"I thought that to-night it would be better if we were a little more alone than we are here, just opposite to that Cafe Maure, and with the servants. And on the other side there are the palms and the water. And the doves were talking there as we rode in. When we have finished dinner we can go and sit there and be quiet."
"Together," he said.
An eager light had come into his eyes. He leaned forward towards her over the little table and stretched out his hand.
"Yes, together," she said.
But she did not take his hand.
"Domini!" he said, still keeping his hand on the table, "Domini!"
An expression, that was like an expression of agony, flitted over her face and died away, leaving it calm.
"Let us finish," she said quietly. "Look, they have taken the tents!
In a moment we can go."
The doves were silent. The night was very still in this nest of the Sahara. Ouardi brought them coffee, and Batouch came to say that the tents were ready.
"We shall want nothing more to-night, Batouch," Domini said. "Don't disturb us."
Batouch glanced towards the Cafe Maure. A red light gleamed through its low doorway. One or two Arabs were moving within. Some of the camp attendants had joined the squatting men without. A noise of busy voices reached the tents.
"To-night, Madame," Batouch said proudly, "I am going to tell stories from the /Thousand and One Nights/. I am going to tell the story of the young Prince of the Indies, and the story of Ganem, the Slave of Love. It is not often that in Ain-la-Hammam a poet--"
"No, indeed. Go to them, Batouch. They must be impatient for you."
Batouch smiled broadly.
"Madame begins to understand the Arabs," he rejoined. "Madame will soon be as the Arabs."
"Go, Batouch. Look--they are longing for you."
She pointed to the desert men, who were gesticulating and gazing towards the tents.
"It is better so, Madame," he answered. "They know that I am here only for one night, and they are eager as the hungry jackal is eager for food among the yellow dunes of the sand."
He threw his burnous over his shoulder and moved away smiling, and murmuring in a luscious voice the first words of Ganem, the Slave of Love.
"Let us go now, Boris," Domini said.
He got up at once from the table, and they walked together round the bordj.
On its further side there was no sign of life. No traveller was resting there that night, and the big door that led into the inner court was closed and barred. The guardian had gone to join the Arabs at the Cafe Maure. Between the shadow cast by the bordj and the shadow cast by the palm trees stood the two tents on a patch of sand. The oasis was enclosed in a low earth wall, along the top of which was a ragged edging of brushwood. In this wall were several gaps. Through one, opposite to the tents, was visible a shallow pool of still water by which tall reeds were growing. They stood up like spears, absolutely motionless. A frog was piping from some hidden place, giving forth a clear flute-like note that suggested glass. It reminded Domini of her ride into the desert at Beni-Mora to see the moon rise.
On that night Androvsky had told her that he was going away. That had been the night of his tremendous struggle with himself. When he had spoken she had felt a sensation as if everything that supported her in the atmosphere of life and of happiness had foundered. And now--now she was going to speak to him--to tell him--what was she going to tell him? How much could she, dared she, tell him? She prayed silently to be given strength.
In the clear sky the young moon hung. Beneath it, to the left, was one star like an attendant, the star of Venus. The faint light of the moon fell upon the water of the pool. Unceasingly the frog uttered its nocturne.
Domini stood for a moment looking at the water listening. Then she glanced up at the moon and the solitary star. Androvsky stood by her.
"Shall we--let us sit on the wall, where the gap is," she said. "The water is beautiful, beautiful with that light on it, and the palms-- palms are always beautiful, especially at night. I shall never love any other trees as I love palm trees."
"Nor I," he answered.
They sat down on the wall. At first they did not speak any more. The stillness of the water, the stillness of reeds and palms, was against speech. And the little flute-like note that came to them again and again at regular intervals was like a magical measuring of the silence of the night in the desert. At last Domini said, in a low voice:
"I heard that note on the night when I rode out of Beni-Mora to see the moon rise in the desert. Boris, you remember that night?"
"Yes," he answered.
He was gazing at the pool, with his face partly averted from her, one hand on the wall, the other resting on his knee.
"You were brave that night, Boris," she said.
"I--I wished to be--I tried to be. And if I had been--"
He stopped, then went on: "If I had been, Domini, really brave, if I had done what I meant to do that night, what would our lives have been to-day?"
"I don't know. We mustn't think of that to-night. We must think of the future. Boris, there's no life, no real life without bravery. No man or woman is worthy of living who is not brave."
He said nothing.
"Boris, let us--you and I--be worthy of living to-night--and in the future."
"Give me your hand then," he answered. "Give it me, Domini."
But she did not give it to him. Instead she went on, speaking a little more rapidly: