lake. While she had been with Baroudi the sky
had partially cleared. Above the tents and the blazing fire some stars
shone out benignly. A stillness and a pellucid clearness that were full
of remote romance were making the vast desert their sacred possession.
The aspect of the camp had changed. It was no longer a lurid and
mysterious assemblage of men, animals, and tents, half revealed in the
light of blown flames, half concealed by the black mantle of night, but
a tranquil and restful picture of comfort and of repose, full of the
quiet detail of feeding beasts, and men smoking, sleeping, or huddling
together to tell the everlasting stories and play the games of draughts
that the Arabs love so well.

But blackness and gusty storm were within her, and made the vision of
this desert place, governed by the huge calm of the immersing night in
this deep hour of rest, almost stupefying by its contrast with herself.

Baroudi had gone out first to speak with Ibrahim. She saw him, made
unusually large and imposing by the ample robes he wore, the innumerable
folds of muslin round his head, stride slowly across the sand and mingle
with his attendants, who all rose up as he joined them. For a moment she
stood quite still just beyond the shadow of the tent.

The exquisitely cool air touched her, to make her know that she was on
fire. The exquisite clearness fell around her, to make her realize the
misty confusion of her soul. She trembled as she stood there. Not only
her body, but her whole nature was quivering.

And then she heard again the player upon the lute, and she saw a faint
ray of light upon the sand by the tent she had not entered. She buttoned
her fur jacket, twisted her gloves in her hands, and looked towards the
ray. There was a hard throbbing in her temples, and just beneath her
shoulders there came a sudden shock of cold, that was like the cold of
menthol. She looked again at the camp fire; then she stole over the
sand, set her feet on the ray, and waited.

For the first time she realized that she was afraid of Baroudi, that she
would shrink from offending him almost as a dog shrinks from offending
its master. But would it anger him if she saw the lute-player? He had
not taken the trouble to silence that music. He treated women _de haut
en bas_. That was part of his fascination for them--at any rate, for
her. What would he care if she knew he had a woman with him in the camp,
if she saw the woman?

And even if