more at the
green line.

"Do you think we could go as far as that?" she asked Androvsky, pointing
with her whip.

"Yes, Madame."

"It must be an oasis. Don't you think so?"

"Yes. I can go faster."

"Keep your rein loose. Don't pull his mouth. You don't mind my telling
you. I've been with horses all my life."

"Thank you," he answered.

"And keep your heels more out. That's much better. I'm sure you could
teach me a thousand things; it will be kind of you to let me teach you
this."

He cast a strange look at her. There was gratitude in it, but much more;
a fiery bitterness and something childlike and helpless.

"I have nothing to teach," he said.

Their horses broke into a canter, and with the swifter movement Domini
felt more calm. There was an odd lightness in her brain, as if her
thoughts were being shaken out of it like feathers out of a bag.
The power of concentration was leaving her, and a sensation of
carelessness--surely gipsy-like--came over her. Her body, dipped in
the dry and thin air as in a clear, cool bath, did not suffer from the
burning rays of the sun, but felt radiant yet half lazy too. They went
on and on in silence as intimate friends might ride together, isolated
from the world and content in each other's company, content enough to
have no need of talking. Not once did it strike Domini as strange
that she should go far out into the desert with a man of whom she knew
nothing, but in whom she had noticed disquieting peculiarities. She was
naturally fearless, but that had little to do with her conduct. Without
saying so to herself she felt she could trust this man.

The dark green line showed clearer through the sunshine across the
gleaming flats. It was possible now to see slight irregularities in
it, as in a blurred dash of paint flung across a canvas by an uncertain
hand, but impossible to distinguish palm trees. The air sparkled as if
full of a tiny dust of intensely brilliant jewels, and near the ground
there seemed to quiver a maze of dancing specks of light. Everywhere
there was solitude, yet everywhere there was surely a ceaseless movement
of minute and vital things, scarce visible sun fairies eternally at
play.

And Domini's careless feeling grew. She had never before experienced so
delicious a recklessness. Head and heart were light, reckless of thought
or love. Sad things had no meaning here and grave things no place. For
the blood was full of sunbeams dancing to a lilt of A