“It is wonderful.  Good-bye, Monsieur.  Thank you.”

“But—­let me see you to the gate.  On Fridays——­”

He was turning to Domini when she got up too.

“Don’t you distribute alms on Fridays?” she said.

“How should you know it?”

“I have heard all about you.  But is this the hour?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see the distribution.”

“And we will speed Monsieur Androvsky on his way at the same time.”

She noticed that there was no question in his mind of her going with Androvsky.  Did she mean to go with him?  She had not decided yet.

They walked towards the gate and were soon on the great sweep of sand before the villa.  A murmur of many voices was audible outside in the desert, nasal exclamations, loud guttural cries that sounded angry, the twittering of flutes and the snarl of camels.

“Do you hear my pensioners?” said the Count.  “They are always impatient.”

There was the noise of a tomtom and of a whining shriek.

“That is old Bel Cassem’s announcement of his presence.  He has been living on me for years, the old ruffian, ever since his right eye was gouged out by his rival in the affections of the Marechale of the dancing-girls.  Smain!”

He blew his silver whistle.  Instantly Smain came out of the villa carrying a money-bag.  The Count took it and weighed it in his hand, looking at Domini with the joyous expression still upon his face.

“Have you ever made a thank-offering?” he said.

“No.”

“That tells me something.  Well, to-day I wish to make a thank-offering to the desert.”

“What has it done for you?”

“Who knows?  Who knows?”

He laughed aloud, almost like a boy.  Androvsky glanced at him with a sort of wondering envy.

“And I want you to share in my little distribution,” he added.  “And you, Monsieur, if you don’t mind.  There are moments when—­Open the gate, Smain!”

His ardour was infectious and Domini felt stirred by it to a sudden sense of the joy of life.  She looked at Androvsky, to include him in the rigour of gaiety which swept from the Count to her, and found him staring apprehensively at the Count, who was now loosening the string of the bag.  Smain had reached the gate.  He lifted the bar of wood and opened it.  Instantly a crowd of dark faces and turbaned heads were thrust through the tall aperture, a multitude of dusky hands fluttered frantically, and the cry of eager voices, saluting, begging, calling down blessings, relating troubles, shrieking wants, proclaiming virtues and necessities, rose into an almost deafening uproar.  But not a foot was lifted over the lintel to press the sunlit sand.  The Count’s pensioners might be clamorous, but they knew what they might not do.  As he saw them the wrinkles in his face deepened and his fingers quickened to achieve their purpose.

“My pensioners are very hungry to-day, and, as you see, they don’t mind saying so.  Hark at Bel Cassem!”