She leaned over me with the look of a severe fairy in her large dark eyes.
“You just tell me why you wished to see me.”
“All the truth?” I asked.
“All the truth.”
“Well, for the romance which surrounds you. You left Nouri Pasha and his beautiful houses to come and live here, in this very old house, in a place where nothing ever happens. Besides I imagined you to be very beautiful.”
“And do you find me as beautiful as you thought me?”
“I don’t know. All I can think of when I look at you is—a fountain——”
“To call me a fountain is almost like a wicked jest,” she interrupted. “A fountain gives constantly forth the riches of its waters.”
“But the fountain you remind me of had no waters. It was a big fountain, in the middle of which sat a bronze lady looking exactly like you. The waters were to pour forth from her two extended hands—but none came. The gardener told me they had lost the key, and they had never been able to unlock it. And, as there were many more fountains in the place, they did not bother.”
A cloud passed over her face.