“Ah, now you are in the country of protocols and etiquette,” she answered.
She must have been asking me questions only as an excuse to speak herself, because she took really no interest in my answers, and she kept on chattering and chattering because she did not want me to go away. She spoke of America and India and China and Japan, all of which countries she seemed to know as well as her own. Never have I met in my travels anyone so fond of talking, and yet at the same time with a spleen which made me almost tired.
I concluded that she was an independent woman, whose weariness must have been the result of constant struggling. She was all alone in the world; one of those poor creatures who might die in a top back-room without a soul belonging to her. Her mind must have been saturated with theories, she must have known all the uncomfortable shocks which come from a changed position, and yet she was British enough to tremble before Public Opinion.
“But do you know why I travel so much?” at last I had the opportunity of asking her. “Like Diogenes who tried to find a Man, I have been trying to find a Free woman, but have not been successful.”
I do not think she understood in the least what I meant.—Your affectionate friend,
Zeyneb.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CLASH OF CREEDS
London, Jan. 1909.