med on her clear, white cheeks, giving them its hue of life. And
her nature flamed to meet it. In the huge spaces of the Sahara her soul
seemed to hear the footsteps of Freedom treading towards the south.
And all her dull perplexities, all her bitterness of _ennui_, all her
questionings and doubts, were swept away on the keen desert wind
into the endless plains. She had come from her last confession asking
herself, "What am I?" She had felt infinitely small confronted with the
pettiness of modern, civilised life in a narrow, crowded world. Now she
did not torture herself with any questions, for she knew that something
large, something capable, something perhaps even noble, rose up within
her to greet all this nobility, all this mighty frankness and fierce,
undressed sincerity of nature. This desert and this sun would be her
comrades, and she was not afraid of them.

Without being aware of it she breathed out a great sigh, feeling the
necessity of liberating her joy of spirit, of letting the body, however
inadequately and absurdly, make some demonstration in response to the
secret stirring of the soul. The man in the far corner of the carriage
turned and looked at her. When she heard this movement Domini remembered
her irritation against him at El-Akbara. In this splendid moment the
feeling seemed to her so paltry and contemptible that she had a lively
impulse to make amends for the angry look she had cast at him. Possibly,
had she been quite normal, she would have checked such an impulse. The
voice of conventionality would have made itself heard. But Domini could
act vigorously, and quite carelessly, when she was moved. And she was
deeply moved now, and longed to lavish the humanity, the sympathy and
ardour that were quick in her. In answer to the stranger's movement she
turned towards him, opening her lips to speak to him. Afterwards she
never knew what she meant to say, whether, if she had spoken, the words
would have been French or English. For she did not speak.

The man's face was illuminated by the setting sun as he sat half round
on his seat, leaning with his right hand palm downwards on the cushions.
The light glittered on his short hair. He had pushed back his soft hat,
and exposed his high, rugged forehead to the air, and his brown left
hand gripped the top of the carriage door. The large, knotted veins
on it, the stretched sinews, were very perceptible. The hand looked
violent. Domini's eyes fell on it as she