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Updated: June 20, 2025
Baroudi made a polite rejoinder, in his curiously careless and calmly detached way, but he did not press them again to stay any longer, and Nigel felt certain that he had many things to do preparations, perhaps, to make for his departure that evening.
She did not know where any of her things were. How maddening it was to be without a maid! More than once, now that Nigel was back and she could not go to Baroudi, she almost wished that she had kept Marie. Would it have been very unwise to keep her? She pulled out drawer after drawer. She was quite hot and tired before she had found what she wanted. What would life be like in a tent?
And did he know that Nigel intended to "rig up something" in the Fayyūm for her? She began to wonder, to wonder intensely, why Baroudi was stirring up Nigel's enthusiasm for work. It seemed as if, for the moment, the two men had entirely forgotten that she was there, had forgotten that in the world there was such a phenomenon as woman.
All that Baroudi said was said with clearness, and a sort of acute precision, whether he discussed the land question, the irrigation works on the Nile, the great boom of 1906, in which such gigantic fortunes were made, or the cotton and sugar industries, in both of which he was interested.
"This is the country of fertility, the country where things grow. The dews at night are splendid. But wait a moment. I'll get you a cloak. I'm your maid, remember." He fetched a cloak and wrapped it round her. "I suppose the Loulia is far up the river," he said. "Perhaps at Assouan. I wonder if we shall see Baroudi some day again.
She sprang up, went to her dressing-case, unlocked it, drew out the boîte de beauté which Baroudi had given her in the orange-garden, and quickly made her face up, standing before the glass that was pinned to the canvas. Then she put on a short fur coat. The wind would be cold in the sands. She wondered how far they had to go.
The gilded ball in the faskeeyeh, the slave covered with jewels in the harîm. She stretched out her arms along the cushions; she stretched out her limbs along the divan, her long limbs that were still graceful and supple. How old did Baroudi think her? Arabs never know their ages.
He put his hand into his coat and drew out the letter, and with it the gilded box which Baroudi had given to her in the orange garden. "There is the letter." He laid it on the table. "I found this in your room when I went for the cloak," he said, "full of Eastern things for the face." His eyes were a question. "I bought it in Cairo yesterday." He laid it down.
Then Baroudi must presently be coming. She decided to be patient a little longer, not to make that excuse to go to Cairo. With the morning she felt, she did not know why, more able to endure present conditions.
The Loulia was moored at Keneh, not far from the temple of Denderah. She had been sent up the river from Assiout, where Baroudi had left her when he had finished his business affairs and was ready to start for Cairo. It was Nigel's wish that he and his wife should join her there. "Denderah was the first temple you and I saw together," he said. "Let's see it more at our leisure.
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