She shuddered with disgust as the rich brown water of the Nile came up
to her breast, to her chin.

"And to think that it looked golden," she murmured, "when we were
standing on the bank!"




XII


Soon after half-past eight that evening, when darkness lay over the Nile
and over the small garden of the villa, a tall Nubian servant, dressed
in white with a scarlet girdle, spread two prayer rugs on the terrace
before the French windows of the drawing-room, and placed upon them a
coffee-table and two arm-chairs. At first he put the chairs a good way
apart, and looked at them very gravely. Then he set them quite close
together, and relaxed into a smile. And before he had finished smiling,
over the parquet floor behind him there came the light rustle of a
dress. The Nubian servant turned round and gazed at Mrs. Armine, who had
stopped beside a table and was looking about the room; a
white-and-yellow room, gaily but rather sparsely furnished, that
harmonized well with the fair beauty which moved the black man's soul.

He thought her very wonderful. The pallor of her face, the delicate
lustre of her hair, quite overcame his temperament, and when she caught
sight of him and smiled, and observed the contrast between the snowy
white of his turban, his scarlet girdle and babouches, and the black
lustre of his skin, with eyes that frankly admired, he compared her