She thought of the falling of the wind when the Sahara took them, and knew that her love of the silence was intense. Nevertheless, to-night the other part of her was in the ascendant. She wanted him to share it. He did not. Could she provoke him to share it?
“Yet, as we rode in, I had a feeling that the heart of the desert was here,” she said. “You know I said so.”
“Do you say so still?”
“The heart, Boris, is the centre of life, isn’t it?”
He was silent. She felt his inner feeling fighting hers.
“To-night,” she said, putting her arm through his, and looking towards the city. “I feel a tremendous sympathy with human life such as I never felt before. Boris, it comes to me from you. Yes, it does. It is born of my love for you, and seems to link me, and you with me, to all these strangers, to all men and women, to everything that lives. It is as if I was not quite human before, and my love for you had made me completely human, had done something to me that even—even my love for God had not been able to do.”
She lowered her voice at the last words. After a moment she added:
“Perhaps in isolation, even with you, I could not come to completeness. Perhaps you could not in isolation even with me. Boris, I think it’s good for us to be in the midst of life for a time.”
“You wish to remain here, Domini?”
“Yes, for a time.”