The Garden of Allah Part 17

The maid shut the drawer and turned round, fixing her shallow, blue-grey eyes on her mistress, and standing as if she were ready to be photographed.

"Would you say that I am the same sort of person to-day as I was three years ago?"

Suzanne looked like a cat that has been startled by a sudden noise.

"The same, Mam'zelle?"

"Yes. Do you think I have altered in that time?"

Suzanne considered the question with her head slightly on one side.

"Only here, Mam'zelle," she replied at length.

"Here!" said Domini, rather eagerly. "Why, I have only been here twenty-six hours."

"That is true. But Mam'zelle looks as if she had a little life here, a little emotion. Mon Dieu! Mam'zelle will pardon me, but what is a woman who feels no emotion? A packet. Is it not so, Mam'zelle?"

"Well, but what is there to be emotional about here?"

Suzanne looked vaguely crafty.

"Who knows, Mam'zelle? Who can say? Mon Dieu! This village is dull, but it is odd. No band plays. There are no shops for a girl to look into.

There is nothing chic except the costumes of the Zouaves. But one cannot deny that it is odd. When Mam'zelle was away this afternoon in the tower Monsieur Helmuth--"

"Who is that?"

"The Monsieur who accompanies the omnibus to the station. Monsieur Helmuth was polite enough to escort me through the village. Mon Dieu, Mam'zelle, I said to myself, 'Anything might occur here.'"

"Anything! What do you mean?"

But Suzanne did not seem to know. She only made her figure look more tense than ever, tucked in her round little chin, which was dimpled and unmeaning, and said:

"Who knows, Mam'zelle? This village is dull, that is true, but it is odd. One does not find oneself in such places every day."

Domini could not help laughing at these Delphic utterances, but she went downstairs thoughtfully. She knew Suzanne's practical spirit. Till now the maid had never shown any capacity of imagination. Beni-Mora was certainly beginning to mould her nature into a slightly different shape.

And Domini seemed to see an Eastern potter at work, squatting in the sun and with long and delicate fingers changing the outline of the statuette of a woman, modifying a curve here, an angle there, till the clay began to show another woman, but with, as it were, the shadow of the former one lurking behind the new personality.

The stranger was not at dinner. His table was laid and Domini sat expecting each moment to hear the shuffling tread of his heavy boots on the wooden floor. When he did not come she thought she was glad. After dinner she spoke for a moment to the priest and then went upstairs to the verandah to take coffee. She found Batouch there. He had renounced his determined air, and his _cafe-au-lait_ countenance and huge body expressed enduring pathos, as of an injured, patient creature laid out for the trampling of Domini's cruel feet.

"Well?" she said, sitting down by the basket table.

"Well, Madame?"

He sighed and looked on the ground, lifted one white-socked foot, removed its yellow slipper, shook out a tiny stone from the slipper and put it on again, slowly, gracefully and very sadly. Then he pulled the white sock up with both hands and glanced at Domini out of the corners of his eyes.

"What's the matter?"

"Madame does not care to see the dances of Beni-Mora, to hear the music, to listen to the story-teller, to enter the cafe of El Hadj where Achmed sings to the keef smokers, or to witness the beautiful religious ecstasies of the dervishes from Oumach. Therefore I come to bid Madame respectfully goodnight and to take my departure."

He threw his burnous over his left shoulder with a sudden gesture of despair that was full of exaggeration. Domini smiled.

"You've been very good to-day," she said.

"I am always good, Madame. I am of a serious disposition. Not one keeps Ramadan as I do."

"I am sure of it. Go downstairs and wait for me under the arcade."

Batouch's large face became suddenly a rendezvous of all the gaieties.

"Madame is coming out to-night?"

"Presently. Be in the arcade."

He swept away with the ample magnificence of joyous bearing and movement that was like a loud Te Deum.

"Suzanne! Suzanne!"

Domini had finished her coffee.

"Mam'zelle!" answered Suzanne, appearing.

"Would you like to come out with me to-night?"

"Mam'zelle is going out?"

"Yes, to see the village by night."

Suzanne looked irresolute. Craven fear and curiosity fought a battle within her, as was evident by the expressions that came and went in her face before she answered.

"Shall we not be murdered, Mam'zelle, and are there interesting things to see?"

"There are interesting things to see--dancers, singers, keef smokers.

But if you are afraid don't come."

"Dancers, Mam'zelle! But the Arabs carry knives. And is there singing?

I--I should not like Mam'zelle to go without me. But----"

"Come and protect me from the knives then. Bring my jacket--any one. I don't suppose I shall put it on."

As she spoke the distant tomtoms began. Suzanne started nervously and looked at Domini with sincere apprehension.

"We had better not go, Mam'zelle. It is not safe out here. Men who make a noise like that would not respect us."

"I like it."

"That sound? But it is always the same and there is no music in it."

"Perhaps there is more in it than music. The jacket?"