She laughed.
“If I were ever inclined to tell you a lie,” she said, “I should not dare to. Your mind penetrates mine too deeply.”
“You could not tell me a lie.”
“Do you hear the dogs barking?” she said, after a moment. “They are among those tents that are like flies on the sands around the city. That is the tribe of the Ouled Nails I suppose. Batouch says they camp here. What multitudes of tents! Those are the suburbs of Amara. I would rather live in them than in the suburbs of London. Oh, how far away we are, as if we were at the end of the world!”
Either her last words, or her previous change of manner to a lighter cheerfulness, almost a briskness, seemed to rouse Androvsky to a greater confidence, even to anticipation of possible pleasure.
“Yes. After all it is only the desert men who are here. Amara is their Metropolis, and in it we shall only see their life.”
His horse plunged. He had touched it sharply with his heel.
“I believe you hate the thought of civilisation,” she exclaimed.
“And you?”
“I never think of it. I feel almost as if I had never known it, and could never know it.”