Accordingly, returning to his house that evening, he craved immediate audience of the sometime governess; and shortly entered her apartments, which, providing simply for an upper servant of his house, he had furnished in the Frankish manner to seem homelike. If he had gone to so much trouble for a stranger’s comfort, was it likely he would prove a niggard towards his dear son’s bride? The pig who thus traduced him must be taught.
The girl was sitting in a chair beside the window, reading an English book. It pleased him to reflect that she was highly educated. In these bad times, when Frankish lore was in demand, her instructions might secure advancement to a man like Yûsuf, who knew French already.
She laid aside her book and rose to meet him with a charming blush. He took her hand and raised it to his lips; then sank down on a chair and clasped his brow.
“Ah, mademoiselle!” he moaned, “I am so troubled. God knows my heart is sad, profoundly wounded. You are kind and generous, and you know our hearts. But those others of your nation.... Pouf! How bitter! How fanatical! They treat me and my house as dirt. Here is the case: You honour my poor house; you are alone; you have no parents. I say to myself, ‘She is an orphan; I will be her father.’ I therefore do what parents do according to our customs. I provide the trousseau; I also bargain with the bridegroom’s people to endow you richly.
“Let me explain what that means, since it must be quite unknown to you. With us, divorce is easy; it suffices for the man to say a little formula; but the husband must support the wife for three months afterwards, and he must pay the balance of the dowry stated in the marriage-contract, or, if no portion has been paid beforehand, then the whole of it. That makes him think. And the greater the dowry, the longer will he meditate before divorcing her. Now I, your father, have talked the matter over with myself, the bridegroom’s father, and have obtained for you a dowry of three thousand pounds Egyptian. This sum will be stated in the contract, signed and sealed before the judge, and my son will have to pay it if ever he desires divorce, which God forbid! Your trousseau, with the jewels and the slaves that I am going to give you, the furniture of these rooms and more which I shall buy to supplement it—I wish your house to be the kind you are accustomed to—all this, I say, will be your absolute property, and so stipulated in the contract.”
The girl had seized his hand. She pressed it to her lips and sighed:
“How good you are!”
His own emotion was no less than hers. The humiliations of that day had taxed his fortitude, and the sense of his integrity beneath aspersion was like a bubbling fount of tears in outer darkness. The warm touch of her gratitude unmanned him quite. He sobbed aloud:
“Ah, mademoiselle! God knows that I have done my best! Yet here is the Consul threatening me, and moving all the Government to watch me closely; as if I had entrapped you for some evil purpose!—as if I were the worst of criminals, intent to harm you!... I cannot vindicate myself. It would be too degrading. And if he thinks me such a first-class canaille he would not believe me. Therefore I come to beg you, mademoiselle, yourself to deign to write a little word to this good monsieur, assuring him that we are not the monsters he supposes.”
The girl’s face flamed. “I write at once!” she said, and rose to do so.