“There is Beni-Mora, Madame,” said Batouch.

She was glad he spoke to her, turned and followed with her eyes his pointing hand.  Far off she saw a green darkness of palms, and above it a white tower, small, from here, as the tower of a castle of dolls.

“The tower!” she said to Androvsky.  “We first spoke in it.  We must bid it good-bye.”

She made a gesture of farewell towards it.  Androvsky watched the movement of her hand.  She noticed now that she made no movement that he did not observe with a sort of passionate attention.  The desert did not exist for him.  She saw that in his eyes.  He did not look towards the tower even when she repeated: 

“We must—­we owe it that.”

Batouch and Ali were busy spreading a cloth upon the sand, making it firm with little stones, taking out food, plates, knives, glasses, bottles from a great basket slung on one of the camels.  They moved deftly, seriously intent upon their task.  The camel-drivers were loosening the cords that bound the loads upon their beasts, who roared venomously, opening their mouths, showing long decayed teeth, and turning their heads from side to side with a serpentine movement.  Domini and Androvsky were not watched for a moment.

“Why won’t you look?  Why won’t you say good-bye?” she asked, coming nearer to him on the sand softly, with a woman’s longing to hear him explain what she understood.

“What do I care for it, or the palms, or the sky, or the desert?” he answered almost savagely.  “What can I care?  If you were mine behind iron bars in that prison you spoke of—­don’t you think it’s enough for me—­too much—­a cup running over?”

And he added some words under his breath, words she could not hear.

“Not even the desert!” she said with a catch in her voice.

“It’s all in you.  Everything’s in you—­everything that brought us together, that we’ve watched and wanted together.”

“But then,” she said, and now her voice was very quiet, “am I peace for you?”

“Peace!” said Androvsky.

“Yes.  Don’t you remember once I said that there must be peace in the desert.  Then is it in me—­for you?”

“Peace!” he repeated.  “To-day I can’t think of peace, or want it.  Don’t you ask too much of me!  Let me live to-day, live as only a man can who—­let me live with all that is in me to-day—­Domini.  Men ask to die in peace.  Oh, Domini—­Domini!”

His expression was like arms that crushed her, lips that pressed her mouth, a heart that beat on hers.

“Madame est servie!” cried Batouch in a merry voice.

His mistress did not seem to hear him.  He cried again: 

“Madame est servie!”

Then Domini turned round and came to the first meal in the sand.  Two cushions lay beside the cloth upon an Arab quilt of white, red, and orange colour.  Upon the cloth, in vases of rough pottery, stained with designs in purple, were arranged the roses brought by Smain from Count Anteoni’s garden.