“Well, I don’t quite see what I can do for you,” said her appraiser, in a tone of bland reproach. “You see we are here as guardians of the laws and customs of the country. We could hardly, therefore, interfere in a case such as yours—a harîm quarrel. As for the religious controversy, I can tell you we avoid it like hot coals. Our one desire is to uphold the institutions of the country. Really, my dear lady, I think the only thing for you to do is to go straight home and make the best of it.”
At that she rose. He passed before her to the door and held it open. She thought of offering her hand, but his grand bow forbade it; and she went out in profound humiliation.
“Well, art thou happy?” chuckled Umm ed-Dahak, still believing that she was the servant of a criminal intrigue. She prattled merrily till they regained the carriage and were driving homeward, when she noticed that her lady trembled and looked sad.
“Alas!” she cried. “My dove, my poor one, is it so? Woe, woe for womankind! There comes a time to all of us when love escapes.”
But Barakah surveyed a wider disillusion.
Until just now she had been strong in the conceit that she was different from Eastern women, recognizably of higher race. From her dreams with Umm ed-Dahak, built on memories of Mrs. Cameron’s entreaties and the Consul’s arguments, she had derived the notion that she was of value to the English, who would fain reclaim her. Now that mirage, born of the sleepy harîm atmosphere, was swept away; and she was nothing. With English people, she would always long for Orientals; with Orientals, feel a yearning for the life of Europe.
And in religion, likewise, she was nothing. A Christian by conviction after years of scoffing, she was doomed to play the part of a Mahometan, to lose her soul. And she was glad to be returning to the life so lately dreaded, the vision of herself in English eyes had so appalled her. Well, she was nothing, and her soul of small account. The harîm was her natural home; the teaching of the wise and kindly Prophet her protection. She now beheld the vanity of all her struggles, the vulgarity of much concern about the future. God was merciful! In self-annihilation there was peace. Thus through her striving after Christianity she reached at last the living heart of El Islâm.