Heluan is about half an hour's train ride from Cairo, and here, sitting in the shade outside the hotel, Raife and Hilda for the first time disclosed to themselves that their attraction for one another was not entirely platonic. The pretty little town pitched in the desert was singularly quiet. They had talked of many things and their conversation was rarely flippant, and they both possessed the faculty of enjoying silence when there was nothing of importance to say. In this remote little town, the silent spirit of the vast desert encouraged this mood. After some minutes of such contemplation Hilda remarked to him "Raife, tell me what is a woman-hater?" She had accepted his invitation to call him "just Raife" right from the time when that invitation was extended. Raife started, and his bronzed cheeks suffused with a scarlet tinge. Had she heard him talking to himself that night on the balcony? Was she the woman with the white shawl whom he caught a glimpse of on the balcony beneath? These thoughts crowded on him as he stammered an evasive reply. "I don't know. Why do you ask?" Hilda, with characteristic candour, said: "I overheard some man talking one night and he said, `I am a woman-hater.'" Their conversations on many subjects had been singularly open and free, and Raife now felt that he must disclose some of his career, so with a responsive candour he said: "Hilda, it was I whom you must have heard that night. I felt that I hated a woman, and I had every reason to do so. I had fancied that I loved her, and she, with an abominable old uncle, was conspiring to ruin me. Yes. I was a woman-hater, and I came out here and started on my big-game expedition to get away from women." Hilda's face wore a puzzled and pained expression, and for some time she made no reply. Then she spoke tremulously. "Raife, I am so sorry. To think I have been in your way all this time, and I thought that we had been such good friends." He stopped her abruptly. "Hilda! Hilda! don't talk like that. The woman I hated is a wicked, harmful woman. You are the embodiment of all that is pure and beautiful in womanhood. Your sweet influence has softened my bitterness and restored my mind to its normal state!" Then, archly, Hilda said: "Then I need not run away?" Impetuously he exclaimed, striking the table with the palm of his hand: "Run away! If you do I shall follow you. Follow you? Yes, to the end of the world, for Hilda you have made me love you." "Hush! don't talk like that, Raife. In America boys and girls, men and women, can be friends--just friends." In spite of these brave words, her breast was heaving and her pulses throbbed. "Let us go back now," she added. "This has troubled me and I must think."