"Then," he said, "that other signal?"
"Monsieur de Trevignac gave it."
Androvsky took his arm from hers abruptly.
"Monsieur de Trevignac!" he said. "Monsieur de Trevignac?"
He stood as if in deep and anxious thought.
"Yes, the officer. That"s his name. What is it, Boris?"
"Nothing."
There was a sound of voices approaching the camp in the darkness. They were speaking French.
"I must," said Androvsky, "I must----"
He made an uncertain movement, as if to go towards the dunes, checked it, and went hurriedly into the dressing-tent. As he disappeared De Trevignac came into the camp with his men. Batouch conducted the latter with all ceremony towards the fire which burned before the tents of the attendants, and, for the moment, Domini was left alone with De Trevignac.
"My husband is coming directly," she said. "He was late in returning, but he brought gazelle. Now you must sit down at once."
She led the way to the dining-tent. De Trevignac glanced at the table laid for three with an eager antic.i.p.ation which he was far too natural to try to conceal.
"Madame," he said, "if I disgrace myself to-night, if I eat like an ogre in a fairy tale, will you forgive me?"
"I will not forgive you if you don"t."
She spoke gaily, made him sit down in a folding-chair, and insisted on putting a soft cushion at his back. Her manner was cheerful, almost eagerly kind and full of a camaraderie rare in a woman, yet he noticed a change in her since they stood together waving the brands by the tower.
And he said to himself:
"The husband--perhaps he"s not so pleased at my appearance. I wonder how long they"ve been married?"
And he felt his curiosity to see "Monsieur Androvsky" deepen.
While they waited for him Domini made De Trevignac tell her the story of his terrible adventure in the dunes. He did so simply, like a soldier, without exaggeration. When he had finished she said:
"You thought death was certain then?"
"Quite certain, Madame."
She looked at him earnestly.
"To have faced a death like that in utter desolation, utter loneliness, must make life seem very different afterwards."
"Yes, Madame. But I did not feel utterly alone."
"Your men!"
"No, Madame."
After a pause he added, simply:
"My mother is a devout Catholic, Madame. I am her only child, and--she taught me long ago that in any peril one is never quite alone."
Domini"s heart warmed to him. She loved this trust in G.o.d so frankly shown by a soldier, member of an African regiment, in this wild land.
She loved this brave reliance on the unseen in the midst of the terror of the seen. Before they spoke again Androvsky crossed the dark s.p.a.ce between the tents and came slowly into the circle of the lamplight.
De Trevignac got up from his chair, and Domini introduced the two men.
As they bowed each shot a swift glance at the other. Then Androvsky looked down, and two vertical lines appeared on his high forehead above his eyebrows. They gave to his face a sudden look of acute distress. De Trevignac thanked him for his proffered hospitality with the ease of a man of the world, a.s.suming that the kind invitation to him and to his men came from the husband as well as from the wife. When he had finished speaking, Androvsky, without looking up, said, in a voice that sounded to Domini new, as if he had deliberately a.s.sumed it:
"I am glad, Monsieur. We found gazelle, and so I hope--I hope you will have a fairly good dinner."
The words could scarcely have been more ordinary, but the way in which they were uttered was so strange, sounded indeed so forced, and so unnatural, that both De Trevignac and Domini looked at the speaker in surprise. There was a pause. Then Batouch and Ouardi came in with the soup.
"Come!" Domini said. "Let us begin. Monsieur de Trevignac, will you sit here on my right?"
They sat down. The two men were opposite to each other at the ends of the small table, with a lamp between them. Domini faced the tent door, and could see in the distance the tents of the attendants lit up by the blaze of the fire, and the forms of the French soldiers sitting at their table close to it, with the Arabs cl.u.s.tering round them. Sounds of loud conversation and occasional roars of laughter, that was almost childish in its frank lack of all restraint, told her that one feast was a success. She looked at her companions and made a sudden resolve--almost fierce--that the other, over which she was presiding, should be a success, too. But why was Androvsky so strange with other men? Why did he seem to become almost a different human being directly he was brought into any close contact with his kind? Was it shyness? Had he a profound hatred of all society? She remembered Count Anteoni"s luncheon and the distress Androvsky had caused her by his cold embarra.s.sment, his unwillingness to join in conversation on that occasion. But then he was only her friend. Now he was her husband. She longed for him to show himself at his best. That he was not a man of the world she knew. Had he not told her of his simple upbringing in El Kreir, a remote village of Tunisia, by a mother who had been left in poverty after the death of his father, a Russian who had come to Africa to make a fortune by vine-growing, and who had had his hopes blasted by three years of drought and by the visitation of the dreaded phylloxera? Had he not told her of his own hard work on the rich uplands among the Spanish workmen, of how he had toiled early and late in all kinds of weather, not for himself, but for a company that drew a fortune from the land and gave him a bare livelihood? Till she met him he had never travelled--he had never seen almost anything of life. A legacy from a relative had at last enabled him to have some freedom and to gratify a man"s natural taste for change. And, strangely, perhaps, he had come first to the desert.
She could not--she did not--expect him to show the sort of easy cultivation that a man acquires only by long contact with all sorts and conditions of men and women. But she knew that he was not only full of fire and feeling--a man with a great temperament, but also that he was a man who had found time to study, whose mind was not empty. He was a man who had thought profoundly. She knew this, although even with her, even in the great intimacy that is born of a great mutual pa.s.sion, she knew him for a man of naturally deep reserve, who could not perhaps speak all his thoughts to anyone, even to the woman he loved. And knowing this, she felt a fighting temper rise up in her. She resolved to use her will upon this man who loved her, to force him to show his best side to the guest who had come to them out of the terror of the dunes. She would be obstinate for him.
Her lips went down a little at the corners. De Trevignac glanced at her above his soup-plate, and then at Androvsky. He was a man who had seen much of society, and who divined at once the gulf that must have separated the kind of life led in the past by his hostess from the kind of life led by his host. Such gulfs, he knew, are bridged with difficulty. In this case a great love must have been the bridge. His interest in these two people, encountered by him in the desolation of the wastes, and when all his emotions had been roused by the nearness of peril, would have been deep in any case. But there was something that made it extraordinary, something connected with Androvsky. It seemed to him that he had seen, perhaps known Androvsky at some time in his life.
Yet Androvsky"s face was not familiar to him. He could not yet tell from what he drew this impression, but it was strong. He searched his memory.
Just at first fatigue was heavy upon him, but the hot soup, the first gla.s.s of wine revived him. When Domini, full of her secret obstinacy, began to talk gaily he was soon able easily to take his part, and to join her in her effort to include Androvsky in the conversation. The cheerful noise of the camp came to them from without.
"I"m afraid my men are lifting up their voices rather loudly," said De Trevignac.
"We like it," said Domini. "Don"t we, Boris?"
There was a long peal of laughter from the distance. As it died away Batouch"s peculiar guttural chuckle, which had something negroid in it, was audible, prolonging itself in a loneliness that spoke his pertinacious sense of humour.
"Certainly," said Androvsky, still in the same strained and unnatural voice which had surprised Domini when she introduced the two men. "We are accustomed to gaiety round the camp fire."
"You are making a long stay in the desert, Monsieur?" asked De Trevignac.
"I hope so, Monsieur. It depends on my--it depends on Madame Androvsky."
"Why didn"t he say "my wife"?" thought De Trevignac. And again he searched his memory. "Had he ever met this man? If so, where?"
"I should like to stay in the desert for ever," Domini said quickly, with a long look at her husband.
"I should not, Madame," De Trevignac said.
"I understand. The desert has shown you its terrors."
"Indeed it has."
"But to us it has only shown its enchantment. Hasn"t it?" She spoke to Androvsky. After a pause he replied:
"Yes."