She smiled, and looked almost shy.
"I"ve done splendidly without one. But still--"
From that moment he only pressed, begged her to go.
Isaacson returned to find it was all settled. When he was told, he only said, "I think it wonderful that Mrs. Armine has managed without a maid for so long."
Soon afterwards he went to his room, and was shut in there for a considerable time. He said he had letters to write. Yet he sent no letters to the post that day.
Meanwhile Mrs. Armine, with the a.s.sistance of one of the Nubians, was packing a few things. Now that at last she was going to do something definite, she marvelled that she had been able to endure her life of waiting so long. This movement and planning in connection with a journey roused in her a secret excitement that was feverish.
"If only I were going away for ever!" she thought, as she went about her dressing-room. "If only I were never to see my husband and Isaacson again!"
And with that thought she paused and stood still.
Suppose it really were so! Suppose she found Baroudi, told him all that had happened, told him her misery, begged him to let her remain with him! He might be kind. He might for once yield to her wishes instead of imposing upon her his commands. There would be a great scandal; but what of that? She did not care any longer for public opinion. She only wanted now to escape from all that reminded her of Europe, of her former life, to sink into the bosom of the East and be lost in it for ever. The far future was nothing to her. All she thought about, all she cared for, was to escape at once and have the one thing she wanted, the thing for which the whole of her clamoured unceasingly. She was obsessed by the one idea, as only the woman of her temperament, arrived at her critical age, can be obsessed.
She might never come back. This might be her last day with Nigel.
In his room near to hers, Isaacson was sitting on his balcony, smoking the nargeeleh, and thinking that, too. He was not at all sure, but he was inclined to believe that this departure of Bella Donna was going to be a flight. Ought he to allow her to go? Instead of writing those letters, he was pondering, considering this. It was his duty, he supposed, not to allow her to go. If everything were to be known, people, the world would say that he ought to have acted already, that in any case he ought to act now. But he was not bothering about the world.
He was thinking of his friend, how to do the best thing by him.
When he took his long fingers from the nargeeleh he had decided that he would let Bella Donna go.
And that evening, a little before sunset, she kissed her husband and bade him good-bye, wondering whether she would ever see him again. Then she held out her hand to Meyer Isaacson.
"Good-bye, Doctor! Take great care of him," she said, lightly.
Isaacson took her hand. Again now, at this critical moment, despite his afternoon"s decision, he said to himself, not only "Ought I to let her go?" but "Shall I let her go?" And the influence of the latter question in his mind caused him unconsciously to grasp her hand arbitrarily, as if he meant to detain her. Instantly there came into her eyes the look he had seen in them when in the sanctuary of Edfou she had stood face to face with him--a look of startled terror.
"You promise only to stay two days, Ruby?"
Nigel"s voice spoke.
"You promise?"
"I promise faithfully, Nigel," she said, with her eyes on Isaacson.
Isaacson dropped her hand. She sighed, and went out quickly.
XLII
The departure of Mrs. Armine brought to Meyer Isaacson a sudden and immense feeling of relief. When he looked at his watch and knew that the train for Cairo had left the station of Luxor, when half an hour later Ibrahim came in to tell Nigel that "my lady" had gone off "very nice indeed," he was for a time almost joyous, as a man is joyous who has got rid of a heavy burden, or who is unexpectedly released from some cruel prison of circ.u.mstance. How much the enforced companionship with Mrs.
Armine had oppressed him he understood fully now. And it was difficult for him to realize, more difficult still for him to sympathize with, Nigel"s obvious regret at his wife"s going, obvious longing for her to be back again by his side.
Isaacson"s sympathy was not asked for by Nigel. Here the strong reserve existing between the two men naturally stepped in. Isaacson strove to dissimulate his joy, Nigel to dissimulate his feeling of sudden loneliness. But either Isaacson played his part the better, or his powers of observation were far more developed than Nigel"s; for whereas he saw with almost painful clearness the state of his friend"s mind on that first evening of their dual solitude, Nigel only partially guessed at his, or very faintly suspected it.
Their dinner together threatened at first to be dreary. For Mrs.
Armine"s going, instead of breaking down, had consolidated for the moment the reserve between them. But Isaacson"s inner joyousness, however carefully concealed, made its influence felt, as joy will.
Without quite knowing why, Nigel presently began to thaw. Isaacson turned the conversation, which had stumbled, had halted, to Nigel"s condition of health, and then Nigel said, as he had already said to his wife:
"To-day I feel that I am waking up to life."
"Only to-day?" said the Doctor.
"Oh, I"ve been feeling better and better, but to-day it"s as if a door that had been creaking on its hinges was flung wide open."
"I"m not surprised. These sudden leaps forward are often a feature of convalescence."
"They--they aren"t followed by falling back, are they?" Nigel asked, with a sudden change to uneasiness.
"Sometimes, in fever cases especially. But in a case like yours we needn"t antic.i.p.ate anything of that kind."
The last words seemed to suggest to Nigel some train of thought, and after sitting in silence two or three minutes, looking grave and rather preoccupied, he said:
"By the way, what has been the matter with me, exactly? What have I really had in the way of an illness? All this time I"ve been so occupied in being ill that I"ve never asked you."
The last words were said with an attempt at lightness.
"Have I?" he added.
"No, I don"t think you have," said Isaacson, in a voice that suggested a nature at that moment certainly not inclined to be communicative.
"Has it been all sunstroke! But--but I"m sure it hasn"t."
"No, I shouldn"t put it down entirely to sunstroke. Hartley wasn"t quite right there, I think."
"Well, then?"
Nigel had found a safe topic for conversation, or thought he had. It was sufficiently evident that he felt more at ease, and perhaps he was atoning for former indifference as to the cause of his misery by a real and keen interest about it now.
"You were unwell, you see, before you went out digging without a hat.
Weren"t you?"
"Yes, that bath in the Nile near Kous. It seemed all to begin somewhere about then. But d"you know, though I"ve never said so, even to you, I believe I really was not quite myself when I took that dip. I think it was because of that I got the chill."
"Very possibly."
"When I started, I was splendidly well. I mean when we went on board of the _Loulia_. It"s as if it was something to do with that boat. I believe I began to go down the hill very soon after we started on her.
But it was all so gradual that I scarcely noticed anything at first. My bath made things worse, and then the digging fairly finished me."
"Ah!"
The last course of the very light dinner was put on the table. Isaacson poured out some Vichy water and began to squeeze the juice of half a lemon into it. Nigel sat watching the process, which was very careful and deliberate.