Chapter XIV: THE ISLAND OF FORGETFULNESS
“Monimé!” he repeated. “Don’t you know me? I’m Jim—Jim Easton.”
For a moment yet she did not speak. He could feel her hand trembling a little in his, and the movement of her breast revealed the haste of her breathing. She leaned back against the jamb of the door, and her eyes turned towards the garden behind her, as though she were contemplating flight into its shadows.
When at last she spoke, her words came rapidly. “Why have you come to Cyprus?” she asked passionately; and the sound of her voice brought a half-forgotten Alexandrian night racing back to his consciousness. “You couldn’t have known I was here, and nobody knows who I am. How did you find out where I lived?” She moved her head from side to side in a kind of anguish which he did not understand. “I don’t know that there is any need for you in the Villa Nasayan.”
“Nasayan?” he repeated, in query. “Is that the name of this house?” She nodded her head. “That’s the Arabic for ‘Forgetfulness,’” he said. “Why did you give it such a name?”
Her answer faltered. The serenity with which he associated her in his memory had temporarily left her. “There was much to forget,” she replied, “and much has been forgotten. Cyprus is called ‘The Island of Forgetfulness.’ It is wonderful how bad one’s memory becomes here.”
She laughed nervously, and again put her hand to her head. The fingers of her other hand drummed upon the wall. “Why have you come?” she repeated.
“There was no reason,” he said. “I just thought I’d like to see Cyprus. I had no idea you were here. I only arrived to-day: I was just strolling about after dinner....”
“It’s more than four years,” she murmured. “Four years is a very long time. It was all so long ago, Jim, wasn’t it? Nobody can remember things as long ago as that, can they?”