“Perhaps we had better stay here,” she said to Androvsky.
Her voice, too, was low and tired. In her heart something seemed to say, “Do not strive any more. In the garden it was finished. Already you are face to face with the end.”
When she was alone in her small bedroom, which was full of the noises of the street, and had washed and put on another dress, she began to realise how much she had secretly been counting on one more evening alone with Androvsky. She had imagined herself dining with him in their sitting-room unwatched, sitting together afterwards, for an hour or two, in silence perhaps, but at least alone. She had imagined a last solitude with him with the darkness of the African night around them. She had counted upon that. She realised it now. Her whole heart and soul had been asking for that, believing that at least that would be granted to her. But it was not to be. She must go down with him into a crowd of American tourists, must—her heart sickened. It seemed to her for a moment that if only she could have this one more evening quietly with the man she loved she could brace herself to bear anything afterwards, but that if she could not have it she must break down. She felt desperate.
A gong sounded below. She did not move, though she heard it, knew what it meant. After a few minutes there was a tap at the door.
“What is it?” she said.
“Dinner is ready, Madame,” said a voice in English with a strong foreign accent.
Domini went to the door and opened it.
“Does Monsieur know?”
“Monsieur is already in the hall waiting for Madame.”
She went down and found Androvsky.