Margaret rose from her seat. "You have done me so much good," she said. "I feel as if my world had been re-made."
"That's splendid!" Hadassah said. "I always try to remember that it is a privilege to suffer. It is one of the divine fires which tests us; suffering links us to the great brotherhood. You wouldn't choose to be outside it. The older we grow the more we realize that it is suffering, not happiness, which makes the whole world kin."
Margaret's silence, which often was more eloquent than other women's speech, told Hadassah that she agreed. Suffering was teaching her its lessons.
"When may we expect you?" Hadassah said. "The sooner the better, don't you think?"
"May I come in a day or two? I have some business to do for my brother—I have promised to see one or two people for him; he is going home very soon." She looked round the hall through which they were passing. "I can't imagine myself ever really living here. It looks as if it had all been created by the wand of some magician for a princess in a fairytale. What a contrast to our hut in the Valley!"
"You like it better than a new house in the European settlement? You think I chose wisely?"
"Of course I do. Who wouldn't?"
"This house costs us no more than a good flat would in the European part of the city, but you have to come through the native quarters to get to it, remember. Many people would object to that."
"I hate the European quarter of Cairo," Margaret said. "It seems to me so vulgar and degenerate. The native quarter is just what it sets out to be, no better and no worse."
"Well, you must come and stay with us—my husband will enjoy showing you the hidden beauties of Cairo. He is devoted to it."