Possibly, when he had done arranging the date-stones, he might find something to say to it--indeed his lips opened--only then there broke out a roar of laughter.
The laughter died in the air.

The sound of it could scarcely have reached any one standing by the Chapel, which stretched along the opposite side of the court.

The laughter died out, and only gestures of arms, movements of bodies, could be seen shaping something in the room.
Was it an argument?
A bet on the boat races?
Was it nothing of the sort?
What was shaped by the arms and bodies moving in the twilight room?
A step or two beyond the window there was nothing at all, except the enclosing buildings--chimneys upright, roofs horizontal; too much brick and building for a May night, perhaps.

And then before one's eyes would come the bare hills of Turkey--sharp lines, dry earth, coloured flowers, and colour on the shoulders of the women, standing naked-legged in the stream to beat linen on the stones.

The stream made loops of water round their ankles.