en our actual meeting was predestined--like our parting."

Once he had encountered a band of Shaambah Arabs, out, like
knights-errant, in quest of any adventure. They had fought him all
afternoon in a desert spotted with gold and purple lilies, the
burnooses flitting in a wide ring as the horses raced through the heat.
Then suddenly they had vanished. The lukewarm water flavored with
goatskin and tar, the draughts of sour camel's milk, had tasted good
after that scrimmage, like a combat in chivalry.

What was it that had driven him into such places, when there had been a
great, rich world of safety? Some fatal desire for regions where
beauty sported more obviously than here the signs of its origins, or
death the mask of beauty?

"Yes, there is a fatality in all our preferences. Is that what the
Arabs mean when they say that our destinies are written on our
foreheads?"

"What is their word for fate?" she inquired of Parr.

"Mektoub."

"Mektoub!" And presently, "Do you speak Arabic?"

"Oh, no, ma'am; but Mr. Teck did, as well as any of 'em."

"Tell me more," she said.

So he took her to the oases. As one drew near, there floated from the
minaret a thin cry, "Allah is great! Allah is great! Allah is great!"
In the house of the sheik, sitting among the hawk-nosed horsemen, they
dipped their right hands into couscous flavored with cinnamon, ate
honey cakes and nougat. In the doorways, beyond the range of the lamp,
there was a soft clashing of bangles, a craning of veiled heads. Then
in the cool of the night they walked to the cafe, where cobwebs hung
from the palmwood rafters, and the raised hearth glowed. Here were the
men drinking coffee infused with rose water, pepper, or mint, smoking
tobacco and hasheesh. And here were the dancing women--"The Pearl,"
"Lips of Pomegranate," "The Star"--their foreheads bearing the tattoo
marks of their tribes, their cheeks and chins smeared with saffron,
their fingernails tinted with henna, their bodies moving convulsively
under rose-colored satin dresses.

But Lilla was no longer listening.

Dusk had covered the windowpanes; the shabby furniture had turned
nebulous. In these shadows Parr heard the words, meditatively
pronounced:

"I think I should like to learn Arabic."

"You, ma'am!"

He gaped at her vague, pearly face, as if she had suggested some
enormity. It was an ugly language, all bubbling and snorting. And a
very hard one to learn!

"A hard one