So, one hot night, he found himself looking distractedly at the moon in a balcony of the women's apartments.
Hurrying feet and whisperings had gone on, it seemed to him, for hours.
But these feet did not hurry; they lagged.
"A daughter! a miserable daughter!" said his mother's voice, full of tears. "Lo! I wonder Ayesha could think of such a thing ... It is unpardonable."
"Let us say no more," put in Isân-daulet. "When a woman disgraces herself, the less said the better. We will get thee a more dutiful wife, sonling."
Even Dearest-One's face was downcast utterly.
"A daughter!" echoed Babar and paused. Then he said eagerly: "May I not see it, motherling?--'Tis my first child, anyhow."
And they showed it him, a naked new-born baby wrapped in a cotton quilt.
"It looks old; as if it had been born a long time," he said reflectively; then his fine, strong, young hand touched the tiny crumpled fingers tentatively. "Lo! they are like little worms," he said and laughed aloud suddenly, a gay young laugh. "She is not bad, my daughter. I will call her 'Glory of Women.'"
And almost every day he would find time to go in to the women's apartments and look at her.