"It's wonderful here," she answered; "but it's so strange that I shall have to get accustomed to it."
As she spoke, she was longing, till her soul seemed to ache, to take the early morning train to Cairo. Accustomed for years to have all her caprices obeyed, all her whims indulged by men, she did not know how she was going to endure this situation, which a passionate love alone could have made tolerable. And the man by her side had that passionate love which made the dreary Fayyûm his Heaven. She could almost have struck him because he was so happy.
"There's one thing I must say I should love to do before we go away from Egypt," she said, slowly.
She seemed to be led or even forced to say it.
"What's that?"
"I should love to go up the Nile on a dahabeeyah."
"Then you shall. When we leave here and pass through Cairo, I'll pick out a boat, and we'll send it up to Luxor, go on board there, and then sail for Assouan. But you mustn't think we shall get a Loulia."
He laughed.
"Millionaires like Baroudi don't hire out their boats," he added. "And if they did, I couldn't pay their price while Etchingham's so badly let."
Her forehead was wrinkled by a frown. She hated to hear a man who loved her speak of his poverty. It had become a habit of her mind to think that no man had a right to love her unless he could give her exactly what she wanted.