ecstasy, but he checked himself and said:
“Madame shall see for herself and tell me afterwards if in all Europe there is one such garden.”
“Oh, the English gardens are wonderful,” she said, smiling at his patriotic conceit.
“No doubt. Madame shall tell me, Madame shall tell me,” he repeated with imperturbable confidence.
“But first I wish to go for a moment into the church,” she said. “Wait for me here, Batouch.”
She crossed the road, passed the modest, one-storied house of the priest, and came to the church, which looked out on to the quiet gardens. Before going up the steps and in at the door she paused for a moment. There was something touching to her, as a Catholic, in this symbol of her faith set thus far out in the midst of Islamism. The cross was surely rather lonely, here, raised above the white-robed men to whom it meant nothing. She was conscious that since she had come to this land of another creed, and of another creed held with fanaticism, her sentiment for her own religion, which in England for many years had been but lukewarm, had suddenly gained in strength. She had an odd, almost manly, sensation that it was her duty in Africa to stand up for her faith, not blatantly in words to impress others, but perseveringly in heart to satisfy herself. Sometimes she felt very protective. She felt protective today as she looked at this humble building, which she likened to one of the poor saints of the Thebaid, who dwelt afar in desert places, and whose devotions were broken by the night-cries of jackals and by the roar of ravenous beasts. With this feeling strong upon her she pushed open the door and went in.
The interior was plain, even ugly. The walls were painted a hideous drab. The stone floor was covered with small, hard, straw-bottomed chairs and narrow wooden forms for the patient knees of worshippers. In the front were two rows of private chairs, with velvet cushions of various brilliant hues and velvet-covered rails. On the left was a high stone pulpit. The altar, beyond its mean black and gold railing, was dingy and forlorn. On it there was a tiny gold cross with a gold statuette of Christ hanging, surmounted by a canopy with four pillars, which looked as if made of some unwholesome sweetmeat. Long candles of blue and gold and bouquets of dusty
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