"No, what does it matter? We shall so soon be in our own house. Tell me
about the villa, Nigel, and Luxor. You know I have never seen it."

With little more than a word she had deftly flicked the intruding
stranger out of their lives, she had concentrated herself on Nigel. He
felt that all her force, like a strong and ardent stream, was flowing
into the new channel which he had cut for her. He obeyed her. He told
her about Egypt. And as he talked, and watched her listening, he began
to feel thoroughly for the first time the vital change in his life, and
something within him rejoiced, that was surely his manhood singing.

The voyage passed swiftly by, attended by perfect weather, calm,
radiant, blue--weather that releases humanity from any bonds of
depression into a joyous world. Yet for the Armines it was not without
an unpleasant incident. Among the passengers were a Lord and Lady
Hayman, whom Nigel Armine knew, and whom Mrs. Armine had known in the
days when London had loved her. It was impossible not to meet them,
equally impossible not to perceive their cold confusion at each
encounter, shown by a sudden interest in empty seas and unpopulated
horizons. That they mistook the situation was so evident to Nigel that
one day he managed to confront Lord Hayman in the smoke-room and to
have it out with him.

"Congratulate you, I'm sure, congratulate you!" murmured that gentleman,
whose practical brown eyes became suddenly wells full of ironical
amazement. "Tell my wife at once. Knew nothing at all about it."

He got away, with a moribund cigar between his teeth, and no doubt
informed Lady Hayman, who thereafter bowed to Nigel, but with a
reluctant muscular movement that adequately expressed an inward moral