“If you will allow me.”
“When?”
“I—” she heard the odd, upward grating in his voice which she remembered so well. “May I come now if you are riding to the tents?”
“Please do.”
“I will explain to the marabout and follow you.”
“But the way? Shall Batouch—?”
“No, it is not necessary.”
She rode away. When she reached the camp she found that Androvsky had not yet returned, and she was glad. She wanted to talk to Count Anteoni alone. Within a few minutes she saw him coming towards the tent. His beard and his Arab dress so altered him that at a short distance she could not recognise him, could only guess that it was he. But directly he was near, and she saw his eyes, she forgot that he was altered, and felt that she was with her kind and whimsical host of the garden.
“My husband is in the city,” she said.
“Yes.”