His cheek was not pale, as she had thought at first, but brown,
obviously burnt by the sun of Africa. But she felt that underneath the
sunburn there was pallor. She fancied he might be a painter, and was
noting all the extraordinary colour effects with the definiteness of a
man who meant, perhaps, to reproduce them on canvas.
The light, which had now the peculiar, almost supernatural softness
and limpidity of light falling at evening from a declining sun in a hot
country, came full upon him, and brightened his hair. Domini saw that it
was brown with some chestnut in it, thick, and cut extremely short, as
if his head had recently been shaved. She felt convinced that he was not
French. He might be an Austrian, perhaps, or a Russian from the south of
Russia. He remained motionless in that attitude of profound observation.
It suggested great force not merely of body, but also of mind, an almost
abnormal concentration upon the thing observed. This was a man who
could surely shut out the whole world to look at a grain of sand, if he
thought it beautiful or interesting.
They were near Beni-Mora now. Its palms appeared far off, and in the
midst of them a snow-white tower.
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