Bella Donna Part 51

"I suppose you won't stay on the Nile for ever?"

Again her fingers closed mechanically on one of the boxes.

"But no! I shall have to go back to a.s.siut, and then to Cairo and Alexandria, the Delta, too."

"And the Fayyum? Haven't you property there? Isn't it one of the richest districts in Egypt?"

He looked at her and smiled, slightly pouting his thick lips.

"Even if I could go to the Fayyum, I don't think it would be much good,"

he answered.

He had no scruple in stripping her bare of subterfuge.

"I meant that your advice on Egyptian agriculture might be valuable to my husband," she retorted, with composure.

Something in his glance, in his tone, seemed suddenly to brace her, to restore her.

"Ah! that is true. Mr. Armeen would take my advice. In some ways he is not so very English."

"Then it would be kind to come to the Fayyum and to give him the benefit of your advice."

He leaned towards her, and said:

"Bella Donna is not so very subtle!"

"You think subtlety so necessary?" she asked, with a light tinge of irony. "I really don't see why."

His eyes narrowed till they were only slits through which gleamed a yellowish light.

"When is your French maid going?" he asked.

She moved, and sat looking at him for a minute without replying. Had he read her thought of the morning?

"My maid!" she said at length. "What do you mean? Why should she go?"

"When is she going?" he repeated.

The brigand had suddenly reappeared in him.

"What an absurd idea! I can't possibly get on without a maid."

She still acted a careless surprise. An obscure voice within her--a voice that she scarcely recognized, whispered to her, "Resist!"

"When is she going?" he said once more, as if he had not heard her.

The man who was working by the shaduf cried out no more. No more did Mrs. Armine see, at the end of the long and narrow alley, behind the fretwork of s.h.i.+ning, pointed leaves, the lateen sails go by. And the withdrawal of the crying voices and of the gliding sails seemed to leave this orange-garden at the very end of the world. The golden peace of the noon wrapped it as in a garment, the hem of which was wrought in geranium-red, in s.h.i.+ning green, and in yellow turning to gold. But in this peace she was conscious of the need to struggle if she would dwell in safety. Soft seemed this garment that was falling gently about her.

But was it not really deadly as a s.h.i.+rt of Nessus, the poison of which would penetrate her limbs, would creep into her very soul?

It was, perhaps, a little thing, this question of the going, or not, of her maid, but she felt that if she resisted his will in this matter she would win a decisive battle, obtain security from a danger impending, whereas if she yielded in this she would be yielding the whole of her will to his.

"I won't yield!" she said to herself.

And then she looked at the brigand beside her, and something within her, that seemed to be the core of her womanhood, longed intensely to yield.

She had wished to get rid of Marie. Quite without prompting she had decided that very morning to send Marie away. Then how unreasonable it would be to refuse to do it just because he, too, wished the girl to go!

"Why do you want her to go?" she asked slowly, with her eyes upon him.

"How can it matter to you whether my maid goes or stays?"

He only looked at her, opened his eyes widely, and laughed. He took another cigarette, lit it, and laughed again quietly, but with surely a real enjoyment of her pretence of ignorance, of her transparent hypocrisy. Nevertheless, she persisted.

"I can't see what such a thing can possibly have to do with you, or why it should interest you at all."

"I will find you a better maid."

"Hamza--perhaps?" she said.

"And why not Hamza?"

He looked at her, and was silent. And again she felt a sensation of fear. There was something deadly about the praying donkey-boy.

"When is that girl going?"

Mrs. Armine opened her lips to say, "She is not going at all." They said:

"I intend to get rid of her within the next few days. I always intended to get rid of her."

"Yes?"

"She isn't really a good maid. She doesn't understand my ways."

"Or she understands them too well," said Baroudi calmly, "When she is gone, I shall burn the alum upon the coals and give it to be eaten by a dog that is black. That girl has the evil eye."

XX

In the lodge in the garden of oranges, when the noon-tide was past and the land lay in the very centre of the gaze of the sun, Baroudi offered to Mrs. Armine an Egyptian dinner, or El-Ghada, served on a round tray of s.h.i.+ning gold, which was set upon a low stool cased with tortoise-sh.e.l.l and ornamented with many small squares of mother-of-pearl. When she and Baroudi came into the room where they were to eat, the tray was already in its place, set out with white silk napkins, with rounds of yellow bread, and with limes cut into slices.

The walls were hung with silks of s.h.i.+mmering green, and dull gold, and deep and sultry red. Upon the floor were strewn some more of the marvellous rugs, of which Baroudi seemed to have an unlimited supply.

Round the room was the usual deep divan. Incense burned in a corner.

Through a large window s.p.a.ce, from which the hanging shutters were partially pushed back, Mrs. Armine saw a vista of motionless orange-trees.

She sat down on a pile of silken cus.h.i.+ons which had been laid for her on the rugs. As she arranged her skirt and settled herself, from an earthen drum just outside the house and an arghool there came a crude sound of native music, to which almost immediately added itself a high and quavering voice, singing:

"_Doos ya' lellee! Doos ya' lellee!_"