"If you're shocked, I won't go on," she said. "You can't help me by preaching."
"I'm not shocked," the girl protested. "Only sorry—so sorry. And even if I wanted to preach, I don't know how."
"There's nothing to be shocked about," Saidee said, her tears dry, her voice hard as it had been at first. "I've seen him three times. I've talked with him just once. But we love each other. It's the first and only real love of my life. I was too young to know, when I met Cassim. That was a fascination. I was in love with romance. He carried me off my feet, in spite of myself."
"Then, dearest Saidee, don't let yourself be carried off your feet a second time."
"Why not?" Saidee asked, sharply. "What incentive have I to be true to Cassim?"
"I'm not thinking about Cassim. I'm thinking of you. All one's world goes to pieces so, if one isn't true to oneself."
"He says I can't be true to myself if I stay here. He doesn't consider that I'm Cassim's wife. I thought myself married, but was I, when he had a wife already? Would any lawyer, or even clergyman, say it was a legal marriage?"
"Perhaps not," Victoria admitted. "But——"
"Just wait, before you go on arguing," Saidee broke in hotly, "until I've told you something you haven't heard yet. Cassim has another wife now—a lawful wife, according to his views, and the views of his people. He's had her for a year. She's a girl of the Ouled Naïl tribe, brought up to be a dancer. But Cassim saw her at Touggourt, where he'd gone on one of his mysterious visits. He doesn't dream that I know the whole history of the affair, but I do, and have known, since a few days after the creature was brought here as his bride. She's as ignorant and silly as a kitten, and only a child in years. She told her 'love story' to one of her negresses, who told Noura—who repeated it to me. Perhaps I oughtn't to have listened, but why not?"
Victoria did not answer. The clouds round Saidee and herself were dark, but she was trying to see the blue beyond, and find the way into it, with her sister.