"No, Ruby."
"Then what's the matter?"
"The matter? Nothing! On the contrary, it's a piece of good news."
In spite of himself almost, his eyes were staring at her with an expression of scrutiny that was fierce, because of the anxiety within him.
"Poor old Harwich has had to wait so long, and now at last he's got what he's wanted."
"What's that?"
"A child--that is, children--twins."
There was a moment of silence. Then Mrs. Armine said, with a smile: "So that's it!"
"Yes, that's it, Ruby."
"Girls? Boys? Girl and boy?"
"Boys, both of them."
"When you write, congratulate him for me. And now read the rest of your letters. I'm going to take a stroll in the garden."
As she spoke, she put up her parasol and sauntered away towards the Nile, stopping now and then to look at a flower or tree, to take a rose in her hand, smell it, then let it go with a careless gesture.
"Does she really mind? Damn it, does she mind?"
There had been no cloud on her face, no involuntary movement of dismay, yet in her apparently unruffled calm there had been a reticence that somehow had chilled him. She was so clever in reading people that surely she must have felt the anxiety in his heart, the eager desire to be reassured. If she had only responded to it frankly, if she had only come up to him, touched his hand, said, "Dear old boy, what does it matter? You don't suppose I've ever bothered about being the future Lady Harwich?"--something of that kind, all his doubts would have been swept away. But she had taken it too coolly, almost, had dismissed it too abruptly. Perhaps that was his fault, though, for he had been reserved with her, had not said to her all he was thinking, or indeed anything he was thinking.
"Ruby! I say, Ruby!"
Following a strong impulse, he hastened after her, and came up with her on the bank of the Nile.
"Look!" she said.
"What? Oh, Baroudi's dahabeeyah tied up over there! Yes, I knew that. It's to get out of the noise of Luxor. Ruby, you--you don't mind about Harwich and the boys?"
"Mind?" she said.
Her voice was suddenly almost angry, and an expression that was hard came into her brilliant eyes.
"Mind? What do you mean, Nigel?"
"Well, you see it makes a lot of difference in my position from the worldly point of view."
"And you think I care about that! I knew you did. I knew exactly what you were thinking on the terrace!"
There was a wounded sound in her voice. Then she added, with a sort of terribly bitter quietness: "But--what else could you, or anyone, think?"