e heard no footsteps, no movements
of humanity in the house. Now and then the sound of voices floated up
to her from the gardens, mingling with the peculiar dry noise of palm
leaves stirring in a breeze. Or she heard the distant gallop of horses'
feet. The church bell chimed the hours and made her recall the previous
evening. Already it seemed far off in the past. She could scarcely
believe that she had not yet spent twenty-four hours in Beni-Mora. A
conviction came to her that she would be there for a long while, that
she would strike roots into this sunny place of peace. When she heard
the church bell now she thought of the interior of the church and of the
priest with an odd sort of familiar pleasure, as people in England often
think of the village church in which they have always been accustomed to
worship, and of the clergyman who ministers in it Sunday after Sunday.
Yet at moments she remembered her inward cry in Count Anteoni's garden,
"Oh, what is going to happen to me here?" And then she was dimly
conscious that Beni-Mora was the home of many things besides peace. It
held warring influences. At one moment it lulled her and she was like an
infant rocked in a cradle. At another moment it stirred her, and she
was a woman on the edge of mysterious possibilities. There must be
many individualities among the desert spirits of whom Count Anteoni
had spoken. Now one was with her and whispered to her, now another. She
fancied the light touch of their hands on hers, pulling gently at her,
as a child pulls you to take you to see a treasure. And their treasure
was surely far away, hidden in the distance of the desert sands.

As soon as the sun began to decline towards the west she put on her hat,
thrust the card Count Anteoni had given her into her glove and set out
towards the big hotel alone. She met Hadj as she walked down the arcade.
He wished to accompany her, and was evidently filled with treacherous
ideas of supplanting his friend Batouch, but she gave him a franc and
sent him away. The franc soothed him slightly, yet she could see that
his childish vanity was injured. There was a malicious gleam in
his long, narrow eyes as he looked after her. Yet there was genuine
admiration too. The Arab bows down instinctively before any dominating
spirit, and such a spirit in a foreign woman flashes in his eyes like
a bright flame. Physical strength, too, appeals to him with peculiar
force. Hadj tossed his head upwards, tucked i