第81章 CHAPTER XI(5)

That was what she was thinking in the silence of the garden. And Androvsky? He sat beside her with his head bent, his hands hanging between his knees, his eyes gazing before him at the ordered tangle of the great trees. His lips were slightly parted, and on his strongly- marked face there was an expression as of emotional peace, as if the soul of the man were feeling deeply in calm. The restlessness, the violence that had made his demeanour so embarrassing during and after the /dejeuner/ had vanished. He was a different man. And presently, noticing it, feeling his sensitive serenity, Domini seemed to see the great Mother at work about this child of hers, Nature at her tender task of pacification. The shared silence became to her like a song of thanksgiving, in which all the green things of the garden joined. And beyond them the desert lay listening, the Garden of Allah attentive to the voices of man's garden. She could hardly believe that but a few minutes before she had been full of irritation and bitterness, not free even from a touch of pride that was almost petty. But when she remembered that it was so she realised the abysses and the heights of which the heart is mingled, and an intense desire came to her to be always upon the heights of her own heart. For there only was the light of happiness. Never could she know joy if she forswore nobility. Never could she be at peace with the love within her--love of something that was not self, of something that seemed vaguer than God, as if it had entered into God and made him Love--unless she mounted upwards during her little span of life. Again, as before in this land, in the first sunset, on the tower, on the minaret of the mosque of Sidi-Zerzour, Nature spoke to her intimate words of inspiration, laid upon her the hands of healing, giving her powers she surely had not known or conceived of till now. And the passion that is the chiefest grace of goodness, making it the fire that purifies, as it is the little sister of the poor that tends the suffering, the hungry, the groping beggar- world, stirred within her, like the child not yet born, but whose destiny is with the angels. And she longed to make some great offering at the altar on whose lowest step she stood, and she was filled, for the first time consciously, with woman's sacred desire for sacrifice.

A soft step on the sand broke the silence and scattered her aspirations. Count Anteoni was coming towards them between the trees.

The light of happiness was still upon his face and made him look much younger than usual. His whole bearing, in its elasticity and buoyant courage, was full of anticipation. As he came up to them he said to Domini:

"Do you remember chiding me?"

"I!" she said. "For what?"

Androvsky sat up and the expression of serenity passed away from his face.

"For never galloping away into the sun."

"Oh!--yes, I do remember."

"Well, I am going to obey you. I am going to make a journey."

"Into the desert?"

"Three hundred kilometers on horseback. I start to-morrow."

She looked up at him with a new interest. He saw it and laughed, almost like a boy.

"Ah, your contempt for me is dying!"

"How can you speak of contempt?"

"But you were full of it." He turned to Androvsky. "Miss Enfilden thought I could not sit a horse, Monsieur, unlike you. Forgive me for saying that you are almost more dare-devil than the Arabs themselves.

I saw you the other day set your stallion at the bank of the river bed. I did not think any horse could have done it, but you knew better."

"I did not know at all," said Androvsky. "I had not ridden for over twenty years until that day."

He spoke with a blunt determination which made Domini remember their recent conversation on truth-telling.

"Dio mio!" said the Count, slowly, and looking at him with undisguised wonder. "You must have a will and a frame of iron."

"I am pretty strong."

He spoke rather roughly. Since the Count had joined them Domini noticed that Androvsky had become a different man. Once more he was on the defensive. The Count did not seem to notice it. Perhaps he was too radiant.

"I hope I shall endure as well as you, Monsieur," he said. "I go to Beni-Hassan to visit Sidi El Hadj Aissa, one of the mightiest marabouts in the Sahara. In your Church," he added, turning again to Domini, "he would be a powerful Cardinal."

She noticed the "your." Evidently the Count was not a professing Catholic. Doubtless, like many modern Italians, he was a free-thinker in matters of religion.

"I am afraid I have never heard of him," she said. "In which direction does Beni-Hassan lie?"

"To go there one takes the caravan route that the natives call the route to Tombouctou."

An eager look came into her face.

"My road!" she said.

"Yours?"

"The one I shall travel on. You remember, Monsieur Androvsky?"

"Yes, Madame."

"Let me into your secret," said the Count, laughingly, yet with interest too.

"It is no secret. It is only that I love that route. It fascinates me, and I mean some day to make a desert journey along it."

"What a pity that we cannot join forces," the Count said. "I should feel it an honour to show the desert to one who has the reverence for it, the understanding of its spell, that you have."

He spoke earnestly, paused, and then added:

"But I know well what you are thinking."

"What is that?"

"That you will go to the desert alone. You are right. It is the only way, at any rate the first time. I went like that many years ago."

She said nothing in assent, and Androvsky got up from the bench.

"I must go, Monsieur."

"Already! But have you seen the garden?"

"It is wonderful. Good-bye, Monsieur. Thank you."

"But--let me see you to the gate. On Fridays----"

He was turning to Domini when she got up too.

"Don't you distribute alms on Fridays?" she said.

"How should you know it?"

"I have heard all about you. But is this the hour?"

"Yes."

"Let me see the distribution."

"And we will speed Monsieur Androvsky on his way at the same time."