y is a compromise,
for no one can be free to obey every impulse the moment one enters
into his being.

"Good God, Beclere! it is terrible to think one knows nothing, and
life, like the desert, is full of solitude."

Beclere did not answer, and, forgetful that it was impossible to
answer a cry of anguish, Owen began to suspect Beclere of thoughts
regarding the perfectibility of mankind, of thinking that with
patience and more perfect administration, &c. But Beclere was
thinking nothing of the kind; he was wondering what sort of reason
could have sent Owen out of England. Some desperate love affair
perhaps, his wife may have run away from him. But he did not try to
draw Owen into confidence, speaking instead of falconry and Tahar's
arrival, which could not be much longer delayed.

"After all, if you had not missed him in the desert we never should
have known each other."

"So much was gained, and if you ever come to England--" Beclere
smiled. "So you think we shall never meet again, and that we are
talking out our last talk on the edge of this gulf of sand?"

"We shall meet again if you come to the desert to hunt with eagles."

"But you will not come to England?" Beclere did not think it
necessary to answer. "But in France? You will return to France some
day?"

"Why should I? Whom do I know in France? _Je ne suis plus un des
votres. Qu'irais-je y faire?_ But we are not talking for the last
time, Tahar has yet to arrive, he will be here to-morrow and we'll
go hunting; and after our hunting I hope to induce you to stop some
while longer. You see, you haven't seen the desert; the desert isn't
the desert in spring. To see the desert you will have to stop till
July. This sea of sand will then be a ring of fire, and that sky,
now so mild, will be dark blue and the sun will hang like a furnace
in the midst of it. Stay here even till May and you will see the
summer, _chez lui_."

X

At the beginning of July Owen appeared on the frontiers of Egypt
shrieking for a drink of clean water, and saying that the desire to
drink clean water out of a glass represented everything he had to
say for the moment about the desert; all the same, he continued to
tell of fetid, stale, putrid wells, and of the haunting terror with
which the Saharian starts in the morning lest he should find no
water at the nearest watering-place, only a green scum fouled by the
staling of horses and mules I Owen was as plain-spoken as
Shakespeare, s