Domini glanced at Androvsky, who stood with his head bent down, looking on the ground.

“Shall we try another hotel?” she asked.

“If you wish,” he answered in a low voice.

“It would be useless, Madame,” said the proprietor.  “All the hotels are full.  In the others you will not find even a bedroom.”

“Perhaps we had better stay here,” she said to Androvsky.

Her voice, too, was low and tired.  In her heart something seemed to say, “Do not strive any more.  In the garden it was finished.  Already you are face to face with the end.”

When she was alone in her small bedroom, which was full of the noises of the street, and had washed and put on another dress, she began to realise how much she had secretly been counting on one more evening alone with Androvsky.  She had imagined herself dining with him in their sitting-room unwatched, sitting together afterwards, for an hour or two, in silence perhaps, but at least alone.  She had imagined a last solitude with him with the darkness of the African night around them.  She had counted upon that.  She realised it now.  Her whole heart and soul had been asking for that, believing that at least that would be granted to her.  But it was not to be.  She must go down with him into a crowd of American tourists, must—­her heart sickened.  It seemed to her for a moment that if only she could have this one more evening quietly with the man she loved she could brace herself to bear anything afterwards, but that if she could not have it she must break down.  She felt desperate.

A gong sounded below.  She did not move, though she heard it, knew what it meant.  After a few minutes there was a tap at the door.

“What is it?” she said.

“Dinner is ready, Madame,” said a voice in English with a strong foreign accent.

Domini went to the door and opened it.

“Does Monsieur know?”

“Monsieur is already in the hall waiting for Madame.”

She went down and found Androvsky.

They dined at a small table in a room fiercely lit up with electric light and restless with revolving fans.  Close to them, at an immense table decorated with flowers, dined the American tourists.  The women wore hats with large hanging veils.  The men were in travelling suits.  They looked sunburnt and gay, and talked and laughed with an intense vivacity.  Afterwards they were going in a body to see the dances of the Almees.  Androvsky shot one glance at them as he came in, then looked away quickly.  The lines near his mouth deepened.  For a moment he shut his eyes.  Domini did not speak to him, did not attempt to talk.  Enveloped by the nasal uproar of the gay tourists they ate in silence.  When the short meal was over they got up and went out into the hall.  The public drawing-room opened out of it on the left.  They looked into it and saw red plush settees, a large centre table covered with a rummage of newspapers, a Jew with a bald head writing a letter, and two old German ladies with caps drinking coffee and knitting stockings.