The way she raced their donkeys in her sand-cart on the way home, by no means sparing the whip, was extremely human, but unless he had witnessed it he could never have pictured it as possible—so utterly unlike the gentle, gracious, almost fastidious being he had known first. There was a hint of a darker, stronger colour in the pattern of her being now, partly of careless and abundant spirits, partly of this new primitive savagery. He noticed it more and more, it was both repellant and curiously attractive; yet, while he adored it in her, he also shrank. He detected a touch even of barbaric vanity, and this singular touch of the barbaric veiled the tenderness. He almost felt in her the power to inflict pain without flinching—upon another.…
The following day their time of gaiety was to end, awaiting only his return later from Assouan. Tony was going down to Cairo with some other friends. Tom would be away at least a week, and tried hard to persuade his cousin to come with him instead; but Tony had given his word, and could not change. Moreover, he was dining with his friends that very night, and must hurry off at once. He said his good-byes and went.
'We're very rarely alone now, are we, Lettice?' Tom began abruptly the instant they were together. At the back of his mind rose something he did not understand that forced more significance into his tone than he intended. He felt very full—an accumulation that must have expression. He blurted it out without reflection. 'Hardly once since I arrived two weeks ago, now I come to think of it.' He looked at her half playfully, half reproachfully. 'We're always three,' he added with the frank pathos of a boy. And while one part of him felt ashamed, another part urged him onward and was glad.
But the way she answered startled him.
'Tom dear, don't scold me now. I am so tired.' It was the tone that took his breath away. For the first time in their acquaintance he noticed something like exasperation. 'I've been doing too much,' she went on more gently, smiling up into his face: 'I feel it. And that dreadful thing— that insect,'—she shuddered a little—'I never meant to hurt it. It's upset me. All this daily excitement, and the sun, and the jolting of that rickety sand-cart—There, Tom, come and sit beside me a moment and let's talk before you go. I'm really too done up to drive you to the station to-night. You'll understand and forgive me, won't you?' Her voice was very soft. She was excited, too, talking at random rather. Her being seemed confused.
He took his place on a sturdy cushion at her feet, full of an exaggerated remorse. She looked pale, though her eyes were very sparkling. His heart condemned him. He said nothing about the 'dreadful incident.'
'Lettice, dearest girl, I didn't mean anything. You have been doing far too much, and it's my fault; you've done it all for me—to give me pleasure. It's been too wonderful.' He took her hand, while her other stroked his head. 'You must rest while I'm away.'
'Yes,' she murmured, 'so as to be quite fresh when you come back. You won't be very long, will you?' He said he would risk his whole career to get back within the week. 'But, you know, I have neglected things rather—up there.' He smiled fondly as he said 'up there.' She looked down tenderly into his eyes. 'And I have neglected you—down here,' she said. 'That's what you mean, boy, isn't it?' And for the first time he did not like the old mode of address he once thought perfect. There seemed a flavour of pity in it. 'It would be nice to be alone sometimes, wouldn't it, Lettice? Quite alone, I mean,' he said with meaning.
'We shall be, we will be—later, Tom,' she whispered; 'quite alone together.' She paused, then added louder: 'The truth is, Egypt—the air and climate—stimulates me too much; it makes me restless. It excites me in a way I can't quite understand. I can't sit still and talk and be idle as one does in sleepy, solemn England.'
He was explaining with laborious logic that it was the dryness of the air that exhausted the nerves a bit, when she straightened herself up and took her hand away. 'Oh yes, Tom, I know, I know. That's perfectly true, and everybody says that—I mean, everybody feels it, don't they?' She said it quickly, almost impatiently.