d Nigel had met at the Savoy,
shrugged up her small shoulders, and extended her little, greedy hands.

"It is ready, madame; but the water--oh, _la, la!_"

"What's the matter. What do you mean?"

"The water is the colour of madame's morning chocolate."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Armine, almost with a sound of despair.

She sank into a chair, taking in with a glance every detail of the
chamber, which had been furnished and arranged by a rich and consumptive
Frenchman who had lived there with his mistress and had recently died at
Cairo.

"Bring me the mirror from my dressing-case, and get me out of this
gown."

Marie hastened to fetch the mirror, into which, after unpinning and
removing her hat and veil, Mrs. Armine looked long and earnestly.

"There are no women servants, madame."

* * * * *

"All the servants here are men, madame, and all are as black as boots."

"Shut the door into monsieur's room, and don't chatter so much. My head
is simply splitting."

* * * * *

"What are you doing? One would think you had never seen a corset before.
Don't fumble! If you fumble, I shall pack you off to Paris by the first
train to-morrow morning. Now where's the bath?"

Marie, wrinkling up her nose, which looked like a note of interrogation,
led the way into the bathroom, and pointed to the water with a grimace.

"_Voila_, madame!"

"_Mon Dieu!_" said Mrs. Armine.

She stared at the water, and repeated her exclamation.

"That makes pity to think that madame--"

"Have you put in the _eau de paradis_?"

"But certainly, madame."

"Very well then--ugh!"

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