“Of course,” she said, recovered, “there are places in the desert in which melancholy seems to brood, in which one has a sense of the terrors of the wastes. Mogar, I think, is one of them, perhaps the only one we have been in yet. This evening, when I was sitting under the tower, even I”--and as she said “even I” she smiled happily at Androvsky--“knew some forebodings.” “Forebodings?” Androvsky said quickly. “Why should you--?” He broke off. “Not of coming misfortune, I hope, Madame?” said De Trevignac in a voice that was now irresistibly cheerful. He was helping himself to some gazelle, which sent forth an appetising odour, and Ouardi was proudly pouring out for him the first glass of blithely winking champagne. “I hardly know, but everything looked sad and strange; I began to think about the uncertainties of life.” Domini and De Trevignac were sipping their champagne. Ouardi came behind Androvsky to fill his glass. “Non! non!” he said, putting his hand over it and shaking his head. De Trevignac started. Ouardi looked at Domini and made a distressed grimace, pointing with a brown finger at the glass. “Oh, Boris! you must drink champagne to-night!” she exclaimed. “I would rather not,” he answered. “I am not accustomed to it.” “But to drink our guest’s health after his escape from death!” Androvsky took his hand from the glass and Ouardi filled it with wine. Then Domini raised her glass and drank to De Trevignac. Androvsky followed her example, but without geniality, and when he put his lips to the wine he scarcely tasted it. Then he put the glass down and told Ouardi to give him red wine. And during the rest of the evening he drank no more champagne. He also ate very little, much less than usual, for in the desert they both had the appetites of hunters. After thanking them cordially for drinking his health, De Trevignac said: “I was nearly experiencing the certainty of death. But was it Mogar that turned you to such thoughts, Madame?” “I think so. There is something sad, even portentous about it.” She looked towards the tent door, imagining the immense desolation that was hidden in the darkness outside, the white plains, the mirage sea, the sand dunes like monsters, the bleached bones of the dead camels with the eagles hovering above them. “Don’t you think so, Boris? Don’t you think it looks like a place in which--like a tragic place, a place in which tragedies ought to occur?” “It is not places that make tragedies,” he said, “or at least they make tragedies far more seldom than the people in them.” He stopped, seemed to make an effort to throw off his taciturnity, and suddenly to be able to throw it off, at least partially. For he continued speaking with greater naturalness and ease, even with a certain dominating force.