so she
had gained successes. But now, with so little time left to her for
possible enjoyment, gnawed by desire and jealousy, she found her powers
reluctant in their coming. Formerly she had exercised her influence
almost without effort. Now she had to be stubborn in endeavour. And she
knew, with the frightful certainty of the middle-aged woman, that the
cruel exertions of her mind must soon tell upon her body.

Her terror, a terror which had never left her during these days and
nights on the dahabeeyah, was that her beauty might fade before she was
free to go to Baroudi. She knew now how strongly she had fascinated him,
despite his seeming, almost cruel imperturbability. By her lowest
powers, the powers that Nigel ignored and thought that he hated--though
perhaps he too had been partially subject to them--she had grasped the
sensual nature of the Egyptian. As Starnworth had told Isaacson, Baroudi
had within him the madness for women. He had within him the madness for
Bella Donna. But he knew how to wait for what he wanted. He was waiting
now. The question that had presented itself to Mrs. Armine again and
again during her exile with Nigel was this: "Will he wait too long?" She
knew how fleeting is the Indian summer of women. And she knew, though
she denied it to herself, that if she brought to Baroudi not an Indian
summer as her gift, but a fading autumn, she would run the risk of being
confronted by the blank cruelty that is so often the offspring of the
Eastern conception of women.

Yet in her terror she had always been supported by a fierce energy of
hope, until in the holy of holies of Horus she had come face to face
with Isaacson.