"Nay, nay! I meant not so," protested Fakr-un-nissa hastily. "Lo, death comes to all, and goeth not by age. I meant but this,--sure 'tis hard to put it to words--that the old should make room for the young, or make the waiting bearable."
"Tchu! If the heart be set on a frog, what doth it care for a fairy?" insisted the hoarder of other folk's wisdom. "Dost mean to hint that in this place the girl hath not had virtue set constantly before her, ay, and preached too? It seems to me that we have it almost to satiety. Is it not so, sisters?"
Once more the chuckle ran round the circle, and Glory-of-Woman sat still more upright. "Amongst thy other proverbs, canst not recollect the one which says, 'Between the two priests the fowl killed for dinner became unlawful to eat'?" Then the temper died from her face and she went on in a softer tone: "I find no harm in the girl, and what wrong hath she done this day more than another?"
"No more, for sure," put in Mumtâza Mahul, "since she is late at work every day; that is no new thing, is it, sisters?"
"Yet she finishes her task as quick as any,--as I, anyhow," persisted Yâsmina's advocate, who having come to the gold thread late in life found it apt to knot.
"Wâh-illâh! What a fuss about a wilful girl," put in a new voice. "She is no worse than others, and needs restraint no more. She hath grown saucy since we gave her money instead of broken victuals. Put her back to the old footing, say I, when she had nought of her own."
Khâdjiya Khânum's veiled head nodded sagely. "Thou hast it, Hameda-bânu. Lo, I, for one, know not why the girl was ever given such freedom, save indeed that it tallies with Fakr-un-nissa's indecent hastening of Providence. I am for the old plan."
"And I,"--"And I,"--"And I,"--assented a chorus of set, certain voices.
Glory-of-Woman's fingers flew faster. "Then will ye drive the girl from us altogether. I know it, I feel it. Yea, I, Fakr-un-nissa, singer of the Koran till my tone failed me, remember it;--those days when some other song seemed better and one must needs sing it! Think, sisters, remember! The eyes of the body are two; the eye of the soul is one." The work had dropped from her hands which were stretched out in eager entreaty. "'Tis but patience for a year or two. Then, since there is no harm in her, she will settle down as--as I--as I did. 'Tis but the youth in her veins, and God knows that is soon past for a woman; yet one's glory remains." Her voice regaining some of its past strength, recollecting all its old skill under the stimulus of both memory and hope, filled the little courtyard,--and availed nothing.
Half an hour afterwards, struck dumb, as sensitive natures are, by the stress of passion around her, she was watching with stupid inaction Yâsmin's final vengeance on that decorous row of curly shoes behind the screening wall. To right and left, to this corner and that, they sped before the reckless young feet while the reckless young voice rose in mockery. "Lo, I wait no longer for old women's shoes. I will have new ones of my own. Khujju, and Mujju, and the rest of ye can sort them for yourselves, or go down to the grave one foot at a time as seemeth to ye best. I care not; I wait no longer."