For a considerable time—though time to her stood still—they sat together in the darkness, closely held in one another’s arms, his cheek and his lips pressed against her bare shoulder and neck; and as the moments passed the intoxication of love began to bewilder him as it had already overwhelmed her. Her skin was so warm, so soft, so alluring, and the surge of her breath was so entrancing!
Suddenly they became conscious of the sound of much shouting amongst the native crew, and at the same time the drone of the paddle-wheels ceased. Rupert raised his head, and his hands began instinctively to tidy his hair and to arrange his disordered tie.
“We must have arrived,” he said. “The others will be coming up on deck: we’d better move.”
He stood up, and Muriel sank back into the corner of the sofa, her arm across her eyes. For some moments she seemed to be unable to bring her mind down from the heights of her dream; and Rupert watched her with anxiety, hoping that she would speedily master herself.
“Come,” he said. “Let’s walk along the deck.”
Very slowly she rose to her feet, and, with a sigh, put her arm in his.
The steamer had evidently reached its destination, and the captain’s bell incessantly rang his orders to the engine-room, while the hurried tread of bare feet could be heard on the bridge above them as they came into the soft light amidships. On one side the bank of the river could be discerned in the darkness, still some thirty or forty feet distant; on the other the open water stretched, reflecting the innumerable stars. To this latter side Rupert led her, and, leaning his back against the railing above the now silent paddle-wheel, he held his hand out to her as she stood before him.
“Muriel,” he whispered, when fervently he had kissed her fingers, “will you be my wife?”
She drew in her breath sharply, and her hands clasped themselves against her breast. She had been waiting for these words, but now when she heard them they frightened her. Somehow in the light of the electric lamps her dream in the darkness had faded, and there was a sense of cooler reality in her mind, a kind of reaction. Why should she say ‘Yes’ at once? Ought she not to try him yet a little while before she gave herself to him? She remembered that until today she had not known that she loved him: perhaps it was all an illusion, created by the Nile.
He saw the look in her face, and as he leaned back heavily against the railing his heart sank within him. Was she only playing with him? Did she only feel for him what he felt for her?