"Almah," said she, "is very different from us. She loves you and you love her. She ought to give you up. Almah, you ought to give up Atam-or, since you love him."
Almah looked confused, and made some reply to the effect that she belonged to a different race with different customs.
"But you should follow our customs. You are one of us now. You can easily find another who will take him."
Almah threw a piteous glance at me and said nothing.
"I," said Layelah, "will take him."
She spoke these words with an air of magnanimity, as though putting it in the light of a favor to Almah; but Almah did not make any reply, and after some silence Layelah spoke of something else.
Not long after we were alone together, and Layelah returned to the subject. She referred to Almah's want of sympathy with the manners of the Kosekin, and asserted that she ought to aim after a separation.
"I love her," said I, with great warmth, "and will never give her up."
"But she must give you up; it is the woman's place to take the first step. I should be willing to take you."
As Layelah said this she looked at me very earnestly, as if anxious to see how I accepted this offer. It was for me a most embarrassing moment. I loved Almah, but Layelah also was most agreeable, and I liked her very much; indeed, so much so that I could not bear to say anything that might hurt her feelings. Among all the Kosekin there was not one who was not infinitely inferior to her in my eyes. Still, I loved Almah, and I told her so again, thinking that in this way I might repel her without giving offence.