"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 c.u.mberer 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-Ha.s.san, 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-Ha.s.san 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."