“It is very kind of you.”
The way in which the change of companion had been effected made it seem a pleasant, inevitable courtesy, which neither implied nor demanded anything.
“This is my little retreat,” Count Anteoni continued, standing aside from the doorway that Domini might enter.
She drew a long breath when she was within.
The floor was of fine sand, beaten flat and hard, and strewn with Eastern rugs of faint and delicate hues, dim greens and faded rose colours, grey-blues and misty topaz yellows. Round the white walls ran broad divans, also white, covered with prayer rugs from Bagdad, and large cushions, elaborately worked in dull gold and silver thread, with patterns of ibises and flamingoes in flight. In the four angles of the room stood four tiny smoking-tables of rough palm wood, holding hammered ash-trays of bronze, green bronze torches for the lighting of cigarettes, and vases of Chinese dragon china filled with velvety red roses, gardenias and sprigs of orange blossom. Leather footstools, covered with Tunisian thread-work, lay beside them. From the arches of the window-spaces hung old Moorish lamps of copper, fitted with small panes of dull jewelled glass, such as may be seen in venerable church windows. In a round copper brazier, set on one of the window-seats, incense twigs were drowsily burning and giving out thin, dwarf columns of scented smoke. Through the archways and the narrow doorway the dense walls of leafage were visible standing on guard about this airy hermitage, and the hot purple blossoms of the bougainvillea shed a cloud of colour through the bosky dimness.
And still the flute of Larbi showered soft, clear, whimsical music from some hidden place close by.
Domini looked at her host, who was standing by the doorway, leaning one arm against the ivory-white wall.
“This is my first day in Africa,” she said simply. “You may imagine what I think of your garden, what I feel in it. I needn’t tell you. Indeed, I am sure the travellers you so kindly let in must often have worried you with their raptures.”
“No,” he answered, with a still gravity which yet suggested kindness, “for I leave nearly always before the travellers come. That sounds a little rude? But you would not be in Beni-Mora at this season, Madame, if it could include you.”
“I have come here for peace,” Domini replied simply.