terest at the
first houses, one on each side of the way. And here again they were met
by the sharp contrast which was evidently to be the keynote of Amara.
The house on the left was European, built of white stone, clean,
attractive, but uninteresting, with stout white pillars of plaster
supporting an arcade that afforded shade from the sun, windows with
green blinds, and an open doorway showing a little hall, on the floor
of which lay a smart rug glowing with gay colours; that on the right,
before which the sand lay deep as if drifted there by some recent
wind of the waste, was African and barbarous, an immense and rambling
building of brown earth, brushwood and palm, windowless, with a
flat-terraced roof, upon which were piled many strange-looking objects
like things collapsed, red and dark green, with fringes and rosettes,
and tall sticks of palm pointing vaguely to the sky.

"Why, these are like our palanquin!" Domini said.

"They are the palanquins of the dancing-girls, Madame," said Batouch.
"That is the cafe of the dancers, and that"--he pointed to the neat
house opposite--"is the house of Monsieur the Aumonier of Amara."

"Aumonier," said Androvsky, sharply. "Here!"

He paused, then added more quietly:

"What should he do here?"

"But, Monsieur, he is for the French officers."

"There are French officers?"

"Yes, Monsieur, four or five, and the commandant. They live in the
palace with the cupolas."

"I forgot," Androvsky said to Domini. "We are not out of the sphere of
French influence. This place looks so remote and so barbarous that I
imagined it given over entirely to the desert men."

"We need not see the French," she said. "We shall be encamped outside in
the sand."

"And we need not stay here long," he said quickly.

"Boris," she asked him, half in jest, half in earnest, "shall we buy a
desert island to live in?"

"Let us buy an oasis," he said. "That would be the perf--the safest life
for us."

"The safest?"

"The safest for our happiness. Domini, I have a horror of the world!" He
said the last words with a strong, almost fierce, emphasis.

"Had you it always, or only since we have been married?"

"I--perhaps it was born in me, perhaps it is part of me. Who knows?"

He had relapsed into a gravity that was heavy with gloom, and looked
about him with eyes that seemed to wish to reject all that offered
itself to their sight.

"I want the desert and you in it," he said. "The lonely des