She remembered the pretty little rooms on the Loulia. He possessed a floating house—a floating freedom. At that moment she hated the dahabeeyah. She wished it would strike on a rock in the Nile and go to pieces. But he would be floating up the river into the golden south, while she travelled northwards to a tent in the Fayyūm! She could hardly keep her body still in her chair. She picked up one of the silver boxes, and tightened her fingers round it.
"Will you take a little more of the rose-leaf jelly?" he asked.
"No, no."
She dropped the box. It made a dry sound as it struck the table.
"I must stay at Armant some days. I have to look after my sugar interests there."
"Oh—sugar!" she exclaimed. "My husband may think you do nothing but look after your affairs, but you mustn't suppose a woman—"
"A woman—what?"
"I knew from the first you loved pleasure."
She took up the fan again.
"From the first? When was that?"