He seemed to have relinquished his
intention of leaving her, and was standing quietly beside her, staring
towards the desert, with his head slightly drooped forward. In one hand
he held a thick stick. He had put his hat on again. His attitude was
much calmer than it had been. Already he seemed more at ease with her.
She was glad of that. She did not ask herself why. But the intense
beauty of evening in this land and at this height made her wish
enthusiastically that it could produce a happiness such as it created in
her in everyone. Such beauty, with its voices, its colours, its lines
of tree and leaf, of wall and mountain ridge, its mystery of shapes and
movements, stillness and dreaming distance, its atmosphere of the far
off come near, chastened by journeying, fine with the unfamiliar, its
solemn changes towards the impenetrable night, was too large a thing and
fraught with too much tender and lovable invention to be worshipped in
any selfishness. It made her feel as if she could gladly be a martyr for
unseen human beings, as if sacrifice would be an easy thing if made for
those to whom such beauty would appeal.
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