The East was in her
brain, the glow of the skies, the gleam of the desert, the swish of the
Nile, the cry of the sweet-seller, the song of the dance-girl, the strain
of the darabukkeh, the call of the skis. She saw again the ghiassas
drifting down the great river, laden with dourha; she saw the mosque of
the blue tiles with its placid fountain, and its handful of worshippers
praying by the olive-tree. She watched the moon rise above the immobile
Sphinx, she looked down on the banqueters in the Palace, David among
them, and Foorgat Bey beside her. She saw Foorgat Bey again lying dead at
her feet. She heard the stir of the leaves; she caught the smell of the
lime-trees in the Palace garden as she fled. She recalled her reckless
return to Cairo from Alexandria. She remembered the little room where she
and David, Nahoum and Mizraim, crossed a bridge over a chasm, and stood
upon ground which had held good till now--till this hour, when the man
who had played a most vital part in her life had come again out of a land
which, by some forced obliquity of mind and stubbornness of will, she had
assured herself she would never see again.
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