Part 25 (1/2)
”I didn't know any sunset could be so marvellous.”
She was still touching her hair, and now she felt clothed in dust; and, with the ardour of a fastidious woman who has not seen the inside of a dressing-room for twenty-four hours, she longed to be rid both of the sunset and of the man.
”Where is the villa, Nigel?”
”Not ten minutes away.”
The spirit groaned within her, and she went resolutely forward, pa.s.sing the Winter Palace Hotel.
”What a huge hotel--but it isn't open!” she said.
”It will be almost directly. We turn to the right down here.”
Some large rats were playing on the uneven stones close to the river; from a little shed close by there came the dull puffing of an engine.
”Where on earth are we going, Nigel? This is only a donkey track.”
”It's all right. Just wait a minute. There's the Dutchman's castle, and we are just beyond it. Am I walking too fast for you, Ruby?”
”No, no.”
She hurried on. Her whole body was clamouring for warm water with a certain essence dissolved in it, for a change of stockings and shoes, for a tea-gown, for a sofa with a tea-table beside it, for a hundred and one things his manhood did not dream of.
”Here it is at last!” he said.
A tall and amiable-looking boy in a flowing gold-coloured robe suddenly appeared before them, holding open a wooden gate, through which they pa.s.sed into a garden.
”Hulloh, Ibrahim!” cried Nigel.
”Hulloh, my gentleman!” returned the boy, inclining his body towards Mrs. Armine and touching his fez with his hand. ”I am Ibrahim Ahmed, my lady, the special servant called a dragoman of my Lord Arminigel. I can read the hieroglyphs, and I am always young and cheerful.”
He took Nigel's right hand, kissed it and placed it against his forehead rapidly three times in succession, smiled, and looked sideways on the ground.
”I am always young and cheerful,” he repeated, softly and dreamily. He picked a red rose from a bush, placed it between his white teeth, and turned to conduct them to the white house that stood in the midst of the garden perhaps a hundred yards away.
”What a nice boy!” said Mrs. Armine.
”He's been my dragoman before. This is our little domain.”
Mrs. Armine saw a flat expanse of brown and sun-dried earth, completely devoid of gra.s.s, and divided roughly into sunken beds containing small orange-trees, mimosas, rose-bushes, poinsettias, and geraniums. It was bounded on three sides by earthen walls and on the fourth side by the Nile.
”Is it not beautiful, mees?” said Ibrahim.
Mrs. Armine began to laugh.
”He takes me for a _vieille fille_!” she said. ”Is it a compliment, Nigel? Ibrahim,”--she touched the boy's robe--”won't you give me that rose?”
”My lady, I will give you all what you want.”
Already she had fascinated him. As she took the rose, which he offered with a salaam, she began to look quite gay.