r, then a step. Evidently
she had infected him with an intention similar to her own. She went on,
still hearing the step, turned the corner and stood face to face in the
strong evening light with the traveller. Their bodies almost touched in
the narrow space before they both stopped, startled. For a moment they
stood still looking at each other, as people might look who have spoken
together, who know something of each other's lives, who may like or
dislike, wish to avoid or to draw near to each other, but who cannot
pretend that they are complete strangers, wholly indifferent to each
other. They met in the sky, almost as one bird may meet another on the
wing. And, to Domini, at any rate, it seemed as if the depth, height,
space, colour, mystery and calm--yes, even the calm--which were above,
around and beneath them, had been placed there by hidden hands as a
setting for their encounter, even as the abrupt pageant of the previous
day, into which the train had emerged from the blackness of the tunnel,
had surely been created as a frame for the face which had looked upon
her as if out of the heart of the sun. The assumption was absurd,
unreasonable, yet vital. She did not combat it because she felt it too
powerful for common sense to strive against. And it seemed to her that
the stranger felt it too, that she saw her sensation reflected in his
eyes as he stood between the parapet and the staircase wall, barring--in
despite of himself--her path. The moment seemed long while they stood
motionless. Then the man took off his soft hat awkwardly, yet with real
politeness, and stood quickly sideways against the parapet to let her
pass. She could have passed if she had brushed against him, and made a
movement to do so. Then she checked herself and looked at him again as
if she expected him to speak to her. His hat was still in his hand, and
the light desert wind faintly stirred his short brown hair. He did not
speak, but stood there crushing himself against the plaster work with a
sort of fierce timidity, as if he dreaded the touch of her skirt against
him, and longed to make himself small, to shrivel up and let her go by
in freedom.

"Thank you," she said in French.

She passed him, but was unable to do so without touching him. Her left
arm was hanging down, and her bare hand knocked against the back of the
hand in which he held his hat. She felt as if at that moment she
touched a furnace, and she saw him shiver slightly, as ove