Her voice was challenging, imperative.  It commanded him to rouse himself, to speak, as a touch of the lash commands a horse to quicken his pace.  Androvsky raised his head, which had been sunk on his breast as he walked.

“Palms!” he said confusedly.

“Yes, they are wonderful.”

“You care for trees?” asked the Count, following Domini’s lead and speaking with a definite intention to force a conversation.

“Yes, Monsieur, certainly.”

“I have some wonderful fellows here.  After dejeuner you must let me show them to you.  I spent years in collecting my children and teaching them to live rightly in the desert.”

Very naturally, while he spoke, he had joined Androvsky, and now walked on with him, pointing out the different varieties of trees.  Domini was conscious of a sense of relief and of a strong feeling of gratitude to their host.  Following upon the gratitude came a less pleasant consciousness of Androvsky’s lack of good breeding.  He was certainly not a man of the world, whatever he might be.  To-day, perhaps absurdly, she felt responsible for him, and as if he owed it to her to bear himself bravely and govern his dislikes if they clashed with the feelings of his companions.  She longed hotly for him to make a good impression, and, when her eyes met Father Roubier’s, was almost moved to ask his pardon for Androvsky’s rudeness.  But the Father seemed unconscious of it, and began to speak about the splendour of the African vegetation.

“Does not its luxuriance surprise you after England?” he said.

“No,” she replied bluntly.  “Ever since I have been in Africa I have felt that I was in a land of passionate growth.”

“But—­the desert?” he replied with a gesture towards the long flats of the Sahara, which were still visible between the trees.

“I should find it there too,” she answered.  “There, perhaps, most of all.”

He looked at her with a gentle wonder.  She did not explain that she was no longer thinking of growth in Nature.

The salle-a-manger stood at the end of a broad avenue of palms not far from the villa.  Two Arab servants were waiting on each side of the white step that led into an ante-room filled with divans and coffee-tables.  Beyond was a lofty apartment with an arched roof, in the centre of which was an oval table laid for breakfast, and decorated with masses of trumpet-shaped scarlet flowers in silver vases.  Behind each of the four high-backed chairs stood an Arab motionless as a statue.  Evidently the Count’s fete was to be attended by a good deal of ceremony.  Domini felt sorry, though not for herself.  She had been accustomed to ceremony all her life, and noticed it, as a rule, almost as little as the air she breathed.  But she feared that to Androvsky it would be novel and unpleasant.  As they came into the shady room she saw him glance swiftly at the walls covered with dark