“You were rude to me,” she said, “but I shall forget it from this moment.” She held out her hand. He grasped it, and again she felt as if a furnace were pouring its fiery heat upon her. “Good-night.” “Good-night, Madame. Thank you.” She was going away to the hotel door, but she stopped. “My name is Domini Enfilden,” she said in English. The man stood in the road looking at her. She waited. She expected him to tell her his name. There was a silence. At last he said hesitatingly, in English with a very slight foreign accent: “My name is Boris--Boris Androvsky.” “Batouch told me you were English,” she said. “My mother was English, but my father was a Russian from Tiflis. That is my name.” There was a sound in his voice as if he were insisting like a man making an assertion not readily to be believed. “Good-night,” Domini said again. And she went away slowly, leaving him standing on the moonlit road. He did not remain there long, nor did he follow her into the hotel. After she had disappeared he stood for a little while gazing up at the deserted verandah upon which the moon-rays fell. Then he turned and looked towards the village, hesitated, and finally walked slowly back towards the tiny, shrouded alley in which on the narrow staircases the painted girls sat watching in the night. CHAPTER IX On the following morning Batouch arrived with a handsome grey Arab horse for Domini to try. He had been very penitent the night before, and Domini had forgiven easily enough his pre-occupation with Suzanne, who had evidently made a strong impression upon his susceptible nature. Hadj had been but slightly injured by Irena, but did not appear at the hotel for a very sufficient reason. Both the dancer and he were locked up for the moment, till the Guardians of Justice in Beni-Mora had made up their minds who should be held responsible for the uproar of the previous night. That the real culprit was the smiling poet was not likely to occur to them, and did not seem to trouble him. When Domini inquired after Hadj he showed majestic indifference, and when she hinted at his crafty share in the causing of the tragedy he calmly replied, “Hadj-ben-Ibrahim will know from henceforth whether the Mehari with the swollen tongue can bite.” Then, leaping upon the horse, whose bridle he was holding, he forced it to rear, caracole and display its spirit and its paces before Domini, sitting it superbly, and shooting many sly glances at Suzanne, who leaned over the parapet of the verandah watching, with a rapt expression on her face.