And yet even he had his ugliness. For now Isaacson believed in the liaison between him and Mrs. Chepstow.
Only eight days later, after Mrs. Chepstow and Nigel had sailed for Alexandria, did he learn that they were married.
XI
Immediately after their marriage at a registrar's office, Nigel and his wife, with a maid, and a great many trunks of varying shapes and sizes, travelled to Naples and embarked on the Hohenzollern for Egypt, where Nigel had rented for the winter the Villa Androud, on the bank of the Nile near Luxor.
Nigel was happy, but he was not wholly free from anxiety, although he was careful to keep that anxiety from his wife, and desired even sometimes to deny that it existed to himself. In making this marriage he had obeyed the cry of two voices within him, the voice of the senses and the voice of the soul. He did not know which had sounded most clearly; he did not know which inclination had prevailed over him most strongly, the longing for a personal joy, or the pitiful desire to shed happiness and peace on a darkened and soiled existence. The future perhaps would tell him. Meanwhile he put before him one worthy aim, to be the perfect husband.
Although the month was November, and the rush for the Nile had not begun, the Hohenzollern was crowded with passengers, and when the Armines came into the dining-room for lunch, as the vessel was leaving Naples, every place was already taken.
"Give us a table upstairs alone," said Nigel to the head-steward, putting something into his hand. "We shall like that ever so much better."
He had caught sight of a number of staring English faces, on some of which there seemed to be more than the dawning of a recognition of Mrs. Armine.
As if mechanically the rosy Prussian retained the something, and replied, with a strong German accent: