doorway, followed by Hadj.

While Suzanne was unpacking Domini came out on to the broad terrace
which ran along the whole length of the Hotel du Desert. Her bedroom
opened on to it in front, and at the back communicated with a small
salon. This salon opened on to a second and smaller terrace, from which
the desert could be seen beyond the palms. There seemed to be no guests
in the hotel. The verandah was deserted, and the peace of the soft
evening was profound. Against the white parapet a small, round table and
a cane armchair had been placed. A subdued patter of feet in slippers
came up the stairway, and an Arab servant appeared with a tea-tray.
He put it down on the table with the precise deftness which Domini had
already observed in the Arabs at Robertville, and swiftly vanished. She
sat down in the chair and poured out the tea, leaning her left arm on
the parapet.

Her head was very tired and her temples felt compressed. She was
thankful for the quiet round her. Any harsh voice would have been
intolerable to her just then. There were many sounds in the village, but
they were vague, and mingled, flowing together and composing one sound
that was soothing, the restrained and level voice of Life. It hummed in
Domini's ears as she sipped her tea, and gave an under-side of romance
to the peace. The light that floated in under the round arches of the
terrace was subdued. The sun had just gone down, and the bright colours
bloomed no more upon the mountains, which looked like silent monsters
that had lost the hue of youth and had suddenly become mysteriously old.
The evening star shone in a sky that still held on its Western border
some last pale glimmerings of day, and, at its signal, many dusky
wanderers folded their loose garments round them, slung their long guns
across their shoulders, and prepared to start on their journey, helped
by the cool night wind that blows in the desert when the sun departs.

Domini did not know of them, but she felt the near presence of the
desert, and the feeling quieted her nerves. She was thankful at this
moment that she was travelling without any woman friend and was not
persecuted by any sense of obligation. In her fatigue, to rest passive
in the midst of quiet, and soft light, calm in the belief, almost the
certainty, that this desert village contained no acquaintance to disturb
her, was to know all the joy she needed for the moment. She drank it
in dreamily. Liberty had always been he