“She served them, m’sieu,” he resumed, after clearing his throat. “But I was mostly there, and I don’t see how—but women can always find the way. Well, one day she went to what they call a sand-diviner. She didn’t pretend anything. She told me she wanted to go, and I was ready. I was always ready that she should have any little pleasure. I couldn’t leave the café, so she went off alone to a room he had by the Garden of the Gazelles, at the end of the dancing-street.”
“I know—over the place where they smoke the kief.”
“She didn’t answer, but went and sat down under the arbour, opposite to where they wash the clothes. I followed her, for she looked ill.
“‘Did he read in the sand for you?’ I said.
“‘Yes,’ she said; ‘he did.’
“‘What things did he read?’
“She turned, and looked right at me. ‘That my fate lies in the sand,’ she said—‘and yours, and hers.’
“And she pointed at little Marie, who was playing with a yellow kid we had then just by the door.
“‘What’s that to be afraid of?’ I asked her. ‘Haven’t we come to the desert to make our fortune, and isn’t there sand in the desert?’
“‘Not much by here,’ she said.