While he laughed he looked at
Batouch, who was ordering four cups of coffee from the negro attendant.
The poet took no notice. For the moment he was intent upon his
professional duties. But when the coffee was brought, and set upon a
round wooden stool between two bunches of roses, he had time to note
Hadj's sudden gaiety and to realise its meaning. Instantly he spoke to
the negro in a low voice. Hadj stopped laughing. The negro sped away
and returned with the proprietor of the cafe, a stout Kabyle with a fair
skin and blue eyes.
Batouch lowered his voice to a guttural whisper and spoke in Arabic,
while Hadj, shifting uneasily on the end seat, glanced at him sideways
out of his almond-shaped eyes. Domini heard the name "Irena," and
guessed that Batouch was asking the Kabyle to send for her and make her
dance. She could not help being amused for a moment by the comedy of
intrigue, complacently malignant on both sides, that was being played by
the two cousins, but the moment passed and left her engrossed, absorbed,
and not merely by the novelty of the surroundings, by the strangeness of
the women, of their costumes, and of their movements.
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