“Monsieur the Count paid much money for the dog,” murmured Smain.  “He is very valuable.”

“How long has he been there?”

“For many years.  He was there when I was born, and I have been married twice and divorced twice.”

Domini turned from the window and looked at Smain with astonishment.  He was smelling his rose like a dreamy child.

“You have been divorced twice?”

“Yes.  Now I will show Madame the smoking-room.”

They followed another of the innumerable alleys of the garden.  This one was very narrow and less densely roofed with trees than those they had already traversed.  Tall shrubs bent forward on either side of it, and their small leaves almost meeting, were transformed by the radiant sunbeams into tongues of pale fire, quivering, well nigh transparent.  As she approached them Domini could not resist the fancy that they would burn her.  A brown butterfly flitted forward between them and vanished into the golden dream beyond.

“Oh, Smain, how you must love this garden!” she said.

A sort of ecstasy was waking within her.  The pure air, the caressing warmth, the enchanted stillness and privacy of this domain touched her soul and body like the hands of a saint with power to bless her.

“I could live here for ever,” she added, “without once wishing to go out into the world.”

Smain looked drowsily pleased.

“We are coming to the centre of the garden,” he said, as they passed over a palm-wood bridge beneath which a stream glided under the red petals of geraniums.

The tongues of flame were left behind.  Green darkness closed in upon them and the sand beneath their feet looked blanched.  The sense of mystery increased, for the trees were enormous and grew densely here.  Pine needles lay upon the ground, and there was a stirring of sudden wind far up above their heads in the tree-tops.

“This is the part of the garden that Monsieur the Count loves,” said Smain.  “He comes here every day.”

“What is that?” said Domini, suddenly stopping on the pale sand.

A thin and remote sound stole to them down the alley, clear and frail as the note of a night bird.

“It is Larbi playing upon the flute.  He is in love.  That is why he plays when he ought to be watering the flowers and raking out the sand.”

The distant love-song of the flute seemed to Domini the last touch of enchantment making this indeed a wonderland.  She could not move, and held up her hands to stay the feet of Smain, who was quite content to wait.  Never before had she heard any music that seemed to mean and suggest so much to her as this African tune played by an enamoured gardener.  Queer and uncouth as it was, distorted with ornaments and tricked out with abrupt runs, exquisitely unnecessary grace notes, and sudden twitterings prolonged till a strange and frivolous Eternity tripped in to banish Time, it grasped Domini’s fancy and laid a spell