The moonlight was growing brighter, as if invisible hands began to fan the white flame of passion which lit up Beni-Mora. A patrol of Tirailleurs Indigenes passed by going up the street, in yellow and blue uniforms, turbans and white gaiters, their rifles over their broad shoulders. The faint tramp of their marching feet was just audible on the sandy road.
"Hadj can go home if he is afraid of anything in the dancing street," said Domini, rather maliciously. "Let us follow the soldiers."
Hadj started as if he had been stung, and looked at Domini as if he would like to strangle her.
"I am afraid of nothing," he exclaimed proudly. "Madame does not know Hadj-ben-Ibrahim."
Batouch laughed soundlessly, shaking his great shoulders. It was evident that he had divined his cousin's wish to supplant him and was busily taking his revenge. Domini was amused, and as they went slowly up the street in the wake of the soldiers she said:
"Do you often come here at night, Hadj-ben-Ibrahim?"
"Oh, yes, Madame, when I am alone. But with ladies--"
"You were here last night, weren't you, with the traveller from the hotel?"
"No, Madame. The Monsieur of the hotel preferred to visit the cafe of the story-teller, which is far more interesting. If Madame will permit me to take her--"
But this last assault was too much for the poet's philosophy. He suddenly threw off all pretence of graceful calm, and poured out upon Hadj a torrent of vehement Arabic, accompanying it with passionate gestures which filled Suzanne with horror and Domini with secret delight. She liked this abrupt unveiling of the raw. There had always lurked in her an audacity, a quick spirit of adventure more boyish than feminine. She had reached the age of thirty-two without ever gratifying it, or even fully realising how much she longed to gratify it. But now she began to understand it and to feel that it was imperious.
"I have a barbarian in me," she thought.
"Batouch!" she said sharply.
The poet turned a distorted face to her.
"Madame!"
"That will do. Take us to the dancing-house."
Batouch shot a last ferocious glance at Hadj and they went on into the crowd of strolling men.
The little street, bright with the lamps of the small houses, from which projected wooden balconies painted in gay colours, and with the glowing radiance of the moon, was mysterious despite its gaiety, its obvious dedication to the cult of pleasure. Alive with the shrieking sounds of music, the movement and the murmur of desert humanity made it almost solemn. This crowd of boys and men, robed in white from head to heel, preserved a serious grace in its vivacity, suggested besides a dignified barbarity a mingling of angel, monk and nocturnal spirit.
In the distance of the moonbeams, gliding slowly over the dusty road with slippered feet, there was something soft and radiant in their moving whiteness. Nearer, their pointed hoods made them monastical as a procession stealing from a range of cells to chant a midnight mass.
In the shadowy dusk of the tiny side alleys they were like wandering ghosts intent on unholy errands or returning to the graveyard.
On some of the balconies painted girls were leaning and smoking cigarettes. Before each of the lighted doorways from which the shrill noise of music came, small, intent crowds were gathered, watching the performance that was going on inside. The robes of the Arabs brushed against the skirts of Domini and Suzanne, and eyes stared at them from every side with a scrutiny that was less impudent than seriously bold.
"Madame!"
Hadj's thin hand was pulling Domini's sleeve.
"Well, what is it?"
"This is the best dancing-house. The children dance here."
Domini's height enabled her to peer over the shoulders of those gathered before the door, and in the lighted distance of a white- walled room, painted with figures of soldiers and Arab chiefs, she saw a small wriggling figure between two rows of squatting men, two baby hands waving coloured handkerchiefs, two little feet tapping vigorously upon an earthen floor, for background a divan crowded with women and musicians, with inflated cheeks and squinting eyes. She stood for a moment to look, then she turned away. There was an expression of disgust in her eyes.
"No, I don't want to see children," she said. "That's too--"
She glanced at her escort and did not finish.
"I know," said Batouch. "Madame wishes for the real ouleds."
He led them across the street. Hadj followed reluctantly. Before going into this second dancing-house Domini stopped again to see from outside what it was like, but only for an instant. Then a brightness came into her eyes, an eager look.
"Yes, take me in here," she said.
Batouch laughed softly, and Hadj uttered a word below his breath.
"Madame will see Irena here," said Batouch, pushing the watching Arabs unceremoniously away.
Domini did not answer. Her eyes were fixed on a man who was sitting in a corner far up the room, bending forward and staring intently at a woman who was in the act of stepping down from a raised platform decorated with lamps and small bunches of flowers in earthen pots.
"I wish to sit quite near the door," she whispered to Batouch as they went in.
"But it is much better--"
"Do what I tell you," she said. "The left side of the room."