ch herself from close human contact. She
desired the mind's bird's-eye view--a height, a watchtower and a little
solitude. So, when the eager Mozabite merchants called to her she did
not heed them, and even the busy patter of the informing Batouch fell
upon rather listless ears.

"I sha'n't stay here," she said to him. "But I'll buy some perfumes.
Where can I get them?"

A thin youth, brooding above a wooden tray close by, held up in his
delicate fingers a long bottle, sealed and furnished with a tiny label,
but Batouch shook his head.

"For perfumes you must go to Ahmeda, under the arcade."

They crossed a sunlit space and stood before a dark room, sunk lightly
below the level of the pathway in a deserted corner. Shadows congregated
here, and in the gloom Domini saw a bent white figure hunched against
the blackened wall, and heard an old voice murmuring like a drowsy bee.
The perfume-seller was immersed in the Koran, his back to the buying
world. Batouch was about to call upon him, when Domini checked the
exclamation with a quick gesture. For the first time the mystery that
coils like a great black serpent in the shining heart of the East
startled and fascinated her, a mystery in which indifference and
devotion mingle. The white figure swayed slowly to and fro, carrying
the dull, humming voice with it, and now she seemed to hear a far-away
fanaticism, the bourdon of a fatalism which she longed to understand.

"Ahmeda!"

Batouch shouted. His voice came like a stone from a catapult. The
merchant turned calmly and without haste, showing an aquiline face
covered with wrinkles, tufted with white hairs, lit by eyes that shone
with the cruel expressiveness of a falcon's. After a short colloquy in
Arabic he raised himself from his haunches, and came to the front of the
room, where there was a small wooden counter. He was smiling now with a
grace that was almost feminine.

"What perfume does Madame desire?" he said in French.

Domini gazed at him as at a deep mystery, but with the searching
directness characteristic of her, a fearlessness so absolute that it
embarrassed many people.

"Please give me something that is of the East--not violets, not lilac."

"Amber," said Batouch.

The merchant, still smiling, reached up to a shelf, showing an arm like
a brown twig, and took down a glass bottle covered with red and green
lines. He removed the stopper, made Domini take off her glove, touched
her bare hand with the sto