“Let me stay beside you!” he said in a low tone in which there was a slight accent of entreaty.
El-Râmi turned, and looked at him kindly.
“Dear boy, you had better make new friends while you can, lest the old be taken from you.”
“Friends!” echoed Féraz—“Friends—here?” He gave a gesture more eloquent than speech, of doubt and disdain,—then continued, “Might we not go now? Is it not time to return home and sleep?”
El-Râmi smiled.
“Nay, are we not seeing life? Here we are among pretty women, well-bred men—the rooms are elegant,—and the conversation is as delightfully vague and nearly as noisy as the chattering of monkeys—yet, with all these advantages, you talk of sleep!”
Féraz laughed a little.
“Yes, I am tired,” he said. “It does not seem to me real, all this—there is something shadowy and unsubstantial about it. I think sleep is better.”
At that moment Irene Vassilius came up to them.
“I am just going,” she said, letting her soft serious eyes dwell on Féraz with interest, “but I feel I must thank you for your story of the ‘Priest Philemon.’ Is it your own idea?—or does such a legend exist?”