The Arab's exaggeratedly short stirrup would have given her
agonies of cramp. She pointed the difference with a laugh of amusement
and drew the man on to speak of his horses. The one Diana was riding
was an unusually fine beast, and had been one of the greatest points in
the guide's favour when he had brought it for her inspection. He was
enthusiastic in its praise, but volubly vague as to its antecedents,
which left Diana with the conviction that the animal had either been
stolen or acquired in some irregular manner and that it would be
tactless to pursue further inquiries. After all it was no business of
hers. It was enough that her trip was to be conducted on the back of a
horse that it was a pleasure to ride and whose vagaries promised to
give interest to what otherwise might have been monotonous. Some of the
horses that she had seen in Biskra had been the veriest jades.
She asked Mustafa Ali about the country through which they were
passing, but he did not seem to have much information that was really
of interest, or what seemed important to him appeared trivial to her,
and he constantly brought the conversation back to Biskra, of which she
was tired, or to Oran, of which she knew nothing. The arrival at a
little oasis where the guide suggested that the midday halt might be
made was opportune. Diana swung to the ground, and, tossing down her
gloves, gave herself a shake. It was hot work riding in the burning sun
and the rest would be delightful. She had a thoroughly healthy
appetite, and superintended the laying out of her lunch with interest.
It was the last time that it would be as daintily packed. Stephens was
an artist with a picnic basket. She was going to miss Stephens. She
finished her lunch quickly, and then, with her back propped against a
palm tree, a cigarette in her mouth, her arms clasped round her knees,
she settled down happily, overlooking the desert. The noontime hush
seemed over everything. Not a breath of wind stirred the tops of the
palms; a lizard on a rock near her was the only living thing she could
see.
She glanced over her shoulder. The men, with their big cloaks
drawn over their heads, were lying asleep, or at any rate appeared to
be so; only Mustafa Ali was on foot, standing at the edge of the oasis,
staring fixedly in the direction in which they would ride later.
Diana threw the end of her cigarette at the lizard and laughed at its
precipitant flight. She had no desire to follow the example of her
escort and sleep. She was much too happy to lose a minute of her
enjoyment by wasting it in rest that she did not require. She was
perfectly content and satisfied with herself and her outlook. She had
not a care or a thought in the world. There was not a thing that she
would have changed or altered. Her life had always been happy; she had
extracted the last ounce of pleasure out of every moment of it. That
her happiness was due to the wealth that had enabled her to indulge in
the sports and constant travel that made up the sum total of her
desires never occurred to her. That what composed her pleasure in life
was possible only because she was rich enough to buy the means of
gratifying it did not enter her head. She thought of her wealth no more
than of her beauty. The business connected with her coming of age, when
the big fortune left to her by her father passed unreservedly into her
own hands, was a wearisome necessity that had been got through as
expeditiously as possible, with as little attention to detail as the
old family lawyer had allowed, and an absence of interest that was
evidenced in the careless scrawl she attached to each document that was
given her to sign.