He left her, moving with the swiftness and easy gait of a young gazelle.
Renisenb went slowly on to where Kait and the children were playing by the lake.
Kait spoke to her, but Renisenb answered at random.
Kait, however, did not seem to notice, or else, as usual, her mind was too full of the children to pay much attention to other things.
Suddenly, breaking the silence, Renisenb said:
"Shall I take another husband? What do you say, Kait?"
Kait replied placidly without any great interest: "It would be as well, I think.
You are strong and young, Renisenb, and you can have many more children."
"Is that all a woman's life, Kait?
To busy myself in the back of the house, to have children, to spend afternoons with them by the lake under the sycamore trees?"
"It is all that matters to a woman. Surely you know that.
Do not speak as though you were a slave.
Women have power in Egypt - inheritance passes through them to their children.
Women are the life blood of Egypt."
Renisenb looked thoughtfully at Teti, who was busily making a garland of flowers for her doll. Teti was frowning a little with the concentration of what she was doing.
There had been a time when Teti had looked so like Khay, pushing out her underlip, turning her head a little sideways, that Renisenb's heart had turned over with pain and love.
But now not only was Khay's face dim in Renisenb's memory, but Teti no longer had that trick of head-turning and pushing out her lip.
There had been other moments when Renisenb had held Teti close to her, feeling the child still part of her own body, her own living flesh, with a passionate sense of ownership.
"She is mine, all mine," she had said to herself.
Now, watching her, Renisenb thought:
"She is me - and she is Khay..."
Then Teti looked up, and seeing her mother, she smiled.
It was a grave, friendly smile, with confidence in it and pleasure.
Renisenb thought: "No, she is not me and she is not Khay - she is herself.
She is Teti.
She is alone, as I am alone, as we are all alone.
If there is love between us we shall be friends all our life - but if there is not love she will grow up and we shall be strangers.
She is Teti and I am Renisenb."
Kait was looking at her curiously.
"What do you want, Renisenb?
I do not understand."
Renisenb did not answer.
How put into words for Kait the things she hardly understood herself?
She looked round her, at the courtyard walls, at the gaily colored porch of the house, at the smooth waters of the lake and the graceful little pleasure pavilion, the neat flower beds and the clumps of papyrus.
All safe, shut in, nothing to fear, with around her the murmur of the familiar home sounds, the babble of children's voices, the raucous, far-off, shrill clamor of women in the house, the distant lowing of cattle.
She said slowly:
"One cannot see the River from here." Kait looked surprised. "Why should one want to see it?"
Renisenb said slowly: "I am stupid. I do not know."
Before her eyes, very clearly, she saw spread out the panorama of green fields, rich and lush, and beyond, far away, an enchanted distance of pale rose and amethyst fading into the horizon, and cleaving the two, the pale silver blue of the Nile...
She caught her breath - for with the vision, the sights and sounds around her faded - there came instead a stillness, a richness, an infinite satisfaction...
She said to herself: "If I turn my head, I shall see Hori.
He will look up from his papyrus and smile at me... Presently the sun will set and there will be darkness and then I shall sleep... That will be death."
"What did you say, Renisenb?"
Renisenb started.
She was not aware she had spoken aloud.
She came back from her vision to reality.
Kait was looking at her curiously.
"You said 'death,' Renisenb.
What were you thinking?"
Renisenb shook her head. "I don't know.