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 Français," 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 Fayyûm."
"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.