And indeed I tried to
be, I conscientiously did my best. But it was no good. I couldn't be
shocked. The sunshine drove it all out of me. I could only say, 'It
is not for me to question _le bon Dieu_, and _le bon Dieu_ has created
these people and set them here in the sand to behave as they do.' What
is my business? I can't convert them. I can't change their morals. I
must just be a friend to them, cheer them up in their sorrows, give them
a bit if they're starving, doctor them a little. I'm a first-rate hand
at making an Arab take a pill or a powder!--when they are ill, and make
them at home with the white marabout. That's what the sun has taught me,
and every sand-rascal and sand-rascal's child in Amara is a friend of
mine."
He stretched out his legs as if he wished to elongate his satisfaction,
and stared Domini full in the face with eyes that confidently, naively,
asked for her approval of his doctrine of the sun. She could not help
liking him, though she felt more as if she were sitting with a jolly,
big, and rather rowdy boy than with a priest.
"You are fond of the Arabs then?" she said.
"Of course I am, Madame.
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