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It returned and swept about the narrow streets, eddying at the corners, beating upon the palmwood doors, behind which the painted dancing-girls were cowering, cold under their pigments and their heavy jewels, their red hands trembling and clasping one another, clamouring about the minarets of the mosques on which the frightened doves were sheltering, shaking the fences that shut in the gazelles in their pleasaunce, tearing at the great statue of the Cardinal that faced it resolutely, holding up the double cross as if to exorcise it, battering upon the tall, white tower on whose summit Domini had first spoken with Androvsky, raging through the alleys of Count Anteoni's garden, the arcades of his villa, the window-spaces of the fumoir, from whose walls it tore down frantically the purple petals of the bougainvillea and dashed them, like enemies defeated, upon the quivering paths which were made of its own body.
She heard them perhaps most clearly when she wandered in Count Anteoni's garden. He had made her free of it in their first interview. She had ventured to take him at his word, knowing that if he repented she would divine it. He had made her feel that he had not repented.
"Any gown the white linen one I had on yesterday." "Yes, Mam'selle." "No, not that. Any other gown. Is it to be hot?" "Very hot, Mam'selle. There is not a cloud in the sky." "How strange!" Domini said, in a low voice that Suzanne did not hear. When she was up and dressed she said: "I am going out to Count Anteoni's garden. I think I'll yes, I'll take a book with me."
"My husband is in the city," she said. "Yes." "With the priest." She saw an expression of surprise flit over Count Anteoni's face. It went away instantly. "Pere Beret," he said. "He is a cheerful creature and very good to the Arabs." They sat down just inside the shadow of the tent before the door, and he looked out quietly towards the city. "Yes, this is the place," he said.
And she resolved to fix her eyes upon it as he fixed his eyes upon the tower. Just after sunset they rode into Beni-Mora in advance of the camp, which they had passed upon their way. To the right were the trees of Count Anteoni's garden. Domini felt them, but she did not look towards them. Nor did Androvsky. They kept their eyes fixed upon the distance of the white road.
Something that was like a thrill of fear, mental, not physical, went through her, but she kept her eyes steadily on his, as if, despite the fear, she fought against him. The contest of the beggars had become so passionate that Count Anteoni's commands were forgotten. Urged by the pressure from behind those in the front scrambled or fell over the sacred threshold.
Domini fancied his voice echoing along the sands till the worshippers of Allah and of his Prophet heard it like a clarion in Tombouctou. When she reached the great hotel the sun was just beginning to set. She drew Count Anteoni's card from her glove and rang the bell. After a long interval a magnificent man, with the features of an Arab but a skin almost as black as a negro, opened the door.
Larbi had come with his flute and the perfume-seller from his black bazaar. For Domini had bought perfumes from him on her last day in Beni-Mora. Most of Count Anteoni's gardeners had assembled. They looked upon the Roumi lady, who rode magnificently, but who could dream as they dreamed, too, as a friend.
Yet at moments she remembered her inward cry in Count Anteoni's garden, "Oh, what is going to happen to me here?" And then she was dimly conscious that Beni-Mora was the home of many things besides peace. It held warring influences. At one moment it lulled her and she was like an infant rocked in a cradle.
Why did he seem to become almost a different human being directly he was brought into any close contact with his kind? Was it shyness? Had he a profound hatred of all society? She remembered Count Anteoni's luncheon and the distress Androvsky had caused her by his cold embarrassment, his unwillingness to join in conversation on that occasion. But then he was only her friend.
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