Part 64 (1/2)
”It is good to be out of the city!” Claude said, as they came to the rubble of the unfinished track on the farther side, where Arabs worked under the supervision of a French overseer. ”I did not know you were a walker.”
”I don't think you knew very much about me.”
”That's quite true. Where do you wish to go?”
”Anywhere--to the left. Let us sit on a rock under the trees and look at the view.”
”Can you get up here?”
”If you give me your hand.”
They walked a little way in the shadow of the fir-trees, leaving the hospital on their right. The plantation was almost deserted. The soldiers were evidently retiring, for the clarions sounded more distant now. Here and there the figure of an Arab was visible sauntering slowly among the trees, with the smoke of his cigarette dispersing above him.
Some young Jews went by, holding hands, laughing and talking. They sent glances of hard inquiry at Mrs. s.h.i.+ffney's broad figure from their too intelligent eyes. Soon their thin forms vanished among the gray trunks.
”Shall we sit there?” asked Claude.
”Yes; just in the sun.”
”Oh, but you wanted--”
”No, let us sit in the sun.”
She opened her green parasol.
Almost at the edge of the cliff, which descended steeply to the high road to Philippeville, was a flat ledge of rock warmed by the sunbeams.
”It's perfect here,” she said, sitting down. ”And what a view!”
They were exactly opposite to the terrific Grand Rocher, a gray and pale yellow precipice, with the cascades and the Grand Moulin at its foot, the last houses of the city perched upon its summit in the sky.
”And to think that women have been flung from there!” said Claude, clasping his hands round his knees.
”Unfaithful women! Rather hard on them!” she answered. ”If London husbands--” She stopped. ”No don't let us think of London. And yet I suppose you loved it in that little house of yours?”
”I think I did.”
”Don't you ever regret that little house?”
She saw his eyebrows move downward.
”Oh, I--I'm very fond of Djenan-el-Maqui.”
”And no wonder! Only you seemed so much a part of your London home. You seemed to belong to it. There was an odd little sense of mystery.”
”Was there?”
”And I felt it was necessary to you, to your talent. How could I feel that without ever hearing your music? I did.”
”Don't I seem to belong to Djenan-el-Maqui?”
”I've never seen you there,” she answered, with a deliberate evasiveness.