“Do you think we could go as far as that?” she asked Androvsky, pointing with her whip.

“Yes, Madame.”

“It must be an oasis.  Don’t you think so?”

“Yes.  I can go faster.”

“Keep your rein loose.  Don’t pull his mouth.  You don’t mind my telling you.  I’ve been with horses all my life.”

“Thank you,” he answered.

“And keep your heels more out.  That’s much better.  I’m sure you could teach me a thousand things; it will be kind of you to let me teach you this.”

He cast a strange look at her.  There was gratitude in it, but much more; a fiery bitterness and something childlike and helpless.

“I have nothing to teach,” he said.

Their horses broke into a canter, and with the swifter movement Domini felt more calm.  There was an odd lightness in her brain, as if her thoughts were being shaken out of it like feathers out of a bag.  The power of concentration was leaving her, and a sensation of carelessness—­surely gipsy-like—­came over her.  Her body, dipped in the dry and thin air as in a clear, cool bath, did not suffer from the burning rays of the sun, but felt radiant yet half lazy too.  They went on and on in silence as intimate friends might ride together, isolated from the world and content in each other’s company, content enough to have no need of talking.  Not once did it strike Domini as strange that she should go far out into the desert with a man of whom she knew nothing, but in whom she had noticed disquieting peculiarities.  She was naturally fearless, but that had little to do with her conduct.  Without saying so to herself she felt she could trust this man.

The dark green line showed clearer through the sunshine across the gleaming flats.  It was possible now to see slight irregularities in it, as in a blurred dash of paint flung across a canvas by an uncertain hand, but impossible to distinguish palm trees.  The air sparkled as if full of a tiny dust of intensely brilliant jewels, and near the ground there seemed to quiver a maze of dancing specks of light.  Everywhere there was solitude, yet everywhere there was surely a ceaseless movement of minute and vital things, scarce visible sun fairies eternally at play.

And Domini’s careless feeling grew.  She had never before experienced so delicious a recklessness.  Head and heart were light, reckless of thought or love.  Sad things had no meaning here and grave things no place.  For the blood was full of sunbeams dancing to a lilt of Apollo.  Nothing mattered here.  Even Death wore a robe of gold and went with an airy step.  Ah, yes, from this region of quivering light and heat the Arabs drew their easy and lustrous resignation.  Out here one was in the hands of a God who surely sang as He created and had not created fear.

Many minutes passed, but Domini was careless of time as of all else.  The green line broke into feathery tufts, broadened into a still far-off dimness of palms.