In his youth he had wearied of women as a child wearies of toys. Few women had outlasted the pleasure of a night, all becoming equally insipid and tedious; but since he had met Evelyn he had loved no other. Why did he love her? How was it he could not put her out of his mind? Why couldn't he accept an Arab girl—Béclère's girl? She was younger and more beautiful. If she did not belong to Béclère— Owen looked up and watched them, and seeing Béclère glance in the direction of the shepherd, he added, "Or to the shepherd."
The girl went into the house, and Béclère came down to meet his guest, apologising for having left him so long alone…. He talked to him about the beauty of the morning. The rains were over, or nearly, but very often they began again.
"Cella se pent qu'elle ne soit qu'une courte embellie, mais profitons en," and they turned to admire the roses.
"A beautiful girl, the one you were just speaking to."
"Yes… yes; she is the handsomest in the oasis, and there are many handsome girls here. The Arab race is beautiful, male and female. Her brother, for instance, the shepherd—"
"Her brother," Owen thought. "Ah!" They stopped to watch the shepherd, a boy of sixteen. "About two years older than his sister," Owen remarked, and Béclère acquiesced. The boy had begun to play his flute again. He played at first listlessly, then with all his soul, and then with extraordinary passion. Owen watched the balance of his body and arms, and the movement, extraordinarily voluptuous, of his neck and head. He played on, his breath coming at times so feebly that there was hardly any sound at all, at other times awaking music loud and imperative; and the two men stood listening, for how many minutes they did not know, but for what seemed to them a long while. Their reverie stopped when the music ceased. It was then that a dun-coloured dove with a lilac neck flew through the garden and took refuge in a palm, seen for a moment as she alighted on the flexible djerrid on a background of blue air. She disappeared into the heart of the tree; the leaves were again stirred. She cooed once or twice, and then there was a hush and a stillness in every leaf.
"You would like to see my property?"
Owen said he would like to see all the oasis, or as much as they could see of it in one day without fatiguing themselves.
"You can see it all in a day, for it is but a small island, about a thousand Arabs in the villages."
"So many as that?"