man of Eastern blood whom he had ever encountered. Mrs. Armine spoke of
him more temperately; he did not seem to interest her, and Nigel was
confirmed by her lack of appreciation in an idea that had already
occurred to him. He believed that Baroudi was a man who did not care for
women, except, no doubt, as the occasional and servile distractions of
an unoccupied hour in the harem. He was always very polite to Mrs.
Armine, but when he talked he soon, as if almost instinctively,
addressed himself to Nigel; and once or twice, when Mrs. Armine left
them alone together over their coffee and cigars, he seemed to Nigel to
become another man, to expand almost into geniality, to be not merely
self-possessed--that faculty never failed him--but to be more happily at
his ease, more racy, more ready for intimacy. Probably he was governed
by the Oriental's conception of woman as an inferior sex, and was unable
to be quite at home in the complete equality and ease of the English
relation with women.

When the _Hohenzollern_ sighted Alexandria, Baroudi went below for a
moment. He reappeared wearing the fez. They bade each other good-bye in
the harbour, with the usual vague hopes of a further meeting that do
duty on such occasions, and that generally end in nothing.

Mrs. Armine seemed glad to be rid of him and to be alone with her
husband.

"Don't let us stay in Cairo," she said. "I want to go up the river. I
want to be in the Villa Androud."

After one night at Shepheard's they started for Luxor, or rather for
Keneh, where they got out in the early morning to visit the temple of
Denderah, taking a later train which brought them to Luxor towards