st be peace in the
desert. Then is it in me--for you?"

"Peace!" he repeated. "To-day I can't think of peace, or want it. Don't
you ask too much of me! Let me live to-day, live as only a man can
who--let me live with all that is in me to-day--Domini. Men ask to die
in peace. Oh, Domini--Domini!"

His expression was like arms that crushed her, lips that pressed her
mouth, a heart that beat on hers.

"Madame est servie!" cried Batouch in a merry voice.

His mistress did not seem to hear him. He cried again:

"Madame est servie!"

Then Domini turned round and came to the first meal in the sand. Two
cushions lay beside the cloth upon an Arab quilt of white, red, and
orange colour. Upon the cloth, in vases of rough pottery, stained with
designs in purple, were arranged the roses brought by Smain from Count
Anteoni's garden.

"Our wedding breakfast!" Domini said under her breath.

She felt just then as if she were living in a wonderful romance.

They sat down side by side and ate with a good appetite, served by
Batouch and Ali. Now and then a pale yellow butterfly, yellow as the
sand, flitted by them. Small yellow birds with crested heads ran swiftly
among the scrub, or flew low over the flats. In the sky the vapours
gathered themselves together and moved slowly away towards the east,
leaving the blue above their heads unflecked with white. With each
moment the heat of the sun grew more intense. The wind had gone. It was
difficult to believe that it had ever roared over the desert. A little
way from them the camel-drivers squatted beside the beasts, eating flat
loaves of yellow bread, and talking together in low, guttural voices.
The guard dogs roamed round them, uneasily hungry. In the distance,
before a tent of patched rags, a woman, scantily clad in bright red
cotton, was suckling a child and staring at the caravan.

Domini and Androvsky scarcely spoke as they ate. Once she said:

"Do you realise that this is a wedding breakfast?"

She was thinking of the many wedding receptions she had attended in
London, of crowds of smartly-dressed women staring enviously at
tiaras, and sets of jewels arranged in cases upon tables, of brides and
bridegrooms, looking flushed and anxious, standing under canopies of
flowers and forcing their tired lips into smiles as they replied to
stereotyped congratulations, while detectives--poorly disguised as
gentlemen--hovered in the back-ground to see that none of the presents
myster