y, but not from worldly
things. She still looked on herself moving amid these events at which
her world would laugh or wonder, and perhaps for the first time in her
life she was uneasily self-conscious because of the self that watched
herself, as if that self held something coldly satirical that mocked at
her and marvelled.

CHAPTER XIV

"What shall I do to-night?"

Alone in the now empty _salle-a-manger_ Domini asked herself the
question. She was restless, terribly restless in mind, and wanted
distraction. The idea of going to her room, of reading, even of sitting
quietly in the verandah, was intolerable to her. She longed for action,
swiftness, excitement, the help of outside things, of that exterior life
which she had told Count Anteoni she had begun to see as a mirage. Had
she been in a city she would have gone to a theatre to witness some
tremendous drama, or to hear some passionate or terrible opera.
Beni-Mora might have been a place of many and strange tragedies, would
be no doubt again, but it offered at this moment little to satisfy her
mood. The dances of the Cafes Maures, the songs of the smokers of
the keef, the long histories of the story-tellers between the lighted
candles--she wanted none of these, and, for a moment, she wished she
were in London, Paris, any great capital that spent itself to suit
the changing moods of men. With a sigh she got up and went out to the
Arcade. Batouch joined her immediately.

"What can I do to-night, Batouch?" she said.

"There are the femmes mauresques," he began.

"No, no."

"Would Madame like to hear the story-teller?"

"No. I should not understand him."

"I can explain to Madame."

"No."

She stepped out into the road.

"There will be a moon to-night, won't there?" she said, looking up at
the starry sky.

"Yes, Madame, later."

"What time will it rise?"

"Between nine and ten."

She stood in the road, thinking. It had occurred to her that she had
never seen moonrise in the desert.

"And now it is"--she looked at her watch--"only eight."

"Does Madame wish to see the moon come up pouring upon the palms--"

"Don't talk so much, Batouch," she said brusquely.

To-night the easy and luscious imaginings of the poet worried her like
the cry of a mosquito. His presence even disturbed her. Yet what could
she do without him? After a pause she said:

"Can one go into the desert at night?"

"On foot, Madame? It would be dangerous. One cannot tell w