ghting, until now his point of view
had seemed to be the modern, progressive, French point of view. Quickly
the question flashed through her mind--"Is he letting himself go,
showing me his real self, because I'm in the desert with him, and he
thinks I'll never go back among Europeans?"

She shivered a little at the thought, but she put it away with the doubt
of Maieddine that came with it. Never had he given her the least cause
to fear him, and she would go on trusting in his good faith, as she had
trusted from the first.

Still, there was that creeping chill, in contrast to the warm glory of
the sunset, which seemed to shame it by giving a glimpse of the desert's
heart, which was Maieddine's heart. She hurried to say how beautiful was
El Aghouat; and that night, in the house of the Caid, (an uncle of
Maieddine's on his mother's side), as the women grouped round her,
hospitable and admiring, she reproached herself again for her suspicion.
The wife of the Caid was dignified and gentle. There were daughters
growing up, and though they knew nothing, or seemed to know nothing, of
Saidee, they were sure that, if Maieddine knew, all was well. Because
they were his cousins they had seen and been seen by him, and the young
girls poured out all the untaught romance of their little dim souls in
praise of Maieddine. Once they were on the point of saying something
which their mother seemed to think indiscreet, and checked them quickly.
Then they stopped, laughing; and their laughter, like the laughter of
little children, was so contagious that Victoria laughed too.

There was some dreadful European furniture of sprawling, "nouveau art"
design in the guest-room which she and Lella M'Barka shared; and as
Victoria lay awake on the hard bed, of which the girls were proud, she
said to herself that she had not been half grateful enough to Si
Maieddine. For ten years she had tried to find Saidee, and until the
other day she had been little nearer her heart's desire than when she
was a child, hoping and longing in the school garret. Now Maieddine had
made the way easy--almost too easy, for the road to the golden silence
had become so wonderful that she was tempted to forget her haste to
reach the end.

XXVII

"There is my father's douar," said Si Maieddine; and Victoria's eyes
followed his pointing finger.

Into a stony and desolate waste had billowed one golden wave of sand,
and on the fringe of this wave, the girl saw a vi