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Nearly an hour later there appeared at the edge of the garden of the Villa Androud a woman walking unsteadily, with a sort of frantic slowness. She made her way across the garden and drew near to the terrace, beyond which light shone out from the drawing-room through the tall window space. Close to the terrace she stood still, and she looked into the room.
Subtly she recalled to him the night after the scene in the garden of the Villa Androud; she reminded him without words of the words she had spoken then. He seemed to hear her saying: "After this morning you will have to prove your belief in me to me, thoroughly prove it, or else I shall not believe it.
And as he stood still the Nubian sailors on the Loulia began to sing the song about Allah which Mrs. Armine had heard from the garden of the Villa Androud on her first evening in Upper Egypt. First a solo voice, vehement, strange to Western ears, immensely expressive, like the voice of a mueddin summoning the faithful to prayer, cried aloud, "Al-lah! Al-lah! Al-lah!"
She drank a little, put down the cup, and said: "The first night we were at the Villa Androud your Nubian sailors came up the Nile and sang just underneath the garden. Why did they do that?" "Because they are my men, and had my orders to sing to you." "And Ibrahim and Hamza?" she asked. "They had my orders to bring you here." "Yes," she said. She was silent for an instant.
"Villa Androud, "Luxor, Upper Egypt, Jan. 21st. "Dear Isaacson, "Here at last is a letter, the first I've sat down to write to you since the note telling you of my marriage. I had your kind letter in answer, and showed it to Ruby, who was as pleased with it as I was.
Baroudi followed her eyes, and a smile, that had no brightness in it, flickered over his full lips, then died, leaving behind it an impassible serenity. That night, just when the moon was coming, the Loulia, gleaming with many lights, passed the garden of the Villa Androud, and soon was lost in the night, going towards the south.
She longed to seize an oar, to help the boat up stream. Now the eastern bank of the river grew more distinct, looming out of the darkness. It seemed to be approaching them, coming stealthily nearer and nearer. She saw the lights in the Villa Androud. "Hamza!" she murmured. "Hamza!" He rowed on, without much force, almost languidly.
Immediately after their marriage at a registrar's office, Nigel and his wife, with a maid, and a great many trunks of varying shapes and sizes, travelled to Naples and embarked on the Hohenzollern for Egypt, where Nigel had rented for the winter the Villa Androud, on the bank of the Nile near Luxor.
It seemed part of his strength. He lifted his eyebrows, threw back his head, showing his magnificent throat, and with the gesture that she had noticed in the garden of the Villa Androud thrust two fingers inside his low, soft collar, and kept them there while he added: "They are like children, and must be treated as children. But they can be very clever, too, when they want to trick. I know that.
On the following evening, by the express that went to Cairo, Nigel started for the Fayyūm. The Loulia gone from the reach of the river which was visible from the garden of the Villa Androud; Nigel gone from the house which was surrounded by that garden; a complete solitude, a complete emptiness of golden days stretching out before Mrs. Armine!
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