Just at first fatigue was heavy upon him, but the hot soup, the first glass of wine revived him.  When Domini, full of her secret obstinacy, began to talk gaily he was soon able easily to take his part, and to join her in her effort to include Androvsky in the conversation.  The cheerful noise of the camp came to them from without.

“I’m afraid my men are lifting up their voices rather loudly,” said De Trevignac.

“We like it,” said Domini.  “Don’t we, Boris?”

There was a long peal of laughter from the distance.  As it died away Batouch’s peculiar guttural chuckle, which had something negroid in it, was audible, prolonging itself in a loneliness that spoke his pertinacious sense of humour.

“Certainly,” said Androvsky, still in the same strained and unnatural voice which had surprised Domini when she introduced the two men.  “We are accustomed to gaiety round the camp fire.”

“You are making a long stay in the desert, Monsieur?” asked De Trevignac.

“I hope so, Monsieur.  It depends on my—­it depends on Madame Androvsky.”

“Why didn’t he say ’my wife’?” thought De Trevignac.  And again he searched his memory.  “Had he ever met this man?  If so, where?”

“I should like to stay in the desert for ever,” Domini said quickly, with a long look at her husband.

“I should not, Madame,” De Trevignac said.

“I understand.  The desert has shown you its terrors.”

“Indeed it has.”

“But to us it has only shown its enchantment.  Hasn’t it?” She spoke to Androvsky.  After a pause he replied: 

“Yes.”

The word, when it came, sounded like a lie.

For the first time since her marriage Domini felt a cold, like a cold of ice about her heart.  Was it possible that Androvsky had not shared her joy in the desert?  Had she been alone in her happiness?  For a moment she sat like one stunned by a blow.  Then knowledge, reason, spoke in her.  She knew of Androvsky’s happiness with her, knew it absolutely.  There are some things in which a woman cannot be deceived.  When Androvsky was with her he wanted no other human being.  Nothing could take that certainty from her.

“Of course,” she said, recovered, “there are places in the desert in which melancholy seems to brood, in which one has a sense of the terrors of the wastes.  Mogar, I think, is one of them, perhaps the only one we have been in yet.  This evening, when I was sitting under the tower, even I”—­and as she said “even I” she smiled happily at Androvsky—­“knew some forebodings.”

“Forebodings?” Androvsky said quickly.  “Why should you—?” He broke off.

“Not of coming misfortune, I hope, Madame?” said De Trevignac in a voice that was now irresistibly cheerful.

He was helping himself to some gazelle, which sent forth an appetising odour, and Ouardi was proudly pouring out for him the first glass of blithely winking champagne.