Domini came into the ante-room alone. The three men had paused for a moment behind her, and the sound of a match struck reached her ears as she went listlessly forward to the door which was open to the broad garden path, and stood looking out into the sunshine. Butterflies were flitting here and there through the riot of gold, and she heard faint bird-notes from the shadows of the trees, echoed by the more distant twitter of Larbi’s flute. On the left, between the palms, she caught glimpses of the desert and of the hard and brilliant mountains, and, as she stood there, she remembered her sensations on first entering the garden and how soon she had learned to love it. It had always seemed to her a sunny paradise of peace until this moment. But now she felt as if she were compassed about by clouds.

The vagrant movement of the butterflies irritated her eyes, the distant sound of the flute distressed her ears, and all the peace had gone. Once again this man destroyed the spell Nature had cast upon her. Because she knew that he had lied, her joy in the garden, her deeper joy in the desert that embraced it, were stricken. Yet why should he not lie? Which of us does not lie about his feelings? Has reserve no right to armour?

She heard her companions entering the room and turned round. At that moment her heart was swept by an emotion almost of hatred to Androvsky. Because of it she smiled. A forced gaiety dawned in her. She sat down on one of the low divans, and, as she asked Count Anteoni for a cigarette and lit it, she thought, “How shall I punish him?” That lie, not even told to her and about so slight a matter, seemed to her an attack which she resented and must return. Not for a moment did she ask herself if she were reasonable. A voice within her said, “I will not be lied to, I will not even bear a lie told to another in my presence by this man.” And the voice was imperious.

Count Anteoni remained beside her, smoking a cigar. Father Roubier took a seat by the little table in front of her. But Androvsky went over to the door she had just left, and stood, as she had, looking out into the sunshine. Bous-Bous followed him, and snuffed affectionately round his feet, trying to gain his attention.

“My little dog seems very fond of your friend,” the priest said to Domini.

“My friend!”

“Monsieur Androvsky.”

She lowered her voice.

“He is only a travelling acquaintance. I know nothing of him.”

The priest looked gently surprised and Count Anteoni blew forth a fragrant cloud of smoke.

“He seems a remarkable man,” the priest said mildly.

“Do you think so?”

She began to speak to Count Anteoni about some absurdity of Batouch, forcing her mind into a light and frivolous mood, and he echoed her tone with a clever obedience for which secretly she blessed him. In a moment they were laughing together with apparent merriment, and Father Roubier smiled innocently at their light-heartedness, believing in it sincerely. But Androvsky suddenly turned around with a dark and morose countenance.

“Come in out of the sunshine,” said the Count. “It is too strong. Try this chair. Coffee will be—ah, here it is!”

Two servants appeared, carrying it.

“Thank you, Monsieur,” Androvsky said with reluctant courtesy.

He came towards them with determination and sat down, drawing forward his chair till he was facing Domini. Directly he was quiet Bous-Bous sprang upon his knee and lay down hastily, blinking his eyes, which were almost concealed by hair, and heaving a sigh which made the priest look kindly at him, even while he said deprecatingly:

“Bous-Bous! Bous-Bous! Little rascal, little pig—down, down!”

“Oh, leave him, Monsieur!” muttered Androvsky. “It’s all the same to me.”

“He really has no shame where his heart is concerned.”

“Arab!” said the Count. “He has learnt it in Beni-Mora.”

“Perhaps he has taken lessons from Larbi,” said Domini. “Hark! He is playing to-day. For whom?”

“I never ask now,” said the Count. “The name changes so often.”

“Constancy is not an Arab fault?” Domini asked.

“You say ‘fault,’ Madame,” interposed the priest.

“Yes, Father,” she returned with a light touch of conscious cynicism. “Surely in this world that which is apt to bring inevitable misery with it must be accounted a fault.”

“But can constancy do that?”

“Don’t you think so, into a world of ceaseless change?”

“Then how shall we reckon truth in a world of lies?” asked the Count. “Is that a fault, too?”

“Ask Monsieur Androvsky,” said Domini, quickly.

“I obey,” said the Count, looking over at his guest.

“Ah, but I am sure I know,” Domini added. “I am sure you think truth a thing we should all avoid in such a world as this. Don’t you, Monsieur?”

“If you are sure, Madame, why ask me?” Androvsky replied.

There was in his voice a sound that was startling. Suddenly the priest reached out his hand and lifted Bous-Bous on to his knee, and Count Anteoni very lightly and indifferently interposed.

“Truth-telling among Arabs becomes a dire necessity to Europeans. One cannot out-lie them, and it doesn’t pay to run second to Orientals. So one learns, with tears, to be sincere. Father Roubier is shocked by my apologia for my own blatant truthfulness.”

The priest laughed.

“I live so little in what is called ‘the world’ that I’m afraid I’m very ready to take drollery for a serious expression of opinion.”

He stroked Bous-Bous’s white back, and added, with a simple geniality that seemed to spring rather from a desire to be kind than from any temperamental source:

“But I hope I shall always be able to enjoy innocent fun.”

As he spoke his eyes rested on Androvsky’s face, and suddenly he looked grave and put Bous-Bous gently down on the floor.

“I’m afraid I must be going,” he said.

“Already?” said his host.

“I dare not allow myself too much idleness. If once I began to be idle in this climate I should become like an Arab and do nothing all day but sit in the sun.”

“As I do. Father, we meet very seldom, but whenever we do I feel myself a cumberer of the earth.”

Domini had never before heard him speak with such humbleness. The priest flushed like a boy.

“We each serve in our own way,” he said quickly. “The Arab who sits all day in the sun may be heard as a song of praise where He is.”

And then he took his leave. This time he did not extend his hand to Androvsky, but only bowed to him, lifting his white helmet. As he went away in the sun with Bous-Bous the three he had left followed him with their eyes. For Androvsky had turned his chair sideways, as if involuntarily.

“I shall learn to love Father Roubier,” Domini said.

Androvsky moved his seat round again till his back was to the garden, and placed his broad hands palm downward on his knees.

“Yes?” said the Count.

“He is so transparently good, and he bears his great disappointment so beautifully.”

“What great disappointment?”

“He longed to become a monk.”

Androvsky got up from his seat and walked back to the garden doorway. His restless demeanour and lowering expression destroyed all sense of calm and leisure. Count Anteoni looked after him, and then at Domini, with a sort of playful surprise. He was going to speak, but before the words came Smain appeared, carrying reverently a large envelope covered with Arab writing.

“Will you excuse me for a moment?” the Count said.

“Of course.”

He took the letter, and at once a vivid expression of excitement shone in his eyes. When he had read it there was a glow upon his face as if the flames of a fire played over it.

“Miss Enfilden,” he said, “will you think me very discourteous if I leave you for a moment? The messenger who brought this has come from far and starts to-day on his return journey. He has come out of the south, three hundred kilometres away, from Beni-Hassan, a sacred village—a sacred village.”

He repeated the last words, lowering his voice.

“Of course go and see him.”

“And you?”

He glanced towards Androvsky, who was standing with his back to them.

“Won’t you show Monsieur Androvsky the garden?”

Hearing his name Androvsky turned, and the Count at once made his excuses to him and followed Smain towards the garden gate, carrying the letter that had come from Beni-Hassan in his hand.

When he had gone Domini remained on the divan, and Androvsky by the door, with his eyes on the ground. She took another cigarette from the box on the table beside her, struck a match and lit it carefully. Then she said:

“Do you care to see the garden?”

She spoke indifferently, coldly. The desire to show her Paradise to him had died away, but the parting words of the Count prompted the question, and so she put it as to a stranger.

“Thank you, Madame—yes,” he replied, as if with an effort.

She got up, and they went out together on to the broad walk.

“Which way do you want to go?” she asked.

She saw him glance at her quickly, with anxiety in his eyes.

“You know best where we should go, Madame.”

“I daresay you won’t care about it. Probably you are not interested in gardens. It does not matter really which path we take. They are all very much alike.”

“I am sure they are all very beautiful.”

Suddenly he had become humble, anxious to please her. But now the violent contrasts in him, unlike the violent contrasts of nature in this land, exasperated her. She longed to be left alone. She felt ashamed of Androvsky, and also of herself; she condemned herself bitterly for the interest she had taken in him, for her desire to put some pleasure into a life she had deemed sad, for her curiosity about him, for her wish to share joy with him. She laughed at herself secretly for what she now called her folly in having connected him imaginatively with the desert, whereas in reality he made the desert, as everything he approached, lose in beauty and wonder. His was a destructive personality. She knew it now. Why had she not realised it before? He was a man to put gall in the cup of pleasure, to create uneasiness, self-consciousness, constraint round about him, to call up spectres at the banquet of life. Well, in the future she could avoid him. After to-day she need never have any more intercourse with him. With that thought, that interior sense of her perfect freedom in regard to this man, an abrupt, but always cold, content came to her, putting him a long way off where surely all that he thought and did was entirely indifferent to her.

“Come along then,” she said. “We’ll go this way.”

And she turned down an alley which led towards the home of the purple dog. She did not know at the moment that anything had influenced her to choose that particular path, but very soon the sound of Larbi’s flute grew louder, and she guessed that in reality the music had attracted her. Androvsky walked beside her without a word. She felt that he was not looking about him, not noticing anything, and all at once she stopped decisively.

“Why should we take all this trouble?” she said bluntly. “I hate pretence and I thought I had travelled far away from it. But we are both pretending.”

“Pretending, Madame?” he said in a startled voice.

“Yes. I that I want to show you this garden, you that you want to see it. I no longer wish to show it to you, and you have never wished to see it. Let us cease to pretend. It is all my fault. I bothered you to come here when you didn’t want to come. You have taught me a lesson. I was inclined to condemn you for it, to be angry with you. But why should I be? You were quite right. Freedom is my fetish. I set you free, Monsieur Androvsky. Good-bye.”

As she spoke she felt that the air was clearing, the clouds were flying. Constraint at least was at an end. And she had really the sensation of setting a captive at liberty. She turned to leave him, but he said:

“Please, stop, Madame.”

“Why?”

“You have made a mistake.”

“In what?”

“I do want to see this garden.”

“Really? Well, then, you can wander through it.”

“I do not wish to see it alone.”

“Larbi shall guide you. For half a franc he will gladly give up his serenading.”

“Madame, if you will not show me the garden I will not see it at all. I will go now and will never come into it again. I do not pretend.”

“Ah!” she said, and her voice was quite changed. “But you do worse.”

“Worse!”

“Yes. You lie in the face of Africa.”

She did not wish or mean to say it, and yet she had to say it. She knew it was monstrous that she should speak thus to him. What had his lies to do with her? She had been told a thousand, had heard a thousand told to others. Her life had been passed in a world of which the words of the Psalmist, though uttered in haste, are a clear-cut description. And she had not thought she cared. Yet really she must have cared. For, in leaving this world, her soul had, as it were, fetched a long breath. And now, at the hint of a lie, it instinctively recoiled as from a gust of air laden with some poisonous and suffocating vapour.

“Forgive me,” she added. “I am a fool. Out here I do love truth.”

Androvsky dropped his eyes. His whole body expressed humiliation, and something that suggested to her despair.

“Oh, you must think me mad to speak like this!” she exclaimed. “Of course people must be allowed to arm themselves against the curiosity of others. I know that. The fact is I am under a spell here. I have been living for many, many years in the cold. I have been like a woman in a prison without any light, and—”

“You have been in a prison!” he said, lifting his head and looking at her eagerly.

“I have been living in what is called the great world.”

“And you call that a prison?”

“Now that I am living in the greater world, really living at last. I have been in the heart of insincerity, and now I have come into the heart, the fiery heart of sincerity. It’s there—there”—she pointed to the desert. “And it has intoxicated me; I think it has made me unreasonable. I expect everyone—not an Arab—to be as it is, and every little thing that isn’t quite frank, every pretence, is like a horrible little hand tugging at me, as if trying to take me back to the prison I have left. I think, deep down, I have always loathed lies, but never as I have loathed them since I came here. It seems to me as if only in the desert there is freedom for the body, and only in truth there is freedom for the soul.”

She stopped, drew a long breath, and added:

“You must forgive me. I have worried you. I have made you do what you didn’t want to do. And then I have attacked you. It is unpardonable.”

“Show me the garden, Madame,” he said in a very low voice.

Her outburst over, she felt a slight self-consciousness. She wondered what he thought of her and became aware of her unconventionality. His curious and persistent reticence made her frankness the more marked. Yet the painful sensation of oppression and exasperation had passed away from her and she no longer thought of his personality as destructive. In obedience to his last words she walked on, and he kept heavily beside her, till they were in the deep shadows of the closely-growing trees and the spell of the garden began to return upon her, banishing the thought of self.

“Listen!” she said presently.

Larbi’s flute was very near.

“He is always playing,” she whispered.

“Who is he?”

“One of the gardeners. But he scarcely ever works. He is perpetually in love. That is why he plays.”

“Is that a love-tune then?” Androvsky asked.

“Yes. Do you think it sounds like one?”

“How should I know, Madame?”

He stood looking in the direction from which the music came, and now it seemed to hold him fascinated. After his question, which sounded to her almost childlike, and which she did not answer, Domini glanced at his attentive face, to which the green shadows lent a dimness that was mysterious, at his tall figure, which always suggested to her both weariness and strength, and remembered the passionate romance to whose existence she awoke when she first heard Larbi’s flute. It was as if a shutter, which had closed a window in the house of life, had been suddenly drawn away, giving to her eyes the horizon of a new world. Was that shutter now drawn back for him? No doubt the supposition was absurd. Men of his emotional and virile type have travelled far in that world, to her mysterious, ere they reach his length of years. What was extraordinary to her, in the thought of it alone, was doubtless quite ordinary to him, translated into act. Not ignorant, she was nevertheless a perfectly innocent woman, but her knowledge told her that no man of Androvsky’s strength, power and passion is innocent at Androvsky’s age. Yet his last dropped-out question was very deceptive. It had sounded absolutely natural and might have come from a boy’s pure lips. Again he made her wonder.

There was a garden bench close to where they were standing. “If you like to listen for a moment we might sit down,” she said.

He started.

“Yes. Thank you.”

When they were sitting side by side, closely guarded by the gigantic fig and chestnut trees which grew in this part of the garden, he added:

“Whom does he love?”

“No doubt one of those native women whom you consider utterly without attraction,” she answered with a faint touch of malice which made him redden.

“But you come here every day?” he said.

“I!”

“Yes. Has he ever seen you?”

“Larbi? Often. What has that to do with it?”

He did not reply.

Odd and disconnected as Larbi’s melodies were, they created an atmosphere of wild tenderness. Spontaneously they bubbled up out of the heart of the Eastern world and, when the player was invisible as now, suggested an ebon faun couched in hot sand at the foot of a palm tree and making music to listening sunbeams and amorous spirits of the waste.

“Do you like it?” she said presently in an under voice.

“Yes, Madame. And you?”

“I love it, but not as I love the song of the freed negroes. That is a song of all the secrets of humanity and of the desert too. And it does not try to tell them. It only says that they exist and that God knows them. But, I remember, you do not like that song.”

“Madame,” he answered slowly, and as if he were choosing his words, “I see that you understood. The song did move me though I said not. But no, I do not like it.”

“Do you care to tell me why?”

“Such a song as that seems to me an—it is like an intrusion. There are things that should be let alone. There are dark places that should be left dark.”

“You mean that all human beings hold within them secrets, and that no allusion even should ever be made to those secrets?”

“Yes.”

“I understand.”

After a pause he said, anxiously, she thought:

“Am I right, Madame, or is my thought ridiculous?”

He asked it so simply that she felt touched.

“I’m sure you could never be ridiculous,” she said quickly. “And perhaps you are right. I don’t know. That song makes me think and feel, and so I love it. Perhaps if you heard it alone—”

“Then I should hate it,” he interposed.

His voice was like an uncontrolled inner voice speaking.

“And not thought and feeling—” she began.

But he interrupted her.

“They make all the misery that exists in the world.”

“And all the happiness.”

“Do they?”

“They must.”

“Then you want to think deeply, to feel deeply?”

“Yes. I would rather be the central figure of a world-tragedy than die without having felt to the uttermost, even if it were sorrow. My whole nature revolts against the idea of being able to feel little or nothing really. It seems to me that when we begin to feel acutely we begin to grow, like the palm tree rising towards the African sun.”

“I do not think you have ever been very unhappy,” he said. The sound of his voice as he said it made her suddenly feel as if it were true, as if she had never been utterly unhappy. Yet she had never been really happy. Africa had taught her that.

“Perhaps not,” she answered. “But—some day—”

She stopped.

“Yes, Madame?”

“Could one stay long in such a world as this and not be either intensely happy or intensely unhappy? I don’t feel as if it would be possible. Fierceness and fire beat upon one day after day and—one must learn to feel here.”

As she spoke a sensation of doubt, almost of apprehension, came to her. She was overtaken by a terror of the desert. For a moment it seemed to her that he was right, that it were better never to be the prey of any deep emotion.

“If one does not wish to feel one should never come to such a place as this,” she added.

And she longed to ask him why he was here, he, a man whose philosophy told him to avoid the heights and depths, to shun the ardours of nature and of life.

“Or, having come, one should leave it.”

A sensation of lurking danger increased upon her, bringing with it the thought of flight.

“One can always do that,” she said, looking at him. She saw fear in his eyes, but it seemed to her that it was not fear of peril, but fear of flight. So strongly was this idea borne in upon her that she bluntly exclaimed:

“Unless it is one’s nature to face things, never to turn one’s back. Is it yours, Monsieur Androvsky?”

“Fear could never drive me to leave Beni-Moni,” he answered.

“Sometimes I think that the only virtue in us is courage,” she said, “that it includes all the others. I believe I could forgive everything where I found absolute courage.”

Androvsky’s eyes were lit up as if by a flicker of inward fire.

“You might create the virtue you love,” he said hoarsely.

They looked at each other for a moment. Did he mean that she might create it in him?

Perhaps she would have asked, or perhaps he would have told her, but at that moment something happened. Larbi stopped playing. In the last few minutes they had both forgotten that he was playing, but when he ceased the garden changed. Something was withdrawn in which, without knowing it, they had been protecting themselves, and when the music faded their armour dropped away from them. With the complete silence came an altered atmosphere, the tenderness of mysticism instead of the tenderness of a wild humanity. The love of man seemed to depart out of the garden and another love to enter it, as when God walked under the trees in the cool of the day. And they sat quite still, as if a common impulse muted their lips. In the long silence that followed Domini thought of her mirage of the palm tree growing towards the African sun, feeling growing in the heart of a human being. But was it a worthy image? For the palm tree rises high. It soars into the air. But presently it ceases to grow. There is nothing infinite in its growth. And the long, hot years pass away and there it stands, never nearer to the infinite gold of the sun. But in the intense feeling of a man or woman is there not infinitude? Is there not a movement that is ceaseless till death comes to destroy—or to translate?

That was what she was thinking in the silence of the garden. And Androvsky? He sat beside her with his head bent, his hands hanging between his knees, his eyes gazing before him at the ordered tangle of the great trees. His lips were slightly parted, and on his strongly-marked face there was an expression as of emotional peace, as if the soul of the man were feeling deeply in calm. The restlessness, the violence that had made his demeanour so embarrassing during and after the dejeuner had vanished. He was a different man. And presently, noticing it, feeling his sensitive serenity, Domini seemed to see the great Mother at work about this child of hers, Nature at her tender task of pacification. The shared silence became to her like a song of thanksgiving, in which all the green things of the garden joined. And beyond them the desert lay listening, the Garden of Allah attentive to the voices of man’s garden. She could hardly believe that but a few minutes before she had been full of irritation and bitterness, not free even from a touch of pride that was almost petty. But when she remembered that it was so she realised the abysses and the heights of which the heart is mingled, and an intense desire came to her to be always upon the heights of her own heart. For there only was the light of happiness. Never could she know joy if she forswore nobility. Never could she be at peace with the love within her—love of something that was not self, of something that seemed vaguer than God, as if it had entered into God and made him Love—unless she mounted upwards during her little span of life. Again, as before in this land, in the first sunset, on the tower, on the minaret of the mosque of Sidi-Zerzour, Nature spoke to her intimate words of inspiration, laid upon her the hands of healing, giving her powers she surely had not known or conceived of till now. And the passion that is the chiefest grace of goodness, making it the fire that purifies, as it is the little sister of the poor that tends the suffering, the hungry, the groping beggar-world, stirred within her, like the child not yet born, but whose destiny is with the angels. And she longed to make some great offering at the altar on whose lowest step she stood, and she was filled, for the first time consciously, with woman’s sacred desire for sacrifice.

A soft step on the sand broke the silence and scattered her aspirations. Count Anteoni was coming towards them between the trees. The light of happiness was still upon his face and made him look much younger than usual. His whole bearing, in its elasticity and buoyant courage, was full of anticipation. As he came up to them he said to Domini:

“Do you remember chiding me?”

“I!” she said. “For what?”

Androvsky sat up and the expression of serenity passed away from his face.

“For never galloping away into the sun.”

“Oh!—yes, I do remember.”

“Well, I am going to obey you. I am going to make a journey.”

“Into the desert?”

“Three hundred kilometers on horseback. I start to-morrow.”

She looked up at him with a new interest. He saw it and laughed, almost like a boy.

“Ah, your contempt for me is dying!”

“How can you speak of contempt?”

“But you were full of it.” He turned to Androvsky. “Miss Enfilden thought I could not sit a horse, Monsieur, unlike you. Forgive me for saying that you are almost more dare-devil than the Arabs themselves. I saw you the other day set your stallion at the bank of the river bed. I did not think any horse could have done it, but you knew better.”

“I did not know at all,” said Androvsky. “I had not ridden for over twenty years until that day.”

He spoke with a blunt determination which made Domini remember their recent conversation on truth-telling.

“Dio mio!” said the Count, slowly, and looking at him with undisguised wonder. “You must have a will and a frame of iron.”

“I am pretty strong.”

He spoke rather roughly. Since the Count had joined them Domini noticed that Androvsky had become a different man. Once more he was on the defensive. The Count did not seem to notice it. Perhaps he was too radiant.

“I hope I shall endure as well as you, Monsieur,” he said. “I go to Beni-Hassan to visit Sidi El Hadj Aissa, one of the mightiest marabouts in the Sahara. In your Church,” he added, turning again to Domini, “he would be a powerful Cardinal.”

She noticed the “your.” Evidently the Count was not a professing Catholic. Doubtless, like many modern Italians, he was a free-thinker in matters of religion.

“I am afraid I have never heard of him,” she said. “In which direction does Beni-Hassan lie?”

“To go there one takes the caravan route that the natives call the route to Tombouctou.”

An eager look came into her face.

“My road!” she said.

“Yours?”

“The one I shall travel on. You remember, Monsieur Androvsky?”

“Yes, Madame.”

“Let me into your secret,” said the Count, laughingly, yet with interest too.

“It is no secret. It is only that I love that route. It fascinates me, and I mean some day to make a desert journey along it.”

“What a pity that we cannot join forces,” the Count said. “I should feel it an honour to show the desert to one who has the reverence for it, the understanding of its spell, that you have.”

He spoke earnestly, paused, and then added:

“But I know well what you are thinking.”

“What is that?”

“That you will go to the desert alone. You are right. It is the only way, at any rate the first time. I went like that many years ago.”

She said nothing in assent, and Androvsky got up from the bench.

“I must go, Monsieur.”

“Already! But have you seen the garden?”

“It is wonderful. Good-bye, Monsieur. Thank you.”

“But—let me see you to the gate. On Fridays——”

He was turning to Domini when she got up too.

“Don’t you distribute alms on Fridays?” she said.

“How should you know it?”

“I have heard all about you. But is this the hour?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see the distribution.”

“And we will speed Monsieur Androvsky on his way at the same time.”

She noticed that there was no question in his mind of her going with Androvsky. Did she mean to go with him? She had not decided yet.

They walked towards the gate and were soon on the great sweep of sand before the villa. A murmur of many voices was audible outside in the desert, nasal exclamations, loud guttural cries that sounded angry, the twittering of flutes and the snarl of camels.

“Do you hear my pensioners?” said the Count. “They are always impatient.”

There was the noise of a tomtom and of a whining shriek.

“That is old Bel Cassem’s announcement of his presence. He has been living on me for years, the old ruffian, ever since his right eye was gouged out by his rival in the affections of the Marechale of the dancing-girls. Smain!”

He blew his silver whistle. Instantly Smain came out of the villa carrying a money-bag. The Count took it and weighed it in his hand, looking at Domini with the joyous expression still upon his face.

“Have you ever made a thank-offering?” he said.

“No.”

“That tells me something. Well, to-day I wish to make a thank-offering to the desert.”

“What has it done for you?”

“Who knows? Who knows?”

He laughed aloud, almost like a boy. Androvsky glanced at him with a sort of wondering envy.

“And I want you to share in my little distribution,” he added. “And you, Monsieur, if you don’t mind. There are moments when—Open the gate, Smain!”

His ardour was infectious and Domini felt stirred by it to a sudden sense of the joy of life. She looked at Androvsky, to include him in the rigour of gaiety which swept from the Count to her, and found him staring apprehensively at the Count, who was now loosening the string of the bag. Smain had reached the gate. He lifted the bar of wood and opened it. Instantly a crowd of dark faces and turbaned heads were thrust through the tall aperture, a multitude of dusky hands fluttered frantically, and the cry of eager voices, saluting, begging, calling down blessings, relating troubles, shrieking wants, proclaiming virtues and necessities, rose into an almost deafening uproar. But not a foot was lifted over the lintel to press the sunlit sand. The Count’s pensioners might be clamorous, but they knew what they might not do. As he saw them the wrinkles in his face deepened and his fingers quickened to achieve their purpose.

“My pensioners are very hungry to-day, and, as you see, they don’t mind saying so. Hark at Bel Cassem!”

The tomtom and the shriek that went with it made it a fierce crescendo.

“That means he is starving—the old hypocrite! Aren’t they like the wolves in your Russia, Monsieur? But we must feed them. We mustn’t let them devour our Beni-Mora. That’s it!”

He threw the string on to the sand, plunged his hand into the bag and brought it out full of copper coins. The mouths opened wider, the hands waved more frantically, and all the dark eyes gleamed with the light of greed.

“Will you help me?” he said to Domini.

“Of course. What fun!”

Her eyes were gleaming too, but with the dancing fires of a gay impulse of generosity which made her wish that the bag contained her money. He filled her hands with coins.

“Choose whom you will. And now, Monsieur!”

For the moment he was so boyishly concentrated on the immediate present that he had ceased to observe whether the whim of others jumped with his own. Otherwise he must have been struck by Androvsky’s marked discomfort, which indeed almost amounted to agitation. The sight of the throng of Arabs at the gateway, the clamour of their voices, evidently roused within him something akin to fear. He looked at them with distaste, and had drawn back several steps upon the sand, and now, as the Count held out to him a hand filled with money, he made no motion to take it, and half turned as if he thought of retreating into the recesses of the garden.

“Here, Monsieur! here!” exclaimed the Count, with his eyes on the crowd, towards which Domini was walking with a sort of mischievous slowness, to whet those appetites already so voracious.

Androvsky set his teeth and took the money, dropping one or two pieces on the ground. For a moment the Count seemed doubtful of his guest’s participation in his own lively mood.

“Is this boring you?” he asked. “Because if so—”

“No, no, Monsieur, not at all! What am I to do?”

“Those hands will tell you.”

The clamour grew more exigent.

“And when you want more come to me!”

Then he called out in Arabic, “Gently! Gently!” as the vehement scuffling seemed about to degenerate into actual fighting at Domini’s approach, and hurried forward, followed more slowly by Androvsky.

Smain, from whose velvety eyes the dreams were not banished by the uproar, stood languidly by the porter’s tent, gazing at Androvsky. Something in the demeanour of the new visitor seemed to attract him. Domini, meanwhile, had reached the gateway. Gently, with a capricious deftness and all a woman’s passion for personal choice, she dropped the bits of money into the hands belonging to the faces that attracted her, disregarding the bellowings of those passed over. The light from all these gleaming eyes made her feel warm, the clamour that poured from these brown throats excited her. When her fingers were empty she touched the Count’s arm eagerly.

“More, more, please!”

“Ecco, Signora.”

He held out to her the bag. She plunged her hands into it and came nearer to the gate, both hands full of money and held high above her head. The Arabs leapt up at her like dogs at a bone, and for a moment she waited, laughing with all her heart. Then she made a movement to throw the money over the heads of the near ones to the unfortunates who were dancing and shrieking on the outskirts of the mob. But suddenly her hands dropped and she uttered a startled exclamation.

The sand-diviner of the red bazaar, slipping like a reptile under the waving arms and between the furious bodies of the beggars, stood up before her with a smile on his wounded face, stretched out to her his emaciated hands with a fawning, yet half satirical, gesture of desire.