"Why did you do it?" he said. He had leaned forward and had laid his
hand on the cushions of her chair, at the back of her head. His
distressed voice was less harsh.

"Why did I do it? Because, dear, I want you." Her voice was low and
wooing; it was one of her charms.

Michael did not answer. His senses were beginning to throb. The sound
of a native earthen drum, with its sensual thud, thud, thudding, and
the watery note of a key striking a glass bottle, as an accompaniment
to the slow measures of bare feet on the deck of a Nile boat, added an
undefinable touch, of Oriental passion to the scene.

Michael tried to draw away his hand, but she caught it and pulled his
arm round her neck and held his long fingers imprisoned under her chin.

He protested. The thud, thud, thud of the _darabukkeh_ below kept time
with the throbbing of his pulses, while the subconscious visualizing of
the body-movements of the Sudanese dancers aided and abetted the woman
in her designs.

"You know, dear, you are behaving very foolishly. I must never see you
again if you do this sort of thing. It can only lead to terrible
unhappiness for us both."

She gently kissed his fingers, pressing her teeth against his
knuckles--with all her education and fashionable clothes, a creature as
primitive as any tent-dweller in the desert.

"Don't say you won't see me again. I won't be foolish, I promise. But
I am very lonely, you don't know how lonely, Michael."

"Poor little woman!" he said breathlessly; he was genuinely sorry for
her. If her nature craved for love and affection, it was hard for her
to live as she did, without it.

"It's Egypt," she said, "Egypt and the desert. I want you all alone,
Michael, in the loneliest part of the loneliest desert in the world,
and I want as many kisses as there are stars in the heavens--kisses
that only my love and Egypt can teach you how to give!"

"I must leave you," Michael said again, "if you will speak like that."

He got up to go. Mrs. Mervill also rose from her reclining position on
her long deck-chair, and sat upright.

"I do, I do!" she said, while she held up her beautiful lips to his
face. "There is no one to see, there is no one to care! I want a kiss
for every star there is in the heavens."

The man could bear it no longer; all Egypt was tempting him. He bent
his head and kissed her lips.

From the river below came the long cries to Allah of the Moslem boatmen
and the cle