Part 25 (2/2)
”All what you want you must have,” continued Ibrahim, gravely.
”Ibrahim reads my thoughts like a true Eastern!” said Nigel.
”What I want now is a bath,” remarked Mrs. Armine, smelling the rose.
”Directly we have had one more look at the Nile from our own garden,”
exclaimed Nigel.
But she had stopped before the house.
”I can't take my bath in the Nile. Good-bye, Nigel!”
Before he could say a word she had crossed a little terrace, disappeared through a French window, and vanished into the villa.
Ibrahim smiled, hung his head, and then murmured in a deep contralto voice:
”The wife of my Lord Arminigel, she does not want Ibrahim any more, she does not want the Nile, she wants to be all alone.”
He shook his head, which drooped on his long and gentle brown neck, sighed, and repeated dreamily:
”She wants to be all alone.”
”We'll leave her alone for a little and go and look at the gold.”
Meanwhile within the house Mrs. Armine was calling impatiently for her maid.
”For mercy's sake, undress me. I am a ma.s.s of dust, and looking perfectly dreadful. Is the bath ready?” she asked, as the girl, who had come running, showed her into a good-sized bedroom.
The maid, who was not the red-eyed maid 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.”
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