caprice.  One appreciates sheets after months of pilgrimage, and one appreciates a good meal after having eaten nothing for a long while better than sand-goose roasted at the camp fire.  More than the pleasure of the table was the pleasure of conversation with one speaking in his native language.  Beclere’s mind interested him; it was so steady, it looked towards one point always.  That was his impression when he left his host after a talk lasting till midnight; and, thinking of Beclere and his long journey to him, he sat by his window watching stars of extraordinary brilliancy, and breathing a fragrance rising from the tropical garden beneath him—­a fragrance which he recognised as that of roses; and this set him thinking that it was the East that first cultivated roses; and amid many memories of Persia and her poets, he threw himself into bed, longing for sleep, for a darkness which, in a few hours, would pass into a delicious consciousness of a garden under exquisite skies.

His awakening was even more delightful than he anticipated.  The fragrance that filled his room had a magic in it which he had never known before, and there was a murmur of doves in the palms and in the dovecot hanging above the dog-kennel.  As he lay between sleeping and waking, a pair of pigeons flew past his window, their shadows falling across his bed.  An Arab came to conduct him to his bath; and after bathing he returned to his room, glad to get into its sunlight again, and to loiter in his dressing, standing by the window, admiring the garden below, full of faint perfume.  The roses were already in blossom, and through an opening in the ilex-trees he caught sight of a meadow overflowing with shadow, the shadow of trees and clouds, and of goats too, for there was a herd feeding and trying to escape from the shepherd (a young man wearing a white bournous and a red felt cap) towards the garden, where there were bushes.  On the left, amid a group of palms, were the stables, and Owen thought of his horse feeding and resting after his long journey.  And there were Beclere’s horses too.  Owen had not seen them yet; nor had he seen the dog, nor the pigeons.  This oasis was full of pleasant things to see and investigate, and he hurried through his meal, longing to get into the open air and to gather some roses.  All about him sounds were hushing, and lights breaking, and shadows floating, and every breeze was scented.  As he followed the finely-sanded walks, he was startled by a new scent, and with dilating nostrils tried to catch it, tried to remember if it were mastick or some resinous fir; and, walking on like one in a trance, he admired Beclere’s taste in the planting of this garden.

“A strange man, so refined and intelligent—­why does he live here?...  Why not?”

Returning suddenly to the ilex-trees, which he liked better than the masticks, or the tamarisks, or any fir, he sat down to watch the meadow, thinking there was nothing in the world more beautiful than the moving of shadows of trees and clouds over young grass, and nothing more beautiful than a young shepherd playing a flute:  only one thing more beautiful—­a young girl carrying an amphora I She passed out of the shadows, wearing a scarlet haik and on her arms and neck a great deal of rough jewellery.