influences, sculpture excepted. Of the other
arts Owen felt instinctively that Beclere knew nothing; indeed,
yester evening, when he, Owen, had spoken of "The Ring," Beclere had
answered that his business in life had not allowed him to cultivate
musical tastes. He had once liked music, but now it interested him
no longer.

"Tastes atrophy."

"Of course they do," Owen had answered, and Beclere's knowledge of
himself propitiated Owen, who recognised a clever man in the remark,
a man of many sympathies, though the exterior was prosaic. All the
same Owen would have wished for some music in the evening, and for
some musical assistance, for while waiting for the eagles to arrive
he spent his time thinking how he might write the songs he heard
every morning among the palm-trees; written down they did not seem
nearly as original as they did on the lips, and Owen suspected his
notation to be deficient. A more skilful musician would be able to
get more of these rhythms on paper than he had been able to do, and
he regretted his failures, for it would be interesting to bring home
some copies of these songs just to show...

But he would never see her again, so what was the good of writing
down these songs? What was the good of anything? A strange thing
life is, and he paused to consider how the slightest event, the fact
that he was unable to give complete expression on paper to an Arab
rhythm, brought the old pain back again, and every pang of it. Even
the society of Beclere was answerable for his suffering, and he
thought how he must go away and travel again; only open solitude and
wandering with rough men could still his pain; primitive Nature was
the one balm.... That fellow Tahar--why did he delay? Owen thought
of the eagles, the awful bird pursuing the fleeting deer, and
himself riding in pursuit. This was the life that would cure him--
how soon? In three months? in six? in ten years? It would be strange
if he were to become a bedouin for love of her, and he walked on
thinking how they had lain together one night listening to the
silence, hearing nothing but an acacia moving outside their window.
Beclere was coming towards him and the vision vanished.

"No news of Tahar yet?"

"No; you are forgetting that we are living in an oasis, where letters
are not delivered, and where we bring news of ourselves, and where
no news is understood to mean that the spring we were hastening
towards was dry, or that a sand-storm--"

"S