Prev | Current Page 135 | Next

Hichens, Robert Smythe, 1864-1950

"The Garden of Allah"


One loves one's kind, assiduous liar. Isn't it so?"
"The imagination? But perhaps I am not disposed to allow that it is a
liar."
"Who knows? You may be right."
He looked at her kindly with his bright eyes. It had not seem to strike
him that their conversation was curiously intimate, considering that
they were strangers to one another, that he did not even know her name.
Domini wondered suddenly how old he was. That look made him seem much
older than he had seemed before. There was such an expression in his
eyes as may sometimes be seen in eyes that look at a child who is
kissing a rag doll with deep and determined affection. "Kiss your doll!"
they seemed to say. "Put off the years when you must know that dolls can
never return a kiss."
"I begin to see the desert now," Domini said after a moment of silent
walking. "How wonderful it is!"
"Yes, it is. The most wonderful thing in Nature. You will think it much
more wonderful when you fancy you know it well."
"Fancy!"
"I don't think anyone can ever really know the desert. It is the thing
that keeps calling, and does not permit one to draw near.


Pages:
123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147