"It wouldn't be any use."
"What—is she ill!"
"She's gone."
"Gone!"
He looked at the confusion of the room, at the clothes strewn on the furniture and the floor.
"Now I understand all that," he said. "But what was the matter? Did she steal something, or—perhaps I ought to have had another woman in the house."
"No, no; it wasn't that. I sent her away quite amicably; because I thought she'd be in our way in the Fayyūm. What could we do with her in a tent?"
"You're going to manage without a maid?"
A radiant look of pleasure came into his face.
"You're a trump!" he said.