There are music and singing and dancing.
Then my father travels a good deal.
I have been with him to Syria - to Byblos beyond the Gazelle's Nose.
I have been with him in a big ship on the wide seas."
She spoke with pride and animation.
Renisenb stood quite still, her mind working slowly, but with growing interest and understanding.
"It must be very dull for you here," she said slowly.
Nofret laughed impatiently.
"It is dead here - dead - nothing but ploughing and sowing and reaping and grazing - and talk of crops - and wanglings about the price of flax."
Renisenb was still wrestling with unfamiliar thoughts as she watched Nofret sideways.
And suddenly, as though it was something physical, a great wave of anger and misery and despair seemed to emanate from the girl at her side.
Renisenb thought: "She is as young as I am - younger.
And she is the concubine of that old man, that fussy, kindly, but rather ridiculous old man, my father..."
What did she, Renisenb, know about Nofret?
Nothing at all.
What was it Hori had said yesterday when she had cried out
"She is beautiful and cruel and bad"?
"You are a child, Renisenb." That was what he had said.
Renisenb knew now what he meant.
Those words of hers had meant nothing - you could not dismiss a human being so easily.
What sorrow, what bitterness, what despair lay behind Nofret's cruel smile?
What had Renisenb, what had any of them, done to make Nofret welcome?
Renisenb said stumblingly, childishly:
"You hate us all - I see why - we have not been kind - but now - it is not too late.
Can we not, you and I, Nofret, can we not be sisters to each other?
You are far away from all you know - you are alone - can I not help?"
Her words faltered into silence.
Nofret turned slowly,
For a minute or two her face was expressionless - there was even, Renisenb thought, a momentary softening in her eyes.
In that early morning stillness, with its strange clarity and peace, it was as though Nofret hesitated - as though Renisenb's words had touched in her some last core of irresolution.
It was a strange moment, a moment Renisenb was to remember afterwards....
Then, gradually, Nofret's expression changed. It became heavily malevolent, her eyes smoldered. Before the fury of hate and malice in her glance, Renisenb recoiled a step,
Nofret said in a low, fierce voice: "Go!
I want nothing from any of you.
Stupid fools, that is what you all are, every one of you..."
She paused a moment, then wheeled round and retraced her steps towards the house, walking with energy.
Renisenb followed her slowly.
Curiously enough, Nofret's words had not made her angry.
They had opened before her eyes a black abyss of hate and misery - something quite unknown as yet in her own experience, and in her mind was only a confused, groping thought of how dreadful it must be to feel like that.
II
As Nofret entered the gateway and crossed the courtyard, one of Kait's children came running across her path, chasing a ball.
Nofret pushed the child out of her way with an angry thrust that sent the little girl sprawling on the ground.
The child set up a wail and Renisenb ran to her and picked her up, saying indignantly: "You should not have done that, Nofret!
You have hurt her, see.
She has cut her chin."
Nofret laughed stridently.
"So I should be careful not to hurt these spoiled brats?
Why?
Are their mothers so careful of my feelings?"
Kait had come running out of the house at the sound of her child's wails.