"Oh, fair impassioned, whom God hath fashioned
My love to be,
Thy hands so tender, thy fingers slender
Rosy I see.
Be they flower-tinted or blood-imprinted
From my poor heart?
Torn by thy smiling, tears and beguiling
Feminine art.
Yet, sweet calamity! dwell we in amity
Each perfect day.
Yea! in the bright time. Yea! in the night time,
Lovers alway."
"Sweet calamity!" she echoed, pouting her lips and trying hard to frown, as the song finished. "Couldst find no other title for thy lawful wife? And yet--" here smiles overcame her--"Lo! Babar! 'tis a beautiful name and I am thy sweet calamity alway, alway!" Then suddenly, to his dismay, she began to cry softly, the big tears running down her pretty cheeks in easy childish fashion. "Nay!" she went on, half-smiles again at his solicitude, "I am not ill,--there is naught wrong. 'Tis only that I am lonely when thou art doing King's work, which must be done. If only foster-sister would come, I should not be so frightened."
"But my Yenkâm, thy mother, will be here--" protested Babar.
Ma'asuma shook her head. "It is now, dear heart! And foster-sister will not come unless thou askest her. She said so. Couldst not write to her, Babar?"
"But I know not foster-sister, nor aught of her, save that she was good to my Ma'asuma, for which, may Heaven reward her!"
Ma'asuma sat up, her charming face happy in thought. "Oh! so good, my lord! Not a real foster-sister, either; but we sat under one veil and drank milk out of one cup. That was when we first came to Khorasân, thy Yenkâm and I. And since then she--Babar!--Be not angry but I will tell thee--I meant to have told thee--I should have told thee before--"
The violet eyes showed trouble once more and Babar kissed them deliberately. "What, sweetheart?" he asked carelessly. He knew the gentle kindly heart too well to fear any revelation.
"Only it was she, not I, who wrote the verses--the verses I sent--I was too stupid. And she is clever--oh! so clever!"
Despite his certitude the young man looked startled. "So," he said at last, "Fortune hath not given me the grace of a poetess to wife. So be it. But who is this paragon?"
Ma'asuma, however, was too delighted at having got over her confession so happily to refrain from autocratic dignity.