A week later Mrs. Armine received a telegram from Cairo: "Starting to-night, arrive to-morrow morning. Love--Nigel."
She had been expecting such a message; she had known that it must come; yet when Hassan brought it into the garden, where she was sitting at the moment, she felt as if she had been struck. Hassan waited calmly beside her till, with an almost violent gesture, she showed him there was no answer. When he had gone she sat for a moment with the telegram on her knees; then she cried out for Ibrahim. He heard her voice, and came, with his sauntering gait, moving slowly among the rose-trees.
"I've a telegram from Cairo," she said.
She took up the paper and showed it to him.
"My lord Arminigel--he is comin' back?"
"Yes."
"That is very good noos, very nice noos indeed," said Ibrahim, with an air of sleepy satisfaction.
"He starts to-night, and will be here with the express to-morrow morning."
"This is a most bootiful business!" said Ibrahim, blandly. "My lord he has been away so long he will be glad to see us again."
She looked at him, but he did not look at her. Turning a flower in his white teeth, he was gazing towards the river, with an unruffled composure which she felt almost as a rebuke. But why should it matter to him? Baroudi had paid him. Nigel paid him. He had no reason to be upset.
"When he comes," she said, "he will take me away to the Fayyûm."
"Yes. The Fayyûm is very nice place, very good place indeed. There is everythin' there; there is jackal, pidgin, duck, lots and lots of sugar-cane; there is water, there is palm-trees; there is everythin' what any one him want."
"Ah!" she said.
She got up, with a nervously violent movement.
"What's the good of all that to you?" she said. "You're not going with us to the Fayyum, I suppose."
He said nothing.
"Are you?" she exclaimed.
"Suttinly."
"You are coming. How do you know? Has Mr. Armine told you?"
"My lord, he tell me nothin', but I comin' with you, and Hamza him comin' too."
"Hamza is coming?"
"Suttinly."
She was conscious of a sensation of relief that was yet mingled with a faint feeling of dread.
"Why--why should Hamza come with us?" she asked.
"To be your donkey-boy. Hamza he very good donkey-boy."
"I don't know--I am not sure whether I shall want Hamza in the Fayyum."
Ibrahim looked at her with a smiling face.
"In the Fayyum you will never find good donkey-boy, my lady, but you will do always what you like. If you not like to take Hamza, Hamza very sad, very cryin' indeed, but Hamza he stay here. You do always what you think."