Tancred took advantage of this movement to approach Eva, who was conversing, as they took their evening walk, with the soft-eyed sister of Hillel and Madame Nassim Farhi; a group of women that the drawing-rooms of Europe and the harems of Asia could perhaps not have rivalled.
‘The Mesdemoiselles Laurella are very accomplished,’ said Tancred, ‘but at Damascus I am not content to hear anything but sackbuts and psalteries.’
‘But in Europe your finest music is on the subjects of our history,’ said Eva.
‘Naturally,’ said Tancred, ‘music alone can do justice to such themes. They baffle the uninspired pen.’
‘There is a prayer which the Mesdemoiselles Laurella once sang, a prayer of Moses in Egypt,’ said Madame Nassim, somewhat timidly. ‘It is very fine.’
‘I wish they would favour us with it,’ said Eva; ‘I will ask Hillel to request that kindness;’ and she beckoned to Hillel, who sauntered toward her, and listened to her whispered wish with a smile of supercilious complacency.
‘At present they are going to favour us with Don Pasquale,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘A prayer is a very fine thing, but for my part, at this hour, I think a serenade is not so bad.’
‘And how do you like my father?’ said Eva to Tancred in a hesitating tone, and yet with a glance of blended curiosity and pride.
‘He is exactly what Sidonia prepared me for; worthy not only of being your father, but the father of mankind.’
‘The Moslemin say that we are near paradise at Damascus,’ said Madame Nassim, ‘and that Adam was fashioned out of our red earth.’