The day that he realized it was the day that Isaacson found the motive he had in the dark been seeking.
And on that day, too, Mrs. Armine told herself that she could endure no longer. She must get away to Cairo, if only for two or three days. If Baroudi was not there, she must go to Alexandria and seek him. Baffled desire, enforced patience, the perpetual presence of Meyer Isaacson, with whom she was obliged to keep up a pretence of civility and even of gratitude, and the jealousy that grows like a rank weed in the soil of ignorance, rendered her at last almost reckless. She was sure if she remained longer in the villa she would betray herself by some sudden outburst. Isaacson had kept silence so long as to the cause of her husband's illness that she sometimes nearly deceived herself into thinking he did not know what it was. Perhaps she had been a fool to be so much afraid of him. She strove to think so, and nearly succeeded.
The Loulia lay always by the western shore of the Nile, but each night, when she looked from the garden, the cabin windows were dark. She had made enquiries of Ibrahim. But Ibrahim was no longer the smiling, boyish attendant who had been her slave. He performed his duties carefully, and was always elaborately polite, but he had an air of secrecy, of uneasiness, and almost of gloom, and when she mentioned Baroudi, he said: "My lady, I know nothin'."
"Well, but on the Loulia?" she persisted. "The Reis--the crew--?"
"They knows nothin'. Nobody heeyah know nothin' at all."
Then she resolved to wait no longer, but to go and find out for herself. Perhaps it was the look of returning life in the eyes of her husband which finally decided her.
She came out on to the terrace where he was stretched in a long chair under an awning. A book lay on one of the arms of the chair, but he was not reading it. He was just lying there and looking out to the garden, and to the hills that edge the desert of Libya. Isaacson was not with him. He had gone away somewhere, perhaps for a stroll on the bank of the Nile.
Mrs. Armine sauntered up, with an indolent, careless air, and sat down near her husband.
"Dreaming?" she said, in her sweetest voice.
He shook his head.
"Waking!" he answered. "Waking up to life."
"You do look much stronger to-day."
"Stronger than yesterday?" he said, eagerly. "You think so? You notice it, Ruby?"
"Yes."
"That's strange. To-day I--I know that all is going to be right with me. To-day I know that presently--Ruby, think of it!--I shall be the man I once was."