I climbed the much beribboned stairs; for all the old brocades and rare Anatolian shawls were draped over the banisters; and went to my Lady’s room. I found her seated on a couch, all clad in white satin, holding Nouri Pasha’s son fast in her arms.
“Come! come! yavroum, come to see him. Isn’t he wonderful, and isn’t Allah good to me?”
“He is a nice baby; but because you have him you will not go to Paris with me, and you will never, never see the world.”
She gazed up at me as if we had never talked of Paris. “Oh, yes, Paris,” she murmured dreamily. “That was for my selfish pleasure. But now,” she continued with a thrill in her voice, “now I am doing something for the world.”
Her face shone with the light which must be lighted from the divine spark within us, when the self is effaced. She looked more than ever like the Lady of the Fountain—but a fountain unlocked, and giving to the world from its abundant waters.
CHAPTER XVI
CHAKENDÉ, THE SCORNED
IT was dreary going away to Paris without my Lady of the Fountain, especially since I had made up my mind to have her with me; but it was a well-deserved punishment for attaching importance to the word of an elder.
The following two years were years of little to tell. They were filled with studies and books, and books and studies. Black clouds were already thickening on my young horizon, and I knew that sooner or later I should have to encounter the storm. I had a thousand and one projects for my life. Above all I wanted to become a doctor in order to minister to the Turkish women, who at the time would rather die than see a man doctor. I lived in that dream of wonderful usefulness which was to be mine, and which was to save me from the martyrdom of the women of my race.
The usual fate of a Greek girl, who has to sit and wait until a marriage is arranged for her, seemed to me the worst thing that could befall me. And if the fate of the Greek girl with money was terrible, what could I think of a girl like me, who had no dowry?