The Desert played with

him. Sand stole into his being—through the eyes.

And so obsessing was this majesty of its close presence, that

Henriot sometimes wondered how people dared their little social

activities within its very sight and hearing; how they played golf and

tennis upon reclaimed edges of its face, picnicked so blithely hard

upon its frontiers, and danced at night while this stern, unfathomable

Thing lay breathing just beyond the trumpery walls that kept it out.

The challenge of their shallow admiration seemed presumptuous, almost

provocative. Their pursuit of pleasure suggested insolent indifference.

They ran fool-hardy hazards, he felt; for there was no worship in their

vulgar hearts. With a mental shudder, sometimes he watched the cheap

tourist horde go laughing, chattering past within view of its ancient,

half-closed eyes. It was like defying deity.

For, to his stirred imagination the sublimity of the Desert dwarfed

humanity. These people had been wiser to choose another place for the

flaunting of their tawdry insignificance. Any minute this Wilderness,

“huddled in grey annihilation,” might awaken and notice them … !

In his own hotel were several “smart,” so-called “Society” people

who emphasised the protest in him to the point of definite contempt.

Overdressed, the latest worldly novel under their arms, they strutted

the narrow pavements of their tiny world, immensely pleased with

themselves. Their vacuous minds expressed themselves in the slang of

their exclusive circle—value being the element excluded. The pettiness

of their outlook hardly distressed him—he was too familiar with it at

home—but their essential vulgarity, their innate ugliness, seemed more

than usually offensive in the grandeur of its present setting. Into the

mighty sands they took the latest London scandal, gabbling it over even

among the Tombs and Temples. And “it was to laugh,” the pains they

spent wondering whom they might condescend to know, never dreaming that

they themselves were not worth knowing. Against the background of the

noble Desert their titles seemed the cap and bells of clowns.

And Henriot, knowing some of them personally, could not always

escape their insipid company. Yet he was the gainer. They little

guessed how their commonness heightened contrast, set mercilessly thus

beside the strange, eternal beauty of the sand.

Occasionally the protest in his soul betrayed itself in words, which

of course they did not understand. “He is so clever, isn’t he?” And

then, having relieved his feelings, he would comfort himself

characteristically:

“The Desert has not noticed them. The Sand is not aware of their

existence. How should the sea take note of rubbish that lies above its

tide-line?”

For Henriot drew near to its great shifting altars in an attitude of

worship. The wilderness made him kneel in heart. Its shining reaches

led to the oldest Temple in the world, and every journey that he made

was like a sacrament. For him the Desert was a consecrated place. It

was sacred.

And his tactful hosts, knowing his peculiarities, left their house

open to him when he cared to come—they lived upon the northern edge of

the oasis—and he was as free as though he were absolutely alone. He

blessed them; he rejoiced that he had come. Little Helouan accepted

him. The Desert knew that he was there.

From his corner of the big dining-room he could see the other

guests, but his roving eye always returned to the figure of a solitary

man who sat at an adjoining table, and whose personality stirred his

interest. While affecting to look elsewhere, he studied him as closely

as might be. There was something about the stranger that touched his

curiosity—a certain air of expectation that he word. But it was more

than that; it was anticipation, apprehension in it somewhere. The man

was nervous, uneasy. His restless way of suddenly looking about him

proved it. Henriot tried every one else in the room as well, but,

though his thought settled on others too, he always came back to the

figure of this solitary being opposite, who ate his dinner as if afraid

of being seen, and glanced up sometimes as if fearful of being watched.

Henriot’s curiosity, before he knew it, became suspicion.