As he finished he stared at the priest, almost menacingly. Then, as if moved by an after-thought, he added: “As to Mahomet, I know very little about him. But perhaps he obtained his great influence by recognising that the bodies of men are of great importance, of tremendous--tremendous importance.” Domini saw that the interest of Count Anteoni in his guest was suddenly and vitally aroused by what he had just said, perhaps even more by his peculiar way of saying it, as if it were forced from him by some secret, irresistible compulsion. And the Count’s interest seemed to take hands with her interest, which had had a much longer existence. Father Roubier, however, broke in with a slightly cold: “It is a very dangerous thing, I think, to dwell upon the importance of the perishable. One runs the risk of detracting from the much greater importance of the imperishable.” “Yet it’s the starved wolves that devour the villages,” said Androvsky. For the first time Domini felt his Russian origin. There was a silence. Father Roubier looked straight before him, but Count Anteoni’s eyes were fixed piercingly upon Androvsky. At last he said: “May I ask, Monsieur, if you are a Russian?” “My father was. But I have never set foot in Russia.” “The soul that I find in the art, music, literature of your country is, to me, the most interesting soul in Europe,” the Count said with a ring of deep earnestness in his grating voice. Spoken as he spoke it, no compliment could have been more gracious, even moving. But Androvsky only replied abruptly: “I’m afraid I know nothing of all that.” Domini felt hot with a sort of shame, as at a close friend’s public display of ignorance. She began to speak to the Count of Russian music, books, with an enthusiasm that was sincere. For she, too, had found in the soul from the Steppes a meaning and a magic that had taken her soul prisoner. And suddenly, while she talked, she thought of the Desert as the burning brother of the frigid Steppes. Was it the wonder of the eternal flats that had spoken to her inmost heart sometimes in London concert-rooms, in her room at night when she read, forgetting time, which spoke to her now more fiercely under the palms of Africa? At the thought something mystic seemed to stand in her enthusiasm. The mystery of space floated about her. But she did not express her thought. Count Anteoni expressed it for her. “The Steppes and the Desert are akin, you know,” he said. “Despite the opposition of frost and fire.” “Just what I was thinking!” she exclaimed. “That must be why--” She stopped short. “Yes?” said the Count.