“Do you always dress as an Arab?”

“Yes, I have been here for thirty-one years, ever since I was fourteen.”  Owen looked at him.

“Here, in an oasis?”

“Yes, in an oasis, a great deal of which I have created for myself.  The discovery of a Roman well enabled me to add many hundred hectares to my property.

“The rediscovery of a Roman well!”

“Yes.  If the Sahara is barren, it is because there is no water.”  Owen seemed to be on the verge of hearing the most interesting things about underground lakes only twenty or thirty feet from the surface.  “But I will tell you more about them another time.”

Owen looked at Beclere again, thinking that he liked the broad, flat strip of forehead between the dark eyebrows, and the dark hair, streaked with grey, the eyes deep in the head, and of an acrid blackness like an Arab’s; the long, thin nose like an Arab’s—­a face which could have had little difficulty in acquiring the Arab cast of feature; and there had been time enough to acquire it, though Beclere was not more than forty-five.

“No doubt you speak Arabic like French.”

“Yes, I speak modern Arabic as easily as French.  The language of the Koran is different.”  And Beclere explained that there was no writing done in the dialects.  When an Arab wrote to another, he wrote in the ancient language, which was understood everywhere.

“You have learned a little Arabic, I see,” Beclere said, and Owen foresaw endless dialogues between himself and Monsieur Beclere, who would instruct him on all the points which he was interested in.  The orchards they were passing through (apricot, apple, and pear-trees) were coming into blossom.

“I had expected oranges and lemons.”

“They don’t grow well here, but we have nearly all our own vegetables—­haricot-beans, potatoes, artichokes, peas.”

“Of course there are no strawberries?”

“No, we don’t get any strawberries.  There is my house.”  And within a grove of beautiful trees, under which one could sit, Owen caught sight of a house, half Oriental, half European.  He admired the flat roofs and the domes, which he felt sure rose above darkened rooms, where Beclere and those who lived with him slept in the afternoons.  “You must be tired after your long ride, and would like to have a bath.”

Owen followed Beclere through a courtyard, where a fountain sang in dreamy heat and shade, bringing a little sensation of coolness into the closed room, which did not strike him as being particularly Moorish, notwithstanding the engraved brass lamps hanging from the ceiling, and the Oriental carpet on the floor, and the screen inlaid with mother-of-pearl.  Owen did not know whether linen sheets were a European convention, and could be admitted into an Eastern dwelling-house, but he was not one of those who thought everything should be in keeping.  He liked incongruities, being an inveterate romancist and only a bedouin by