Gustav understood that he was dismissed, but with pardonable pertinacity resolved to force Selaka to speak to him of Inarime, and walked beside him.
“She is well?” he almost entreated.
“Very well,” Selaka admitted slowly, not trusting himself to recognise the hungry question in the other’s eyes.
“Her beauty has made some stir here,” he added in a naïve exposure of paternal vanity. “You have heard?”
“No, I arrived yesterday. The town’s gossip has not reached me.”
A thrill of insufferable horror shot through him at the hideous picture of Inarime’s beauty the theme of men’s discourse and the object of their ugly scrutiny. The Turk was thus far strong within him, that if possible he would have had her shielded from alien homage, guarded the bloom and perfume of her beauty for his own exclusive possession.
After a pause, filled in with conjecture and flashes of memory, he turned again to Selaka.
“Am I still an outcast, sir?”
“Outcast! You know that I esteem you—truly, cordially.”
“For yourself. But for her—in that sense I mean it.”