That was why her entry into the desert had been full of such extraordinary significance. This man and the desert were, had always been, as one in her mind. Never had she thought of the one without the other. Never had she been mysteriously called by the desert without hearing as a far-off echo the voice of Androvsky, or been drawn onward by the mystical summons of the blue distances without being drawn onward, too, by the mystical summons of the heart to which her own responded. The link between the man and the desert was indissoluble.
She could not conceive of its being severed, and as she realised this, she realised also something that turned her whole nature into flame.
She could not conceive of Androvsky's not loving her, of his not having loved her from the moment when he saw her in the sun. To him, too, the desert had made a revelation--the revelation of her face, and of the soul behind it looking through it. In the flames of the sun, as they went into the desert, the flames of their two spirits had been blended. She knew that certainly and for ever. Then how could it be possible that Androvsky should not go out with her into the desert?
"Why did you speak to me?" he said.
"We came into the desert together," she answered simply. "We had to know each other."
"And now--now--we have to say----"
His voice ceased. Far away there was the thin sound of a chime. Domini had never before heard the church bell in the garden, and now she felt as if she heard it, not with her ears, but with her spirit. As she heard she felt Androvsky's hand, which had been hot upon hers, turn cold. He let her hand go, and again she was stricken by the horrible sound she had heard the previous night in the desert, when he turned his horse and rode away with her. And now, as then, he turned away from her in silence, but she knew that this time he was leaving her, that this movement was his final good-bye. With his head bowed down he took a few steps. He was near to a turning of the path. She watched him, knowing that within less than a moment she would be watching only the trees and the sand. She gazed at the bent figure, calling up all her faculties, crying out to herself passionately, desperately, "Remember it--remember it as it is--there--before you--just as it is-- for ever." As it reached the turning, in the distance of the garden rose the twitter of the flute of Larbi. Androvsky stopped, stood still with his back turned towards her. And Larbi, hidden and far off, showered out his little notes of African love, of love in the desert where the sun is everlasting, and the passion of man is hot as the sun, where Liberty reigns, lifting her cymbals that are as spheres of fire, and the footsteps of Freedom are heard upon the sand, treading towards the south.
Larbi played--played on and on, untiring as the love that blossomed with the world, but that will not die when the world dies.
Then Androvsky came back quickly till he reached the place where Domini was standing. He put his hands on her shoulders. Then he sank down on the sand, letting his hands slip down over her breast and along her whole body till they clasped themselves round her knees. He pressed his face into her dress against her knees.
"I love you," he said. "I love you but don't listen to me--you mustn't hear it--you mustn't. But I must say it. I can't--I can't go till I say it. I love you--I love you."
She heard him sobbing against her knees, and the sound was as the sound of strength made audible. She put her hands against his temples.
"I am listening," she said. "I must hear it."
He looked up, rose to his feet, put his hands behind her shoulders, held her, and set his lips on hers, pressing his whole body against hers.
"Hear it!" he said, muttering against her lips. "Hear it. I love you--I love you."
The two birds they had seen flew back beneath the trees, turned in an airy circle, rose above the trees into the blue sky, and, side by side, winged their way out of the garden to the desert.
