“Pardon! I did wrong, I know! But I had no idea ... I wore the habbarah and mouth-veil. You had told me that a woman dressed like that was safe from insult.”
“I spoke in too general a sense. It is my fault entirely. You sinned through ignorance, and Yûsuf should not have been angry—though, indeed, to our ideas your conduct was abominable.”
“But what wrong did I do, beyond going out without permission? Why did the people on the road beset me? Oh, I am so miserable!”
The Pasha shrugged his shoulders with a smile to Yûsuf, as who should say:
“Observe her innocence!”
“No, no, don’t cry, I beg of you!” he pleaded. “God be praised you have derived no hurt from the adventure. It is entirely owing to respect for you that I and my son are so concerned about it. Beloved daughter, women are for us so sacred—the spirit of the house, the secret fount of life—that we never even speak of them with friends for fear some light word or unseemly thought should go towards them. Nothing must be known of them, no talk made about them, outside the world of women and our own harîm.
“Yesterday, by going out alone in an open carriage, you attracted notice all unconsciously. Your habbarah is of a rich material, your mouth-veil of the kind only worn by ladies of good houses. No such lady would have gone abroad thus unattended. The servants of your English friend would comment on the strange proceeding, and, knowing who you were, think shame of us.
“But that is the least part of what you did. That, by itself, would have been nothing. But you walked. Great God! What made you walk? That is for me inexplicable!”
“I felt the wish to walk. It was a lovely evening.”
“Great God!” the Pasha gasped, with eyes upturned. “Does anybody walk for pleasure here in Egypt? The natives have a proverb: ‘Better ride on beetles than walk upon rich carpets.’ Well, well, there!” He shrugged as giving up a hopeless puzzle. “You walked. A lady dressed as you were had never been seen walking in this world before. More than that, you did not walk like other people. Ghandûr informs me that the rascals who beset you were all persuaded that you were a man dressed up. You say you walked for pleasure in the dust?—and in a habbarah? Astonishing!