ypt.

We lunched, then, at the Palm Tree House and rode back in the cool of
the afternoon to Mogador. We were alone, as we knew the path across the
tongue of desert, and had no need of a guide and the rabble of sore-eyed
urchins who, like their attendant flies, infest the tourist on his
journeyings. On our right the desert rose to meet a near horizon; on our
left sandhills and boulders cut off the view; ahead the shimmering line
beyond which the sea and city lay. We were enveloped by solitude and
stillness. In the clear African air objects detached themselves against
the sky with startling definition.

I had unconsciously ridden a bit ahead of Carlotta, thinking my
own thoughts, and sighing as a man often does sigh, for the vague
unattainable which is happiness. Suddenly I missed her by my side, and
turning round saw a sight that made my heart beat with its sheer beauty.
It was only Carlotta on her barbarically betrapped and besaddled mule.
But it was Carlotta glorified in colour. She held above her head a
cotton parasol, which she had bought to her delight and my disgust
in Mogador; an impossible thing, all deep cherry reds and yellows;
a hateful thing made for a pantomime--or for this African afternoon.
Outspread and luminous in the white sunlight its cherry reds and yellows
floated like translucences of wine above Carlotta's bronze hair crowned
by a white sun hat, her warm flesh-tints, and the dazzling white of her
surah silk blouse; the whole picture cut out vivid against the indigo of
the sky. It was a radiant vision. I stared openmouthed, smitten with
the pang that sudden and transient loveliness can sometimes deal, as
Carlotta approached, her figure swaying with the jog of her barbaric
beast. Her eyes were fixed on mine. She halted, and for a moment we
looked at one another; and in those wonderful eyes I saw for the first
time a beautiful sadness, a spiritual appeal. The moment passed. We
started again, side by side, neither speaking. I did not look at her,
conscious of a vague trouble. Things that I had thought dead stirred in
my heart.

Presently like a dawn of infinite delicacy rose the city before us. Its
fairy minarets and towers gleamed first white in an atmosphere of pale
amethyst toning through shades of green to the blue of the zenith. And
the lazy sea lay at the city's foot a pavement of lapis lazuli. But
all was faint, unreal. Far, far away a group of palms caught opalescent
reflections. A slight br