‘And his costume, so becoming! I wonder how any civilised being can wear the sort of things we see about us. ‘Tis really altogether like a wardrobe of the Comédie.’
‘Well, Sophonisbe,’ said the sensible Moses Laurella, ‘I admire the Franks very much; they have many qualities which I could wish our Levantines shared; but I confess that I do not think that their strong point is their costume.’
‘Oh, my dear uncle!’ said Thérèse; ‘look at that beautiful white cravat. What have we like it? So simple, so distinguished! Such good taste! And then the boots. Think of our dreadful slippers! powdered with pearls and all sorts of trash of that kind, by the side of that lovely French polish.’
‘He must be terribly ennuyé here,’ said Thérèse to Sophonisbe, with a look of the initiated.
‘Indeed, I should think so: no balls, not an opera; I quite pity him. What could have induced him to come here?’
‘I should think he must be attached to some one,’ said Thérèse: ‘he looks unhappy.’
‘There is not a person near him with whom he can have an idea in common.’
‘Except Mr. Hillel Besso,’ said Thérèse. ‘He appears to be quite enlightened. I spoke to him a little before dinner. He has been a winter at Pera, and went to all the balls.’
‘Lord Palmerston understood the Eastern question to a certain degree,’ said Mr. Consul-General Laurella; ‘but, had I been in the service of the Queen of England, I could have told him some things;’ and he mysteriously paused.
‘I cannot endure this eternal chatter about Palmerston,’ said the Emir, rather pettishly. ‘Are there no other statesmen in the world besides Palmerston? And what should he know about the Eastern question, who never was in the East?’