against them. He had
scarcely ever spoken of them to her. But she remembered his words in the
garden, "I do not care for priests." She remembered, too, his action
in the tunnel on the day of his arrival in Beni-Mora. And the reticence
that they both preserved on the subject of religion, and its reason,
were the only causes of regret in this desert dream of hers. Even this
regret, too, often faded in hope. For in the desert, the Garden of
Allah, she had it borne in upon her that Androvsky would discover what
he must surely secretly be seeking--the truth that each man must find
for himself, truth for him of the eventual existence in which the
mysteries of this present existence will be made plain, and of the Power
that has fashioned all things.

And she was able to hope in silence, as women do for the men they love.

"Don't think I do not realise that you have worked," she went on after
a pause. "You told me how you always cultivated the land yourself, even
when you were still a boy, that you directed the Spanish labourers in
the vineyards, that--you have earned a long holiday. But should it last
for ever?"

"You are right. Well, let us take an oasis; let us become palm gardeners
like that Frenchman at Meskoutine."

"And build ourselves an African house, white, with a terrace roof."

"And sell our dates. We can give employment to the Arabs. We can choose
the poorest. We can improve their lives. After all, if we owe a debt to
anyone it is to them, to the desert. Let us pay our debt to the desert
men and live in the desert."

"It would be an ideal life," she said with her eyes shining on his.

"And a possible life. Let us live it. I could not bear to leave the
desert. Where should we go?"

"Where should we go!" she repeated.

She was still looking at him, but now the expression of her eyes had
quite changed. They had become grave, and examined him seriously with a
sort of deep inquiry. He sat upon the Arab rug, leaning his back against
the wall of the traveller's house.

"Why do you look at me like that, Domini?" he asked with a sudden
stirring of something that was like uneasiness.

"I! I was wondering what you would like, what other life would suit
you."

"Yes?" he said quickly. "Yes?"

"It's very strange, Boris, but I cannot connect you with anything but
the desert, or see you anywhere but in the desert. I cannot even imagine
you among your vines in Tunisia."

"They were not altogether mine," he correct