e exclaimed.

Count Anteoni laughed again, and drew down the brim of his grey hat
over his eyes. The hand with which he did it was almost as burnt as an
Arab's.

"You are afraid of it?"

"No, no. But it startled me. We don't know the sun really in Europe."

"No. Not even in Southern Italy, not even in Sicily. It is fierce
there in summer, but it seems further away. Here it insists on the most
intense intimacy. If you can bear it we might sit down for a moment?"

"Please."

All along the edge of the garden, from the villa to the boundary of
Count Anteoni's domain, ran a straight high wall made of earth bricks
hardened by the sun and topped by a coping of palm wood painted white.
This wall was some eight feet high on the side next to the desert, but
the garden was raised in such a way that the inner side was merely a
low parapet running along the sand path. In this parapet were cut small
seats, like window-seats, in which one could rest and look full upon the
desert as from a little cliff. Domini sat down on one of them, and the
Count stood by her, resting one foot on the top of the wall and leaning
his right arm on his knee.

"There is the world on which I look for my hiding-place," he said. "A
vast world, isn't it?"

Domini nodded without speaking.

Immediately beneath them, in the narrow shadow of the wall, was a path
of earth and stones which turned off at the right at the end of the
garden into the oasis. Beyond lay the vast river bed, a chaos of hot
boulders bounded by ragged low earth cliffs, interspersed here and there
with small pools of gleaming water. These cliffs were yellow. From their
edge stretched the desert, as Eternity stretches from the edge of Time.
Only to the left was the immeasurable expanse intruded upon by a long
spur of mountains, which ran out boldly for some distance and then
stopped abruptly, conquered and abashed by the imperious flats. Beneath
the mountains were low, tent-like, cinnamon-coloured undulations, which
reminded Domini of those made by a shaken-out sheet, one smaller than
the other till they melted into the level. The summits of the most
distant mountains, which leaned away as if in fear of the desert, were
dark and mistily purple. Their flanks were iron grey at this hour,
flecked in the hollows with the faint mauve and pink which became
carnation colour when the sun set.

Domini scarcely looked at them. Till now she had always thought that
she loved mountains. The de