“Batouch!” he called out sharply. “Batouch!”
Batouch stopped laughing, glanced round, then came towards him with a large pace, swinging from his hips.
“Monsieur?”
“Batouch!” Androvsky said.
But he could not go on. He could not say anything about the two tents to a servant.
“Where—where is Madame?” he said almost stammering.
“Out there, Monsieur.”
With a sweeping arm the poet pointed towards a hump of sand crowned by a few palms. Domini was sitting there, surrounded by Arab children, to whom she was giving sweets out of a box. As Androvsky saw her the anger in him burnt up more fiercely. This action of Domini’s, simple, natural though it was, seemed to him in his present condition cruelly heartless. He thought of her giving the order about the tents and then going calmly to play with these children, while he—while he——
“You can go, Batouch,” he said. “Go away.”
The poet stared at him with a superb surprise, then moved slowly towards Ouardi, holding his burnous with his large hands.