“I will wait here for Madame.”
Domini nodded. A leaf of wood was pulled back softly in the gate, and she stepped into the garden and confronted a graceful young Arab dressed in pale green, who saluted her respectfully and gently closed the door.
“May I walk about the garden a little?” she asked.
She did not look round her yet, for the Arab’s face interested and even charmed her. It was aristocratic, enchantingly indolent, like the face of a happy lotus-eater. The great, lustrous eyes were tender as a gazelle’s and thoughtless as the eyes of a sleepy child. His perfectly-shaped feet were bare on the shining sand. In one hand he held a large red rose and in the other a half-smoked cigarette.
Domini could not kelp smiling at him as she put her question, and he smiled contentedly back at her as he answered, in a low, level voice:
“You can go where you will. Shall I show you the paths?”
He lifted his hand and calmly smelt his red rose, keeping his great eyes fixed upon her. Domini’s wish to be alone had left her. This was surely the geni of the garden, and his company would add to its mystery and fragrance.
“You need not stay by the door?” she asked.
“No one will come. There is no one in Beni-Mora. And Hassan will stay.”
He pointed with his rose to a little tent that was pitched close to the gate beneath a pepper tree. In it Domini saw a brown boy curled up like a dog and fast asleep. She began to feel as if she had eaten hashish. The world seemed made for dreaming.