the world?"

It was the first time he had spoken without any trace of reserve to her,
for even on the tower, though there had been tumult in his voice and a
fierceness of some strange passion in his words, there had been struggle
in his manner, as if the pressure of feeling forced him to speak in
despite of something which bade him keep silence. Now he spoke as if to
someone whom he knew and with whom he had talked of many things.

"But you ought to know better than I do," she answered.

"I!"

"Yes. You are a man, and have been in the world, and must know what
it has to give--whether there's only mirage, or something that can be
grasped and felt and lived in, and----"

"Yes, I'm a man and I ought to know," he replied. "Well, I don't know,
but I mean to know."

There was a savage sound in his voice.

"I should like to know, too," Domini said quietly. "And I feel as if it
was the desert that was going to teach me."

"The desert--how?"

"I don't know."

He pointed again to the mirage.

"But that's what there is in the desert."

"That--and what else?"

"Is there anything else?"

"Perhaps everything," she answered. "I am like you. I want to know."

He looked straight into her eyes and there was something dominating in
his expression.

"You think it is the desert that could teach you whether the world holds
anything but a mirage," he said slowly. "Well, I don't think it would be
the desert that could teach me."

She said nothing more, but let her horse go and rode off. He followed,
and as he rode awkwardly, yet bravely, pressing his strong legs against
his animal's flanks and holding his thin body bent forward, he looked
at Domini's upright figure and brilliant, elastic grace--that gave in to
her horse as wave gives to wind--with a passion of envy in his eyes.

They did not speak again till the great palm gardens of the oasis they
had seen far off were close upon them. From the desert they looked both
shabby and superb, as if some millionaire had poured forth money to
create a Paradise out here, and, when it was nearly finished, had
suddenly repented of his whim and refused to spend another farthing. The
thousands upon thousands of mighty trees were bounded by long, irregular
walls of hard earth, at the top of which were stuck distraught thorn
bushes. These walls gave the rough, penurious aspect which was in such
sharp contrast to the exotic mystery they guarded. Yet in the fierce
blaze of the sun thei