III
"I meant to tell him yesterday, Jim," said the girl, in an undertone, glancing with almost maternal solicitude at her father, who was writing within, his grey, somewhat bald head shining out in the light of the lamp by which he was working, against the intense shadowy darkness of the tent walls, "but that disappointment about the lost city, wasn't, so to say, propitious. And to-day there was that letter from Hausmann about the coin somebody has discovered, which has quite upset him. Poor father," she added, turning to her lover again, "it will be hard on him. Did you notice how he said it was but fifteen years ..."
She broke off and looked out into the night. The stars were showing overhead through the fine fret of the kikar trees, though the horizon still held a hint of the day that was dead. Against this paler background she fancied she could see--itself a shadow, yet half hidden by shadow--that curving dome as of a new world forcing its way through the crust of the old, or an old one through the new.
"It was odd about those photographs, wasn't it?" she said, irrelevantly. "He must be five years older than I am."
"His age is honoured by the comparison."
"My dear Jim," she interrupted, opening her eyes, "this unfortunate goatherd seems----"
"I said he was fortunate, I think. But I admit hating things I don't quite understand."
"Then you must hate me--now don't be angry," she added: "I mean no blame. I very often don't understand myself."
"I know that--and that is why I want this business settled and clear--you--you seem so far off sometimes."
There was a passion in his voice; he stretched his hands out to her as she stood apart, her filmy dinner dress looking ghostly and elusive seen half in the dark, half by the feeble light from within the tent.