her formidable.

Androvsky and Count Anteoni had never met. The Count had seen Androvsky
in the distance from his garden more than once, but Androvsky had not
seen him. The meeting that was about to take place was due to Domini.
She had spoken to Androvsky on several occasions of the romantic beauty
of this desert garden.

"It is like a garden of the _Arabian Nights_," she had said.

He did not look enlightened, and she was moved to ask him abruptly
whether he had ever read the famous book. He had not. A doubt came to
her whether he had ever even heard of it. She mentioned the fact of
Count Anteoni's having made the garden, and spoke of him, sketching
lightly his whimsicality, his affection for the Arabs, his love of
solitude, and of African life. She also mentioned that he was by birth a
Roman.

"But scarcely of the black world I should imagine," she added.

Androvsky said nothing.

"You should go and see the garden," she continued. "Count Anteoni allows
visitors to explore it."

"I am sure it must be very beautiful, Madame," he replied, rather
coldly, she thought.

He did not say that he would go.

As the garden won upon her, as its enchanted mystery, the airy wonder
of its shadowy places, the glory of its trembling golden vistas, the
restfulness of its green defiles, the strange, almost unearthly peace
that reigned within it embalmed her spirit, as she learned not only to
marvel at it, to be entranced by it, but to feel at home in it and love
it, she was conscious of a persistent desire that Androvsky should know
it too.

Perhaps his dogged determination about the riding had touched her more
than she was aware. She often saw before her the bent figure, that
looked tired, riding alone into the luminous grey; starting thus early
that his act, humble and determined, might not be known by her. He did
not know that she had seen him, not only on that morning, but on many
subsequent mornings, setting forth to study the new art in the solitude
of the still hours. But the fact that she had seen, had watched till
horse and rider vanished beyond the palms, had understood why, perhaps
moved her to this permanent wish that he could share her pleasure in the
garden, know it as she did.

She did not argue with herself about the matter. She only knew that she
wished, that presently she meant Androvsky to pass through the white
gate and be met on the sand by Smain with his rose.

One day Count Anteoni had asked her wh