"We each serve in our own way," he said quickly. "The Arab who sits all day in the sun may be heard as a song of praise where He is."
And then he took his leave. This time he did not extend his hand to Androvsky, but only bowed to him, lifting his white helmet. As he went away in the sun with Bous-Bous the three he had left followed him with their eyes. For Androvsky had turned his chair sideways, as if involuntarily.
"I shall learn to love Father Roubier," Domini said.
Androvsky moved his seat round again till his back was to the garden, and placed his broad hands palm downward on his knees.
"Yes?" said the Count.
"He is so transparently good, and he bears his great disappointment so beautifully."
"What great disappointment?"
"He longed to become a monk."
Androvsky got up from his seat and walked back to the garden doorway.
His restless demeanour and lowering expression destroyed all sense of calm and leisure. Count Anteoni looked after him, and then at Domini, with a sort of playful surprise. He was going to speak, but before the words came Smain appeared, carrying reverently a large envelope covered with Arab writing.
"Will you excuse me for a moment?" the Count said.
"Of course."
He took the letter, and at once a vivid expression of excitement shone in his eyes. When he had read it there was a glow upon his face as if the flames of a fire played over it.
"Miss Enfilden," he said, "will you think me very discourteous if I leave you for a moment? The messenger who brought this has come from far and starts to-day on his return journey. He has come out of the south, three hundred kilometres away, from Beni-Hassan, a sacred village--a sacred village."
He repeated the last words, lowering his voice.
"Of course go and see him."
"And you?"
He glanced towards Androvsky, who was standing with his back to them.
"Won't you show Monsieur Androvsky the garden?"
Hearing his name Androvsky turned, and the Count at once made his excuses to him and followed Smain towards the garden gate, carrying the letter that had come from Beni-Hassan in his hand.
When he had gone Domini remained on the divan, and Androvsky by the door, with his eyes on the ground. She took another cigarette from the box on the table beside her, struck a match and lit it carefully. Then she said:
"Do you care to see the garden?"
She spoke indifferently, coldly. The desire to show her Paradise to him had died away, but the parting words of the Count prompted the question, and so she put it as to a stranger.
"Thank you, Madame--yes," he replied, as if with an effort.
She got up, and they went out together on to the broad walk.
"Which way do you want to go?" she asked.
She saw him glance at her quickly, with anxiety in his eyes.
"You know best where we should go, Madame."
"I daresay you won't care about it. Probably you are not interested in gardens. It does not matter really which path we take. They are all very much alike."
"I am sure they are all very beautiful."
Suddenly he had become humble, anxious to please her. But now the violent contrasts in him, unlike the violent contrasts of nature in this land, exasperated her. She longed to be left alone. She felt ashamed of Androvsky, and also of herself; she condemned herself bitterly for the interest she had taken in him, for her desire to put some pleasure into a life she had deemed sad, for her curiosity about him, for her wish to share joy with him. She laughed at herself secretly for what she now called her folly in having connected him imaginatively with the desert, whereas in reality he made the desert, as everything he approached, lose in beauty and wonder. His was a destructive personality. She knew it now. Why had she not realised it before? He was a man to put gall in the cup of pleasure, to create uneasiness, self-consciousness, constraint round about him, to call up spectres at the banquet of life. Well, in the future she could avoid him. After to-day she need never have any more intercourse with him.
With that thought, that interior sense of her perfect ******* in regard to this man, an abrupt, but always cold, content came to her, putting him a long way off where surely all that he thought and did was entirely indifferent to her.
"Come along then," she said. "We'll go this way."
And she turned down an alley which led towards the home of the purple dog. She did not know at the moment that anything had influenced her to choose that particular path, but very soon the sound of Larbi's flute grew louder, and she guessed that in reality the music had attracted her. Androvsky walked beside her without a word. She felt that he was not looking about him, not noticing anything, and all at once she stopped decisively.
"Why should we take all this trouble?" she said bluntly. "I hate pretence and I thought I had travelled far away from it. But we are both pretending."
"Pretending, Madame?" he said in a startled voice.
"Yes. I that I want to show you this garden, you that you want to see it. I no longer wish to show it to you, and you have never wished to see it. Let us cease to pretend. It is all my fault. I bothered you to come here when you didn't want to come. You have taught me a lesson. I was inclined to condemn you for it, to be angry with you. But why should I be? You were quite right. Freedom is my fetish. I set you free, Monsieur Androvsky. Good-bye."
As she spoke she felt that the air was clearing, the clouds were flying. Constraint at least was at an end. And she had really the sensation of setting a captive at liberty. She turned to leave him, but he said:
"Please, stop, Madame."
"Why?"
"You have made a mistake."
"In what?"
"I do want to see this garden."
"Really? Well, then, you can wander through it."
"I do not wish to see it alone."
"Larbi shall guide you. For half a franc he will gladly give up his serenading."
"Madame, if you will not show me the garden I will not see it at all.
I will go now and will never come into it again. I do not pretend."
"Ah!" she said, and her voice was quite changed. "But you do worse."
"Worse!"
"Yes. You lie in the face of Africa."
