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Hichens, Robert Smythe, 1864-1950

"The Garden of Allah"

"Can't you?"
"I will not look," he said. "I cannot. If you can, you are stronger than
I. When I remember that it was on that tower you first spoke to me--oh,
Domini, if we could only go back! It is in our power. We have only to
draw a rein and--and--"
"I look at the tower," she said, "as once I looked at the desert. It
calls us, the shadow of the palm trees calls us, as once the desert
did."
"But the voice--what a different voice! Can you listen to it?"
"I have been listening to it ever since we left Amara. Yes, it is a
different voice, but we must obey it as we obeyed the voice of the
desert. Don't you feel that?"
"If I do it is because you tell me to feel it; you tell me that I must
feel it."
His words seemed to hurt her. An expression of pain came into her face.
"Boris," she said, "don't make me regret too terribly that I ever came
into your life. When you speak like that I feel almost as if you were
putting me in the place of--of--I feel as if you were depending upon me
for everything that you are doing, as if you were letting your own will
fall asleep. The desert brings dreams.


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