"Well, delight of my soul, what do you think of my definitions?" "I think," said the favorite, "that your highness has forgot the tender woman."
"If I have not mentioned her," answered the Sultan, "'tis because I don't know what the term means; and that some able men pretend, that the word tender, abstracting from all connection with the Toy, is void of sense."
"How, void of sense," cried Mirzoza. "What! there is no medium then; and a woman must absolutely be a prude, an intriguer, a coquette, a voluptuous woman, or a libertin."
"Delight of my soul," said the Sultan, "I am willing to own the inaccuracy of my enumeration, and will add the tender woman to the preceding characters; but on condition that you will furnish me with a definition of her, which will not coincide with any of mine."
"Most willingly," said Mirzoza. "I hope to compass it without quitting your system."
"Let us see," added Mangogul.
"Well then," replied the favorite—"a tender woman is she——"
"Courage, Mirzoza," said Mangogul.
"Oh! I beg you won't disturb me. The tender woman is she——who has loved without a word utter'd by her Toy, or——whose Toy has never spoke, but in favor of the single man whom she loved."
It would not have been polite in the Sultan to chicane the favorite, and ask her what she understood by love: wherefore he avoided it. Mirzoza took his silence for consent, and proceeded, proud of having extricated herself from a difficulty, which to her appeared considerable. "Ye men believe, because we do not argue in form, that we do not reason. Know once for all, that we could as easily discover the falsity of your paradoxes, as ye that of our reasonings, if we would give ourselves the trouble. If your highness was less in a hurry to satisfy your curiosity on the subject of lap-dogs, I would in my turn give you a scrap of my philosophy. But it shall not be lost: I will reserve it for one of those days, that you will have more time to bestow on me."