The _Loulia_ gone from the reach of the river which was visible from the
garden of the Villa Androud; Nigel gone from the house which was
surrounded by that garden; a complete solitude, a complete emptiness of
golden days stretching out before Mrs. Armine! When she woke to that
little bit of truth, fitted in to the puzzle of the truths of her life,
she looked into vacancy, and asked of herself some questions.
Presently she came down to the drawing-room, dressed in a thin coat and
skirt that were suitable for riding, for walking, for sitting among
ruins, for gardening, for any active occupation. Yet she had no plan in
her head; only she was absolutely free to-day, and if it occurred to her
to want to do anything, why, she was completely ready for the doing of
it. Meanwhile she sat down on the terrace and she looked about the
garden.
No one was to be seen in it from where she was sitting. The Egyptian
gardener was at work, or at rest in some hidden place, and all the
garden was at peace.
It was a golden day, almost incredibly clear and radiant, quivering with
brightness and life, and surely with ecstasy. She was set free, in a
passionate wonder of gold. That was the first fact of which she was
sharply conscious. By this time Nigel must be in Cairo; by the evening
he would be in that fabled Fayyum of which she had heard so much, which
had become to her almost as a moral symbol. In the Fayyum fluted the
Egyptian Pan by the water; in the Fayyum, as in an ample and fruitful
bosom, dwelt untrammelled Nature, loosed from all shackles of
civilization. And there, perhaps to-morrow, Nigel would begin making his
eager preparations for her reception and housing--his ardent
preparations for the taking of her "right down to Nature," as he had
once phrased it to her. She touched her whitened cheek with her
carefully manicured fingers, and she wondered, not without irony, at the
strange chances of human life. What imp had taken her by the hand to
lead her to a tent in the Fayyum, in which she would dwell with a man
full of an almost sacred moral enthusiasm? She would surely be more at
home lying on embroideries and heaped-up cushions, with her nostrils
full of a faint but heavy perfume of the East, and her ears of the
murmur of dancing waters, and her mind, or spirit, or soul, or whatever
it was, in contact with another "whatever it was," unlit, unheated, by
fires that might possibly scorch her, but that could never purify her.
What a marvellous golden day it was! This morning she felt the
beneficent influence of the exquisite climate in a much more intimate
way than she had ever felt it before. Why was that? Because of Nigel's
absence, or because of some other reason? Although she asked herself the
question, she did not seek for an answer; the weather was subtly
showering into her an exquisite indifference--the golden peace of "never
mind!" In the Eastern house of Baroudi, as she squeezed the silken
cushions with her fingers, something within her had said, "I must
squeeze dry of their golden juices every one of the fleeting years." In
this day there were some drops of the golden juices--some drops that she
must squeeze out, that her thirsty lips must drink. For the years were
fleeting away, and then there would come the black, eternal nothingness.
She must turn all her attention towards the joys that might still be
hers in the short time that was left her for joy--the short time, for
she was a woman, and over forty.
A tent in the Fayyum with Nigel! Nobody else but Nigel! Days and days in
complete isolation with Nigel! With the man who had "let her in"! And
life, not stealing but clamorously rushing away from her!
She thought of this, she faced it; the soul of her condemned it as a
fate almost ludicrously unsuited to her. And yet she was undisturbed in
the depths of her, although, perhaps, the surface was ruffled. For the
weather would not be gainsaid, the climate would have its way; the blue,
and the gold, and the warmth, combining with the knowledge of freedom,
could not be conquered by any thought that was black, or by any fear. It
seemed to her for a moment as if she were almost struggling to be angry,
to be unhappy, and as if the struggle were vain.
She was quite free in this world of gold. What was she going to do with
her freedom?
In the golden stillness of the garden she heard the faint rustle of a
robe, and she looked round and saw Ibrahim coming slowly towards her,
smiling, with his curly head drooping a little to the left side. Behind
both his ears there were roses, and he held a rose in his hand with an
unlighted cigarette.
"What are we going to do to-day, Ibrahim?" said Mrs. Armine, lazily.
Ibrahim came up and stood beside her, looking down in his very gentle
and individual way. He smoothed the front of his djelabieh, lifted his
rose, smelt it, and said in his low contralto voice:
"We are goin' across the river, my lady."
"Are we?"
"We are goin' to take our lunchin'; we are goin' to be out all day."
"Oh! And what about tea?"
"We are goin' to take it with us in that bottle that looks all made of
silver."
"Silver and--gold," she murmured, looking into the radiant distance
where Thebes lay cradled in the arms of the sun-god.
"And when are we going, Ibrahim?"
He looked at her, and his soft, pale brown lips stretched themselves and
showed his dazzling teeth.
"When you are ready, my lady."
She looked up into his face. Ibrahim was twenty, but he was completely a
boy, despite his great height and his tried capacities as a dragoman.
Everything in him suggested rather the boy than the young man. His long
and slim and flexible body, his long brown neck, his small head, covered
with black hair which curled thickly, the expression in his generally
smiling eyes, even his quiet gestures, his dreamy poses, his gait, his
way of sitting down and of getting up, all conveyed, or seemed to
convey, to those about him the fact that he was a boy. And there was
something very attractive in this very definite youngness of his.
Somehow it inspired confidence.
"I suppose I am ready now."
Mrs. Armine spoke slowly, always looking up at Ibrahim.
"But is there a felucca to take us over?" she added.
"In four five minutes, my lady."
"Call to me from here when it is ready. I leave all the lunch and tea
arrangements to you."
"All what you want you must have, my lady."
Was that a formula of Ibrahim's? To-day he seemed to speak the words
with a conviction that was not usual, with some curious under-meaning.
How much of a boy was he really? As Mrs. Armine went upstairs she was
wondering about him.
Nigel had said to her, "You are blossoming here." And he had said to
her, "You are beautiful, but you do not trust your own beauty." And that
was true, perhaps. To-day she would be quite alone with Ibrahim and the
Egyptians; she would be in perfect freedom, and downstairs upon the
terrace the idea had come to her to fill up the time that must elapse
before the felucca arrived in "undoing" her face. She went into her
bedroom, and shut and locked the door.
"The felucca is here suttinly, my lady!"
Ibrahim called from the terrace some ten minutes later; then he came
round to the front of the house, and cried out the words again.
"I shall be down in a moment."
Another ten minutes went by, and then Mrs. Armine appeared. She had an
ivory fly-whisk in her hand, and a white veil was drawn over her face.
"Is everything ready, Ibrahim?"
"Everythin'."
They went to the felucca and crossed the river.
At a point where there was a stretch of flat sandy soil on the western
shore, Hamza, the praying donkey-boy, was calmly waiting with two large
and splendidly groomed donkeys. Mrs. Armine stepped out of the felucca,
helped by Ibrahim, and the felucca at once put off, and began to return
across the Nile. The boatmen sang in deep and almost tragic voices as
they plied the enormous oars. Their voices faded away on the gleaming
waste of water.
Mrs. Armine had stood close to the river listening to them. When the
long diminuendo was drawn back into a monotonous murmur which she could
scarcely hear, she turned round with a sigh; and she had a strange
feeling that a last link which had held her to civilization had snapped,
and that she was now suddenly grasped by the dry, hot hands of Egypt. As
she turned she faced Hamza, who stood immediately before her, motionless
as a statue, with his huge, almond-shaped eyes fixed unsmilingly upon
her.
"May your day be happy!"
He uttered softly and gravely the Arabic greeting. Mrs. Armine thanked
him in English.
Why did she suddenly to-day feel that she lay in the hot breast of
Egypt? Why did she for the first time really feel the intimate spell of
this land--feel it in the warmth that caressed her, in the softness of
the sand that lay beneath her feet, in the little wind that passed like
a butterfly and in the words of Hamza, in his pose, in his look, in his
silence? Why? Was it because she was no longer companioned by Nigel?
On the day of her arrival Nigel had pointed out Hamza to her. Now and
then she had seen him casually, but till to-day she had never looked at
him carefully, with woman's eyes that discern and appraise.
Hamza was of a perfectly different type from Ibrahim's. He was
excessively slight, almost fragile, with little bones, delicate hands
and feet, small shoulders, a narrow head, and a face that was like the
face of a beautiful bronze, grave, still, enigmatic, almost inhuman in
its complete repose and watchfulness--a face that seemed to take all and
to give absolutely nothing. As Mrs. Armine looked at him she remembered
the descriptive phrase that set him apart from all the people of Luxor.
He was "the praying donkey-boy."
Why had Ibrahim engaged him for their expedition to-day? She had never
had him in her service before.
In a low voice she asked Ibrahim the question.
"He is a very good donkey-boy, but he is not for my lord Arminigel."
Mrs. Armine wondered why, but she asked nothing more. To-day she felt
herself in the hands of Egypt, and of Egypt Ibrahim and Hamza were part.
If she were to enjoy to-day to the utmost, she felt that she must be
passive. And something within her seemed to tell her that in all that
Ibrahim was doing he was guided by some very definite purpose.
He helped her on to her donkey. Upon the beast he was going to ride
were slung two ample panniers. The fragile-looking Hamza, whose body was
almost as strong and as flexible as mail, would run beside them--to
eternity, if need be--on naked feet.
"Where are we going, Ibrahim?"
"We are goin' this way, my lady."
He gave a loud, an almost gasping, sigh. Instantly his donkey started
forward, followed by Mrs. Armine's. The broad river was left behind;
they set their course toward the arid mountains of Libya. Ibrahim kept
always in front to lead the way. He had pushed his tarbush to the back
of his curly head, and as he rode he leaned backwards from his beast,
sticking out his long legs, from which the wrinkling socks slipped down,
showing his dark brown skin. He began to sing to himself in a low and
monotonous voice, occasionally interrupting his song to utter the loud
sigh that urged the donkey on. Hamza ran lightly beside Mrs. Armine. He
was dressed in white, and wore a white turban. In his right hand he
grasped a long piece of sugar-cane. As he ran, holding himself quite
straight, his face never changed its expression, his eyes were always
fixed upon the mountains of Libya.
Upon the broad, flat lands that lay between the Nile and the ruins of
Thebes the young crops shed a sharp green that looked like a wash of
paint. Here and there the miniature forests of doura stood up almost
still in the sunshine. Above the sturdy brakes of the sugar-cane the
crested hoopoes flew, and the larks sang, fluttering their little wings
as if in an almost hysterical ecstasy. Although the time was winter, and
the Christians' Christmas was not far off, the soft airs seemed to be
whispering all the sweet messages of the ardent spring that smiles over
Eastern lands. This was a world of young rapture, not careless, but
softly intense with joy. All things animate and inanimate were surely
singing a love-song, effortless because it flowed from the very core of
a heart that had never known sorrow.
"You are blossoming here!"
Nigel had said that to Mrs. Armine, and she thought of his words now,
and she felt that to-day they were true. Where was she going? She did
not care. She was going under this singing sky, over this singing land,
through this singing sunshine. That was surely enough. Once or twice she
looked at Hamza, and, because he never looked at her, presently she
spoke to him, making some remark about the weather in English. He turned
his head, fixed his unyielding eyes upon her, said "Yes," and glanced
away. She asked him a question which demanded "No" for an answer. This
time he said "Yes," but without looking at her. Like a living bronze he
ran on, lightly, swiftly, severely, towards the tiger-coloured
mountains. And something in Hamza now made Mrs. Armine wonder where they
were going. Already she had seen the ruins on the western shore of the
Nile; she was familiar with Medinat-Habu, with Deir-al-Bahari, with
Kurna, with the Ramesseum, with the tombs of the Kings and of the
Queens. They had landed at a point that lay to the south of Thebes, and
now seemed to be making for Medinat-Habu.
"Where are we going, Hamza?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied.
And he ran on, holding the piece of sugar-cane, like some hieratic
figure holding a torch in a procession. Ibrahim stopped his song to
sigh, and struck his donkey lightly under the right ear, causing it to
turn sharply to the left. In the distance Mrs. Armine saw the great
temple of Medinat-Habu, but it was not their destination. They were
leaving it on their right. And now Ibrahim struck his donkey again, and
they went on rapidly towards the Libyan mountains. The heat increased as
the day wore on towards noon, but she did not mind it--indeed, she had
the desire that it might increase. She saw the drops of perspiration
standing on the face of the living bronze who ran beside her. Ibrahim
ceased from singing. Had the approach of the golden noontide laid a
spell upon his lips?
They went on, and on, and on.
* * * * *
"This is the lunchin'-place, my lady."
At last Ibrahim pulled up his donkey, and slid off, drawing his
djelabieh together with his brown hands.
"Ss--ss--ss--ss!"
Hamza hissed, and Mrs. Armine's donkey stopped abruptly. She got down.
She was, or felt as if she was, in the very heart of the mountains, in a
fiery place of beetling yellow, and brownish and reddish yellow,
precipices and heaped up rocks that looked like strangely-shaped flames
solidified by some cruel and mysterious process. The ground felt hot to
her feet as she stood still and looked about her. Her first impression
was one of strong excitement. This empty place excited her as a loud,
fierce, savage noise excites. The look of it was like noise. For a
moment she stood, and though she was really only gazing, she felt as if
she were listening--listening to hardness, to heat, to gleam, that were
crying out to her.
Hamza took down the panniers after laying his wand of sugar-cane upon
the burning ground.
"Why have you brought me here?"
The question was in Mrs. Armine's mind, but she did not speak it. She
put up her hands, lifted her veil, and let the sun fall upon her
"undone" face, but only for an instant. Then she let her veil down
again, and said to Ibrahim:
"You must find me some shade, Ibrahim."
"My lady, you come with me!"
He walked on up the tiny, ascending track, that was like a yellow riband
which had been let down from the sun, and she followed him round a rock
that was thrust out as if to bar the way, and on to a flat ledge over
which the mountain leaned. A long and broad shadow fell here, and the
natural wall behind the ledge was scooped out into a shape that
suggested repose. As she came upon this ledge, and confronted this
shadow, Mrs. Armine uttered a cry of surprise. For against the rock
there lay a pile of heaped-up cushions, and over a part of the ledge was
spread a superb carpet. In this hot and savage and desolate place it so
startled that it almost alarmed her to come abruptly oh these things,
which forcibly suggested luxury and people, and she glanced sharply
round, again lifting her veil. But she saw only gleaming yellow and
amber and red rocks, and shining tresses of sand among them, and
precipices that looked almost like still cascades of fire. And again she
seemed to hear hardness, and heat, and gleam that were crying out to
her.
"This is the lunchin'-place, my lady."
Ibrahim was looking at the ground where the carpet was spread.
"But--whom do these things belong to?"
"Suttinly they are for you."
"They were put here for me!"
"Suttinly."
Always he looked like a gentle and amiable boy. Mrs. Armine stared at
him searchingly for a moment, then, swayed by a sudden impulse, she went
to the edge of the great rock that hid Hamza and the donkeys from them,
and looked round it to the path by which she had come. On it Hamza was
kneeling with his forehead against the ground. He lifted himself up, and
with his eyes fast shut he murmured, murmured his prayers. Then he bent
again, and laid his forehead once more against the ground. Mrs. Armine
drew back. She did not know exactly why, but she felt for an instant
chilled in the burning sunshine.
"Hamza is praying," she said to Ibrahim, who stood calmly by the carpet.
"Suttinly!" he replied. "When Hamza stop, him pray. Hamza is very good
donkey-boy."
Mrs. Armine asked no more questions. She sat down on the carpet and
leaned against the cushions. Now she was protected from the fierce glare
of the sun, and, almost as from a box at a theater, she could
comfortably survey the burning pageant that Nature gave to her eyes.
Ibrahim went to and fro in his golden robe over the yellow ground,
bringing her food and water with lemon-juice in it, and, when all was
carefully and deftly arranged, he said:
"Is there anythin' more, my lady?"
Mrs. Armine shook her head.
"No, Ibrahim. I have everything I want; I am very comfortable here."
"All what you want you must have to-day, my lady."
He looked at her and went away, and was hidden by the rock. It seemed to
her that a curious expression, that was unboyish and sharp with meaning,
had dawned and died in his eyes.
Slowly she ate a little food, and she sipped the lemon and water.
Ibrahim did not return, nor did she hear his voice or the voice of
Hamza. She knew, of course, that the two Egyptians were near her, behind
the rock; nevertheless, presently, since she could not see or hear them,
she began to feel as if she were entirely alone in the mountains. She
drew down one of the cushions from the rock behind her, and laid and
kept her hand upon it. And the sensation the silk gave to her fingers
seemed to take her again into the Eastern house of Baroudi. She finished
her meal, she put down upon the carpet the empty glass, and, shutting
her eyes, she went on feeling the cushions. And as she felt them she
seemed to see again Hamza, with his beautiful and severe face, praying
upon the yellow ground.
Hamza, Ibrahim, Baroudi. They were all of Eastern blood, they were all
of the same faith, of the faith from the bosom of which emanated the
words which were written upon the _Loulia_:
"The fate of every man have we bound about his neck."
Of every man! And what of the fate of woman? What of her fate?
She opened her eyes, and saw Baroudi standing near her, leaning against
a rock and looking steadily at her.
For an instant she did not know whether she was startled or not. She
seemed to be aware of two selves, the conscious self and the
subconscious self, to know that they were in a sharp conflict of
sensation. And because of this, conflict she could not say, to herself
even, that the sum total of her was this or that. For the conscious
self had surely never expected to see Baroudi here; and the subconscious
self had surely known quite well that he would come into this hard and
yellow place of fire to be alone with her.
"Thank you so much for the carpet and the cushions."
The subconscious self had gained the victory. No, she was not surprised.
Baroudi moved from the rock, and, without smiling, came slowly up to her
over the shining ground that looked metal in the fierce radiance of the
sun. He wore a suit of white linen, white shoes, and the tarbush.
"_Puisque votre mari n'y est plus, parlons Francais_," he said.
"_Comme vous voulez_," she replied.
She did not ask him why he preferred to speak in French. Very few whys
stood just then between her and this man whom she scarcely knew. They
went on talking in French. At first Baroudi continued to stand in the
sun, and she looked up at him with composure from her place of shadow.
"Armant is in this direction?" she said.
"I do not say that, but it is not so far as the Fayyum."
"I know so little of Egypt. You must forgive my ignorance."
"You will know more of my country, much more than other
Englishwomen--some day."
He spoke with an almost brutal composure and self-possession, and she
noticed that he no longer closed his sentences with the word "madame."
His great eyes, as they looked steadily down to her, were as direct, as
cruelly direct, in their gaze as the eyes of a bird of prey. They
pierced her defences, but to-day did not permit her, in return, to
pierce his, to penetrate, even a little way, into his territory of
thought, of feeling. She remembered the eyes of Meyer Isaacson. They,
too, were almost cruelly penetrating; but whereas they distinctly showed
his mind at work, the eyes of Baroudi now seemed to hide what his mind
was doing while they stared at the working of hers. And this
combination of refusal and robbery, blatantly selfish and egoistic,
conveyed to her spirit an extraordinary sense of his power. For years
she had dominated men. This man could dominate her. He knew it. He had
always known it, from the first moment when his eyes rested on hers. Was
it that which was Greek or that which was Egyptian in him which already
overcame her? the keenly practical and energetic or the mysterious and
fatalistic? As yet she could not tell. Perhaps he had a double lure for
the two sides of her nature.
"Do you think so?" she said. "I doubt it. I'm not sure that I shall
spend another winter in Egypt."
His eyes became more sombre, looked suddenly as if even their material
weight must have increased.
"That is known, but not to you," he said.
"And not to you!" she said, with a sudden sharpness, very womanly and
modern.
With a quick and supple movement he was beside her, stretching his
length upon the ground in the shadow of the mountain. He turned slightly
to one side, raising himself up a little on one strong arm, and keeping
in that position without any apparent effort.
"Please don't try the old hypnotic fakir tricks upon me, Baroudi," she
added, pushing up the cushions against the rock behind her. "I know
quantities of hysterical European women make fools of themselves out
here, but I am not hysterical, I assure you."
"No, you are practical, as I am, and something else--as I am."
He bent back his head a little. The movement showed her his splendid
throat, which seemed to announce all the concentrated strength that was
in him--a strength both calm and fiery, not unlike that of the rocks,
like petrified flames which hemmed them in.
"Something else? What is it?"
"Why do women so often ask questions to which they know the answers?
Here is Ibrahim with our coffee."
At this moment, indeed, Ibrahim came slowly from behind the rocky
barrier, carrying coffee-cups, sugar, and a steaming brass coffee-pot on
a tray. Without speaking a word, he placed the tray gently upon the
ground, filled the cups, handed them to Mrs. Armine and Baroudi, and
went quietly away. He had not looked at Mrs. Armine.
And she had thought of Ibrahim as just a gentle and amiable boy!
Could all these people read her mind and follow the track of her
distastes and desires, even the dragomans and the donkey-boys? For an
instant she felt as if the stalwart Englishmen, the governing race, whom
she knew so well, were only children--short-sighted and frigid
children--that these really submissive Egyptians, Baroudi, Ibrahim, and
the praying Hamza, were crafty and hot-blooded men with a divinatory
power.
"Your coffee," said Baroudi, handing to her a cup.
She drank a little, put down the cup, and said:
"The first night we were at the Villa Androud your Nubian sailors came
up the Nile and sang just underneath the garden. Why did they do that?"
"Because they are my men, and had my orders to sing to you."
"And Ibrahim--and Hamza?" she asked.
"They had my orders to bring you here."
"Yes," she said.
She was silent for an instant.
"Yes; of course they had your orders."
As she spoke a hot wave of intimate satisfaction seemed to run all over
her. From Alexandria this man had greeted her on the first evening of
her new life beside the Nile. He had greeted her then, and now he had
surely insulted her. He acknowledged calmly that he had treated her as a
chattel.
She loved that.
He had greeted her on that first evening with a song about Allah. Her
mind, moving quickly from thought to thought, now alighted upon that
remembrance, and immediately she recollected Hamza and his prayer, and
she wondered how strong was the belief in Allah of the ruthless being
beside her.
"They sang a song about Allah," she said, slowly. "Allah was the only
word I could understand."
Baroudi raised himself up a little more, and, staring into her face, he
opened his lips, and, in a loud and melancholy voice, sang the violent,
syncopated tune the Nubian boatmen love. The hot yellow rocks around
them seemed to act as a sounding-board to his voice. Its power was
surely unnatural, and, combined with his now expressionless face, made
upon her an effect that was painful. Nevertheless, it allured her. When
he was silent, she murmured:
"Yes, it was that."
He said nothing, and his absolute silence following upon his violent
singing strengthened the grip of his strangeness upon her. Only a little
while ago she had felt, had even known, that she and Baroudi understood
one another as Nigel and she could never understand one another. Now
suddenly she felt a mystery in Baroudi far deeper, far more
impenetrable, than any mystery that dwelt in Nigel. This mystery seemed
to her to be connected with his belief in an all-powerful God, in some
Being outside of the world, presiding over its destinies, ordering all
the fates which it contained. And whereas the belief of her husband,
which she divined and was often sharply conscious of, moved her to a
feeling of irony such as may be felt by a naturally sardonic person when
hearing the naive revelations of a child, the faith of Baroudi
fascinated her, and moved her almost to a sensation of awe. It was like
a fire which burnt her, and like an iron door which shut against her.
Yet he had never spoken of it; he did not speak of it now. But he had
sung the song of Nubia.
"Did you tell Ibrahim that he was to choose Hamza as my donkey-boy
to-day?" she said.
She was still preoccupied, still she seemed to see Hamza running beside
her towards the mountains, praying among the rocks.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Hamza is a very good donkey-boy."
In that moment Mrs. Armine began to feel afraid of Hamza, even afraid of
his prayers. That was strangely absurd, she knew, because she believed
in nothing. Baroudi now let himself sink down a little, and rested his
cheek upon his hand. Somewhere he had learnt the secret of European
postures. There had been depths of strangeness in his singing. There was
a depth of strangeness in his demeanour. He had greeted her from the
Nile by night when he was far away in Alexandria; he had ordered Ibrahim
and Hamza to bring her into this solitary place, and now he lay beside
her with his strong body at rest, and his mind, apparently, lost in some
vagrant reverie, not heeding her, not making any effort to please her,
not even--so it seemed to her now--thinking about her. Why was she not
piqued, indignant? Why was she even actually charmed by his
indifference?
She did not ask herself why. Perhaps she was catching from him a mood
that had never before been hers.
For a long time they remained thus side by side, quite motionless, quite
silent. And that period of stillness was to Mrs. Armine the most strange
period she had ever passed through in a life that had been full of
events. In that stillness she was being subdued, in that stillness
moulded, in that stillness drawn away. What was active, and how was it
active? What spoke in the stillness? No echoes replied with their
charmed voices among the gleaming rocks of the Libyan mountains.
Nevertheless, something had lifted up a voice and had cried aloud. And
an answer had come that had been no echo.
In repose there is renewal. When they spoke again the almost avid desire
to make the most of the years that remained to her had grown much
stronger in Mrs. Armine, and there had been born within her one of those
curious beliefs which, it seems, come only to women--the belief that
there was reserved for her a revenge upon a fate, the fate that had
taken from her the possibility of having all that she had married Nigel
to obtain, and the belief that she would achieve that revenge by means
of the man who lay beside her.