"No. I left England unexpectedly. A sudden impulse!"
He was speaking almost apologetically, without meaning to do so. He realized this, and pulled himself up sharply.
"I told no one of my plans. I thought I would give Nigel a surprise."
He said it coolly, with quite a different manner.
"Nigel!" she said.
Isaacson was aware when she spoke that he had called his friend by his Christian name for the first time.
"I thought I would give you and your husband a surprise. I hope you forgive me?"
After what seemed to him an immensely long time she answered:
"What is there to forgive? Everybody comes to the Nile. One is never astonished to see any one turn up."
Her voice this time was no longer ugly. It began to have some of the warm and the lazy charm that he had found in it when he met her in London. But the charm sounded deliberate, as if it was thrust into the voice by a strong effort of her will.