They dined at a small table in a room fiercely lit up with electric light and restless with revolving fans. Close to them, at an immense table decorated with flowers, dined the American tourists. The women wore hats with large hanging veils. The men were in travelling suits. They looked sunburnt and gay, and talked and laughed with an intense vivacity. Afterwards they were going in a body to see the dances of the Almees. Androvsky shot one glance at them as he came in, then looked away quickly. The lines near his mouth deepened. For a moment he shut his eyes. Domini did not speak to him, did not attempt to talk. Enveloped by the nasal uproar of the gay tourists they ate in silence. When the short meal was over they got up and went out into the hall. The public drawing-room opened out of it on the left. They looked into it and saw red plush settees, a large centre table covered with a rummage of newspapers, a Jew with a bald head writing a letter, and two old German ladies with caps drinking coffee and knitting stockings.
“The desert!” Androvsky whispered.
Suddenly he drew away from the door and walked out into the street. Lines of carriages stood there waiting to be hired. He beckoned to one, a victoria with a pair of small Arab horses. When it was in front of the hotel he said to Domini:
“Will you get in, Domini?”
She obeyed. Androvsky said to the mettse driver:
“Drive to the Belvedere. Drive round the park till I tell you to return.”
The man whipped his horses, and they rattled down the broad street, past the brilliantly-lighted cafés, the Cercle Militaire, the palace of the Resident, where Zouaves were standing, turned to the left and were soon out on a road where a tram line stretched between villas, waste ground and flat fields. In front of them rose a hill with a darkness of trees scattered over it. They reached it, and began to mount it slowly. The lights of the city shone below them. Domini saw great sloping lawns dotted with streets and by trees. Scents of hidden flowers came to her in the night, and she heard a whirr of insects. Still they mounted, and presently reached the top of the hill.
“Stop!” said Androvsky to the driver.
He drew up his horses.
“Wait for us here.”