“Thank you very much, but it is really quite impossible,”—there was poison in the honey of this sweet reply,—“I have a carriage waiting.”
“We can send it with a message.”
“No, really, thank you! I have stayed too long already.” She suddenly bethought her of the master move, and rose determined.
“No, sit down, my dear!” cried Mrs. Cameron. “I have to talk to you. And though I would rather have had the night in which to think things over, I must, since you force me to it, speak quite simply now. I say: Don’t do it, child! Don’t take the step the Consul tells me that you contemplate! He thought that you had been seduced by unfair practices; but that, I see from your behaviour, is not so. It is just the charm of novelty, the spirit of adventure—is it not?—with just, perhaps, a little mischief prompting, a little grudge against the dull life you have led. My love, you must not be allowed to do it—you, an Englishwoman! It degrades us all. I have lived out here for years, and I assure you that, if a daughter of mine declared her will to marry one of them, sooner than it should happen I would kill her with my own hands. A girl!—It is unheard of! With their view of women!”
“It is plain you know nothing about them,” sneered the other; “at any rate, about the class of people I have mixed with. They have the greatest reverence for women. You suppose, because we veil—”
“We!” interjected Mrs. Cameron.
“Yes, we; for I am one of those whom you so grossly slander.” A drum of battle beat at either temple of the girl thus brought to bay. Her brain reeled with indignation, and her voice grew husky. “I say, you think because we veil that we are quite degraded, the same as we do when we see your faces bare. The difference is one of custom only. Underneath our veils, in our own houses, we are just as happy and as free as you are.... It is too droll! You fancy that Mahometan women have their lives made miserable? Why, I have never known such happy women. From my rooms, I hear them laughing, playing, singing all day long.”
“Poor things! They know no other life. You do, and would be miserable in the same conditions. Have you ever thought of what polygamy involves—for women, anyhow?”
“It seems to me extremely sensible and kind to women. It takes into consideration facts which we slur over, cruelly. It gives to every girl a chance of motherhood.”