With a sweeping arm the poet pointed towards a hump of sand crowned by a few palms. Domini was sitting there, surrounded by Arab children, to whom she was giving sweets out of a box. As Androvsky saw her the anger in him burnt up more fiercely. This action of Domini"s, simple, natural though it was, seemed to him in his present condition cruelly heartless.
He thought of her giving the order about the tents and then going calmly to play with these children, while he--while he----
"You can go, Batouch," he said. "Go away."
The poet stared at him with a superb surprise, then moved slowly towards Ouardi, holding his burnous with his large hands.
Androvsky looked again at the two tents as a man looks at two enemies.
Then, walking quickly, he went towards the hump of sand. As he approached it Domini had her side face turned towards him. She did not see him. The little Arabs were dancing round her on their naked feet, laughing, showing their white teeth and opening their mouths wide for the sugar-plums--gaiety incarnate. Androvsky gazed at the woman who was causing this childish joy, and he saw a profound sadness. Never had he seen Domini"s face look like this. It was always white, but now its whiteness was like a whiteness of marble. She moved her head, turning to feed one of the little gaping mouths, and he saw her eyes, tearless, but sadder than if they had been full of tears. She was looking at these children as a mother looks at her children who are fatherless. He did not--how could he?--understand the look, but it went to his heart.
He stopped, watching. One of the children saw him, shrieked, pointed.
Domini glanced round. As she saw him she smiled, threw the last sugar-plums and came towards him.
"Do you want me?" she said, coming up to him.
His lips trembled.
"Yes," he said, "I want you."
Something in his voice seemed to startle her, but she said nothing more, only stood looking at him. The children, who had followed her, crowded round them, touching their clothes curiously.
"Send them away," he said.
She made the children go, pushing them gently, pointing to the village, and showing the empty box to them. Reluctantly at last they went towards the village, turning their heads to stare at her till they were a long way off, then holding up their skirts and racing for the houses.
"Domini--Domini," he said. "You can--you can play with children--to-day."
"I wanted to feel I could give a little happiness to-day," she answered--"even to-day."
"To-day when--when to me--to me--you are giving----"
But before her steady gaze all the words he had meant to say, all the words of furious protest, died on his lips.
"To me--to me--" he repeated.
Then he was silent.
"Boris," she said, "I want to give you one thing, the thing that you have lost. I want to give you back peace."
"You never can."
"I must try. Even if I cannot I shall know that I have tried."
"You are giving me--you are giving me not peace, but a sword," he said.
She understood that he had seen the two tents.
"Sometimes a sword can give peace."
"The peace of death."
"Boris--my dear one--there are many kinds of deaths. Try to trust me.
Leave me to act as I must act. Let me try to be guided--only let me try."
He did not say another word.
That night they slept apart for the first time since their marriage.
"Domini, where are you taking me? Where are we going?"
The camp was struck once more and they were riding through the desert.
Domini hesitated to answer his question. It had been put with a sort of terror.
"I know nothing," he continued. "I am in your hands like a child. It cannot be always so. I must know, I must understand. What is our life to be? What is our future? A man cannot--"
He paused. Then he said:
"I feel that you have come to some resolve. I feel it perpetually. It is as if you were in light and I in darkness, you in knowledge and I in ignorance. You--you must tell me. I have told you all now. You must tell me."
But she hesitated.
"Not now," she answered. "Not yet."
"We are to journey on day by day like this, and I am not to know where we are going! I cannot, Domini--I will not."
"Boris, I shall tell you."
"When?"
"Will you trust me, Boris, completely? Can you?"
"How?"
"Boris, I have prayed so much for you that at last I feel that I can act for you. Don"t think me presumptuous. If you could see into my heart you would see that--indeed, I don"t think it would be possible to feel more humble than I do in regard to you."
"Humble--you, Domini! You can feel humble when you think of me, when you are with me."
"Yes. You have suffered so terribly. G.o.d has led you. I feel that He has been--oh, I don"t know how to say it quite naturally, quite as I feel it--that He has been more intent on you than on anyone I have ever known. I feel that His meaning in regarding to you is intense, Boris, as if He would not let you go."
"He let me go when I left the monastery."
"Does one never return?"
Again a sensation almost of terror a.s.sailed him. He felt as if he were fighting in darkness something that he could not see.
"Return!" he said. "What do you mean?"
She saw the expression of almost angry fear in his face. It warned her not to give the reins to her natural impulse, which was always towards a great frankness.