When two lovers kiss their breath mingles, and, if they really love, each is conscious that in the breath of the loved one is the loved one’s soul, coming forth from the temple of the body through the temple door.  As Domini leaned out, seeing nothing, she was conscious that in this breath she drank there was a soul, and it seemed to her that it was the soul which flames in the centre of things, and beyond.  She could not think any longer of her father as an outcast because he had abandoned a religion.  For all religions were surely here, marching side by side, and behind them, background to them, there was something far greater than any religion.  Was it snow or fire?  Was it the lawlessness of that which has made laws, or the calm of that which has brought passion into being?  Greater love than is in any creed, or greater freedom than is in any human liberty?  Domini only felt that if she had ever been a slave at this moment she would have died of joy, realising the boundless freedom that circles this little earth.

“Thank God for it!” she murmured aloud.

Her own words woke her to a consciousness of ordinary things—­or made her sleep to the eternal.

She closed the window and sat down.

A little later the sun came out again, and the various shades of yellow and of orange that played over the wrinkled earth deepened and glowed.  Domini had sunk into a lethargy so complete that, though not asleep, she was scarcely aware of the sun.  She was dreaming of liberty.

Presently the train slackened and stopped.  She heard a loud chattering of many voices and looked out.  The sun was now shining brilliantly, and she saw a station crowded with Arabs in white burnouses, who were vociferously greeting friends in the train, were offering enormous oranges for sale to the passengers, or were walking up and down gazing curiously into the carriages, with the unblinking determination and indifference to a return of scrutiny which she had already noticed and thought animal.  A guard came up, told her the place was El-Akbara, and that the train would stay there ten minutes to wait for the train from Beni-Mora.  She decided to get out and stretch her cramped limbs.  On the platform she found Suzanne, looking like a person who had just been slapped.  One side of the maid’s face was flushed and covered with a faint tracery of tiny lines.  The other was greyish white.  Sleep hung in her eyes, over which the lids drooped as if they were partially paralysed.  Her fingers were yellow from peeling an orange, and her smart little hat was cocked on one side.  There were grains of sand on her black gown, and when she saw her mistress she at once began to compress her lips, and to assume the expression of obstinate patience characteristic of properly-brought-up servants who find themselves travelling far from home in outlandish places.

“Have you been asleep, Suzanne?”

“No, Mam’zelle.”

“You’ve had an orange?”