e felt the violence of his thought like the violence of a hand
striking her.

The Arab waiter brought her some ragout of mutton and peas, and she
looked down again at her plate.

As she left the room after _dejeuner_ the priest again got up and
bowed. She stopped for a moment to speak to him. All the French officers
surveyed her tall, upright figure and broad, athletic shoulders with
intent admiration. Domini knew it and was indifferent. If a hundred
French soldiers had been staring at her critically she would not have
cared at all. She was not a shy woman and was in nowise uncomfortable
when many eyes were fixed upon her. So she stood and talked a little to
the priest about Count Anteoni and her pleasure in his garden. And
as she did so, feeling her present calm self-possession, she wondered
secretly at the wholly unnatural turmoil--she called it that,
exaggerating her feeling because it was unusual--in which she had been a
few minutes before as she sat at her table.

The priest spoke well of Count Anteoni.

"He is very generous," he said.

Then he paused, twisting his napkin, and added:

"But I never have any real intercourse with him, Madame. I believe he
comes here in search of solitude. He spends days and even weeks alone
shut up in his garden."

"Thinking," she said.

The priest looked slightly surprised.

"It would be difficult not to think, Madame, would it not?"

"Oh, yes. But Count Anteoni thinks rather as a Bashi-Bazouk fights, I
fancy."

She heard a chair creak in the distance and glanced over her shoulder.
The traveller had turned sideways. At once she bade the priest good-bye
and walked away and out through the swing door.

All the afternoon she rested. The silence was profound. Beni-Mora was
enjoying a siesta in the heat. Domini revelled in the stillness. The
fatigue of travel had quite gone from her now and she began to feel
strangely at home. Suzanne had arranged photographs, books, flowers in
the little salon, had put cushions here and there, and thrown pretty
coverings over the sofa and the two low chairs. The room had an air
of cosiness, of occupation. It was a room one could sit in without
restlessness, and Domini liked its simplicity, its bare wooden floor and
white walls. The sun made everything right here. Without the sun--but
she could not think of Beni-Mora without the sun.

She read on the verandah and dreamed, and the hours slipped quickly
away. No one came to disturb her. Sh