Rupert pulled down the bandage over his eyes again; he thought it best, muttering something about the light hurting him.
“Mea,” he said, in despair, “don’t you understand that I am already married?”
“What that matter?” she asked. “Man can have two wives, four if he like.”
“He can’t,” answered Rupert. “I beg you—don’t go on. It is not right; it is more than I can bear. By our English law, he can only have one wife, no one else—no one at all. You must have heard it.”
“Oh, yes, I hear, there at Luxor, but I think that all silly missionary talk. White people do many things they say they should not do—I see them and make note. Who know how many wives you have? But if you no want me, mafeesh—all done with. I not trouble you any more; I go and die, that all.”
“Unless you stop soon, you will make me go and die,” he said faintly. “Mea, it is cruel of you to talk like that. Listen now, and do not be angry, do not think that I am treating you ill. Oh, my dearest friend, sit there and listen!”
Then giving up English, in which she would have found it difficult to understand his arguments, he addressed her in Arabic, expounding our Western doctrines and showing her that what she thought right and proper, in the West was held a crime; that he had passed his word, and it could not be broken, that he would rather die than break it, that his honour was on it, and that if he violated his honour, his soul would be as scarred and mutilated as his body was that day.
Mea listened intently, and at last began to understand.
“Now are you angry with me?” he ended. “And do you still wish me to stay here when I tell you that if I do there must be no more of this love-talk between us which, in the end, might bring me to ruin? If that is too much to ask, then to-morrow I go hence into the desert to—” and he stopped.
“Nay,” she replied, in Arabic, “I am not angry with you, Rupert Bey. I am angry with myself who tempted you to break your own law. Oh! you are good, the best of men that I have known, and I will learn to be good like you—only tell me not that I must cease to love you, for that I cannot do; and oh! speak no more of going hence into the desert to die, for then I should die also. Nay, bide here and be my friend and brother since you may not be my husband. Stay and forgive me who am ignorant, who have other customs, and was not taught thus. Say that you will stay.”