“That he does not know me. You see, he is tainted with European culture, and he thinks a man ought to choose his own wife. I was chosen for him: therefore he does not wish to marry me.”
“Why don’t you give him up and marry some one else? There are plenty who would be glad to have you.”
She shook her head. “It so happens that I want him and no one else. And what is more,” she added illogically, “I respect his reasons. He says that he does not wish to be married to a woman he has not seen, and of whose character he knows nothing.”
“Very well,” I remarked. “Since you respect his reasons, and since you are modern enough yourself, why don’t you try to meet him unveiled somewhere and have a chat with him?”
Dubiously she shook her head again. “I don’t know how to manage it. He does not go to the Christian houses to which I go. Besides none of my Greek friends would care to take the risk of arranging a meeting.”
“I’ll do it,” I declared.
Her face flushed with pleasure. “You are just the same madcap as ever. Paris hasn’t robbed you of any of your spirit. How often I have wished you were here—only I did not know whether you had become so wise that you would not do foolish things any more.”
For some time we discussed the matter, though without arriving at any feasible plan. At length I left her, radiantly cheerful, and went into the nursery to lie down, in order to leave the guest-room entirely to her. My little cousins, three in number, were already on their beds, and I stretched myself out on the divan.
Instead of being cooler on the island, the oppression of the atmosphere was more intense. There seemed something ominous in the heavy stillness of the air, only broken by the noise of the yelling dogs in the distance.
I was just beginning to dose off, when my couch swung to and fro like a hammock.