He got away, with a moribund cigar between his teeth, and no doubt informed Lady Hayman, who thereafter bowed to Nigel, but with a reluctant muscular movement that adequately expressed an inward moral surprise mingled with condemnation. Mrs. Armine seemed totally undisturbed by these demonstrations, her only comment upon the lady being that it was really strange that "in these days" any one could be found to wear magenta and red together, especially any one with a complexion like Lady Hayman's. And her astonishment at the triple combination of colours seemed so simple, so sincere, that it had to be believed in as merely an emanation from an artistic temperament. It was probable that the Haymans told other English on the Hohenzollern the news of Nigel's marriage, for several of the faces that had stared from the luncheon-tables continued to stare on the deck, but with a slightly different expression; the sheer, dull curiosity being exchanged for that half-satirical interest with which the average person of British blood regards a newly-married couple.

This contemplation of them made Nigel secretly angry, and awoke in him a great and peculiar tenderness for his wife, founded on a suddenly more acute understanding of the brutality of the ostracism, combined with notoriety, which she had endured in recent years. Now at last she had some one to protect her. His heart enfolded her with ample wings. But he longed to be free from this crowd, from which on a ship they could not escape, and they spoke to no one during the voyage except to their companion at meals.

With him they were soon on the intimate terms of shipboard--terms that commit one to nothing in the future when land is reached. Although he was dressed like an Englishman, and on deck wore a straw hat with the word "Scott" inside it, he soon let them know that his name was Mahmoud Baroudi, that his native place was Alexandria, that he was of mixed Greek and Egyptian blood, and that he was a man of great energy and will, interested in many schemes, pulling the strings of many enterprises.

He spoke always with a certain polite but bold indifference, as if he cared very little what impression he made on others; and all the information that he gave about himself was dropped out in a careless, casual way that seemed expressive of his character. The high rank, the great riches of his father he rather implied than definitely mentioned. Only when he talked of his occupations was he more definite, more strongly personal. Nigel gathered that he was essentially a man of affairs, had nothing in common with the typical lazy Eastern, who loves to sit in the sun, to suffer the will of Allah, and to fill the years with dreams; that he was cool, clear-headed, and full of the marked commercial ability characteristic of the modern Greek. Whether this aptitude was combined with the sinuous cunning that is essentially Oriental Nigel did not know. He certainly could not perceive it. All that Baroudi said was said with clearness, and a sort of acute precision, whether he discussed the land question, the irrigation works on the Nile, the great boom of 1906, in which such gigantic fortunes were made, or the cotton and sugar industries, in both of which he was interested. The impression he conveyed to Nigel was that he was born to "get on" in whatever he undertook, and that in almost any form of activity he could be a fine ally, or an equally fine opponent. That he was fond of sport was soon apparent. He spoke with an enthusiasm that was always mingled with a certain serene insouciance of the horses he had bred and of the races he had won in Alexandria and Cairo, of yachting, of big-game shooting up the Nile beyond Khartum in the country of the Shillouks, and of duck, pigeon, and jackal shooting in the Fayyum and on the sacred Lake of Kurun.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024