Mrs. Armine got down before the house, which was painted a very faint pink, through which white seemed trying to break. It had only one storey. A door of palm-wood in the façade was approached by two short flights of steps, descending on the right and left of a small terrace. At this door Baroudi now appeared, dressed in a suit of flannel, wearing the tarbush, and holding in his hand a great palm-leaf fan. Hamza led away the donkey, going round to the back of the house. Ibrahim followed him. Mrs. Armine went slowly up the steps and joined Baroudi on the terrace.
He did not speak, and she stood by his side in silence for a moment, looking into the orange-grove. The world seemed planted with the beautiful little trees, the almost meretricious, carefully nurtured, and pampered belles of their tribe. And their aspect of artificiality, completely--indeed, quite wonderfully--effective, gave a thrill of pleasure to something within her. They were like trees that were perfectly dressed. Since the day when she first met Baroudi in the mountains she had resumed her practice of making up her face. Marie might be wrong, although Baroudi was not a Frenchman. Today Mrs. Armine was very glad that she had not trusted completely to Nature. In the midst of these orange trees she felt in place, and now she lifted her veil and she spoke to Baroudi.
"What do you call this? Has it a name?"
"It is the Villa Nuit d'Or. I use the word 'villa' in the Italian sense."
"Oh, of course. Night of gold. Why night?"
"The trees make a sort of darkness round the house."
"The gold I understand."
"Yes, you understand gold."
He stared at her and smiled.
"You understand it as well as I do, but perhaps in a different way," he said.
"I suppose we understand most things in different ways."
They spoke in French. They always spoke French together now. And Mrs. Armine preferred this. Somehow she did not care so much for this man translated into English. She wished she could communicate with him in Arabic, but she was too lazy to try to learn.
"Don't you think so?" she added.
"I think my way of understanding you is better than Mr. Armeen's way," he answered, calmly.
He lit a cigarette.
"What is your way of understanding me, I do not know," he added.
"Do I understand you at all?" she said. "Do you wish me to understand you?"
Suddenly she seemed to be confronted by the rock, and a sharp irritation invaded her. It was followed by a feeling colder and very determined. The long day was before her. She was in a very perfect isolation with this man. She was a woman who had for years made it her business to understand men. By understanding them--for what is beauty without any handmaid of brains?--she had gained fortunes, and squandered them. By understanding them, when a critical moment had come in her life, she had secured for herself a husband. It was absurd that a man, who was at least half child--she thought of the cuckoo-clocks, the gilded dancing-ball--should baffle her. If only she called upon her powers, she must be able to turn him inside out like one of her long gloves. She would do it to-day. And before he had replied to her question she had left it.