The pleasure-house was a two-storeyed building, much dilapidated, having been unoccupied by the proprietor for many years. The garden, originally made for pleasure by the Pasha’s father, had since been used exclusively for growing vegetables. It was now like several fields with palm trees set at intervals, the whole surrounded by a high mud wall. The Pasha in one day had had the rooms cleaned out, the snakes extracted from their walls by a professional charmer; the next he sent down servants with the furniture, and the same evening Barakah arrived.

The house resembled a gigantic lantern in the blue of night with light exuding from its many lattices. Descending from the harÎm carriage which had brought her, together with two women and the girl FatÛmah, her own slaves, she was met by YÛsuf, whom she had not seen all day. He introduced to her two men—a new experience, which seemed an earnest of less strict seclusion. One, who bore a torch, bowed low with eyes downcast. He was the gardener. The other—a most honest-looking youth—gazed awestruck at her shrouded form, his large brown eyes dilated to the very utmost, while a vast ecstatic smile bared all his teeth—a smile which told of infinite fidelity.

“His name,” said YÛsuf, “is GhandÛr—my faithful friend. He is your water-carrier, and will be always within call in case you have some errand out of doors.”

YÛsuf then walked apart with the two men, while SawwÂb, the eunuch, showed the lady her apartments. SawwÂb had come as escort to the carriage and returned with it as soon as he had seen her settled comfortably. A leering crone was left to guard propriety, a task which she performed extremely ill on that first evening; for instead of checking the high spirits of the slave-girls, who romped for joy at their release from stricter discipline, she smiled upon their antics, and herself performed a most improper dance before the bride.

For several days YÛsuf remained contented in the house and garden; while Barakah, half-dazed but happy too, beheld him as incarnate passion, not as man. She was the first to tire of loves and doves, and try to talk of something sensible. YÛsuf appeared to think the speech of every day a waste of time between them.

Then came the period of tiffs, the fretful wakening. YÛsuf began to deal in sentiment about his mother, proclaiming it a hardship that his wife should still distrust her.

“She is kind and tender—O, how dear to me! Go to her, Barakah! Kneel at her feet, embrace her hands, and she will surely pardon.”

“Pardon? What, pray?” exclaimed the bride indignantly. “It is for her to ask pardon of me whom, kindly recollect, she tried to poison.”

“She is older than you; she is my mother. It behoves you to be modest and submissive towards her. I have forgiven all, and so should you. She is my mother.”

It was a relief one morning when the Pasha came and bore the young man off, declaring jokingly that he would die of too much sweet if he remained immured there longer. Of Barakah he said the same, informing her that Leylah KhÂnum and Gulbeyzah would call that afternoon to take her out upon a round of visits.

Then YÛsuf took to being absent all day long, but came home gladly in the evenings, full of love. He volunteered no tidings of his day’s amusements, and when she questioned him about them seemed to think it odd.

“All that is not your business,” he informed her kindly.

She hinted at the pleasures of companionship, the bond of common interests. He laughed, inquiring:

“Are we not companions? Have we not interests in common? You teach me English, and I teach you Arabic; we compare the customs of the races. And we love! Are not these interests much greater than to hear what FulÂn said to Zeyd, what Zeyd replied, and whether HÂfiz or MahmÛd obtained the Government appointment? That is the life of men, a passing of the hours till night, when they return to the beloved. If anything of weight befell I should inform you. What pleasure could it give to you to hear repeated the gabble of a lot of people you will never know?”

Perceiving much in YÛsuf’s tastes and conversation which pious English people would have thought ungodly, she gasped a little on discovering he was religious. Attracted by a faith which showed some tolerance of human failings, she was studying the rudiments of El IslÂm by YÛsuf’s guidance; acquiring prayers and all the rules for saying them, including washings and the proper time and place. Nothing seemed left to the believer’s judgment, it was all laid down. When, at a lesson in prostration, she was moved to laughter, he became quite terrible, and warned her threateningly that in this country any man or woman was likely to be torn in pieces for a hint of blasphemy. The awe she felt was oddly mixed with fascination.

There were details she would not have chosen in her cloistered life, but on the whole it was the happiest that she had ever known. She was waited on hand and foot who had known drudgery; her husband used her as a reigning beauty who, but a few weeks since, had been esteemed uninteresting. Then there were pleasures of society. The Pasha’s carriage often came, with one or other of the ladies and Gulbeyzah, to take her round to call on grand harÎms. She was received with favour by great ladies. One, a princess, by name AmÎnah KhÂnum, insisted on her spending a whole day alone with her.

This dame, though elderly, still dressed to charm. Her rooms were full of European furniture, but she herself sat always on a sofa, smoking a long, old-fashioned pipe with coral mouthpiece.

“You are not of the first rank in your own country,” she told Barakah to start with, bluntly; “or you would not be where you are. You do not know the people I have met in France and England, so don’t pretend you do. I value frankness.” It seemed she knew the English pretty thoroughly.

She spoke good French and talked of Western Europe with intelligence, seeming in general to approve its customs. One little speech of hers amazed the visitor, intruding as it did abruptly upon lighter talk:

“The Europeans have degraded love and made life banal. They spread life’s agitation over a vast surface and account it progress; we value depth and stillness. Enlarging each life’s pool, they make it shallow. A woman’s life is of the feelings which are dulled, not quickened, by extensive interests. Their men too suffer, growing superficial, flippant, without depth of character.”

When Barakah retailed this saying to Gulbeyzah, the Circassian sighed: “She knows!” and told a curious story.

It was that years ago a European officer in the Egyptian service had wooed AmÎnah KhÂnum secretly; and she had been entirely captivated by his charms. But endeavouring to sound his character, she found him shallow. She made him islam, but his carelessness informed her that conversion meant no more for him than access to her. In the same way she perceived that what he felt for her was nothing more profound than the desire to add a Muslim lady to his list of conquests. The blow was dire, for she was then extremely lovely, and a great examiner of men, having divorced or killed ten husbands. She would not have him tell a tale among his kind, yet could not conquer her intense desire of him. What could she do? She satisfied her heart, and the next morning gave him death in easy form, being well versed in poisons.

Barakah cried out in horror; but Gulbeyzah shrugged.

“What else could woman, not a harlot, do? He was an infidel, and would have bragged of her. Ever since then AmÎnah KhÂnum has a kindness for the Franks, though she deplores their levity.”

“And would you do the same?”

“One cannot tell beforehand. I am not a princess. Either that or kill myself. May God preserve us from unsanctioned love of all kinds!”

Barakah felt overwhelmed by the intenseness, the tragic vigour of these women, who seemed mild and playful.

Mrs. Cameron called at the garden-house one afternoon, and Barakah was proud to give her a real English tea. Except for the costume, which was much richer, and an added glow of happiness, the visitor, she felt convinced, could not detect the slightest change in her. One thing at least was certain, she had not deteriorated, as Mrs. Cameron before the marriage had foretold she would. The visitor was amiable, and made no allusion to the past. Before departing she made Barakah an offer of some knitting wool and needles she had just received from England. The wife of YÛsuf Bey accepted gladly, for she began to feel the weight of idle hands.

The wools arriving an hour later, she debated what to make with them; and, being at the time in English mood, decided on a pair of slippers for her husband. But when she told him of her purpose, he frowned wonderingly, and asked:

“Are you a shoemaker?”

Utterly disconcerted by so apt a question, she tried to paint the beauty of the project, but he could not see it.

“If you want slippers, buy them in the market. It is not your trade. When one like you employs the needle, it is not for use. Ask my mother; she will show you the right work to do.”

He had his own ideas. The coloured wools were given to FatÛmah, who made anklets of them, and other personal adornments, which amused her for a week.

Deducing from her wish to make him slippers that she found the hours long in his absence, YÛsuf procured her books in French and English. He also brought her a fine musical box, which played dance-music in stentorian tones to the rapture of the slaves, who kept it going all day long. The Pasha came and begged her not to imagine that she was debarred from every pleasure. It would be cruel to confine a damsel of her breeding as strictly as a native of the country. Let her but name her wishes; they should be deferred to. He even threw out hints that she and YÛsuf might possibly see Paris in the coming summer.

Thus exhorted, and encouraged by the sight of women like AmÎnah KhÂnum, who seemed to order every one their way, she forsook the timid attitude which had been hers since marriage, and viewed existence with commanding eyes. The old woman who had been engaged to play propriety, was horrified one day to see her talking barefaced at a window to GhandÛr, the water-carrier. The crone expostulated, coaxed, entreated, and at length, when all proved vain, informed the husband, who, to her utter consternation, laughed.

“GhandÛr?” he cried; “GhandÛr is my right foot,” and immediately applied that member to the beldame’s person.

The old woman did not dare to speak again to Barakah, though the latter plagued her mercilessly, crying “GhandÛr!” here and “GhandÛr!” there, for the treat of seeing her curvet and wring her hands.

One morning, after YÛsuf had departed, she grew conscious of a great oppression due to lack of outlet. The feeling had been with her vaguely for some days. Now she knew it for a craving; she must see an English person to revive her fading interest in the strange things around her.

“GhandÛr!” she cried.—He answered “HÂdir!”—“Fetch me a carriage for the fifth hour after noon.”

“HÂdir!” he said again; and from her lattice she saw him speed off on his errand like the wind. There were few carriages for hire in Cairo in those days, and it was necessary to bespeak one early.

“The lady wishes to go out? Shall I accompany her?” cooed the old woman, who was hovering near.

“No. I go alone!”

“I had better accompany the lady.”

“No, I tell thee!”

The lady stamped her foot, when the duenna shuffled off, wagging her head forebodingly and mumbling.

“How absurd!” thought Barakah. “Haven’t YÛsuf and the Pasha told me twenty times that women, in the kind of shroud they make us wear, can go anywhere alone without attracting notice?”

When the carriage came—a hooded one—she sallied forth, correctly veiled, escorted by GhandÛr, who, seeing no one with her, asked leave to mount the box beside the driver. She gave it, feeling sure that the old woman was watching the departure through some upper lattice. GhandÛr sprang up with a delighted grin, quite rigid with the pride of high preferment.