“An’,” said she, “I don’t want no father.”
“Ye don’t?” he cried, incredulous.
“Because,” she declared, “I’m ’lowin’ t’ take care o’ you—an’ marry you.”
“Ye is?” he gasped.
“Ye bet ye, b’y,” said “By-an’-by’s” baby—“by-an’-by!”
Then they hugged each other hard.
VIII—THEY WHO LOSE AT LOVE
And old Khalil Khayyat, simulating courage, went out, that the reconciliation of Yusef Khouri with the amazing marriage might surely be accomplished. And returning in dread and bewildered haste, he came again to the pastry-shop of Nageeb Fiani, where young Salim Awad, the light of his eyes, still lay limp over the round table in the little back room, grieving that Haleema, Khouri’s daughter, of the tresses of night, the star-eyed, his well-beloved, had of a sudden wed Jimmie Brady, the jolly truckman. The smoke hung dead and foul in the room; the coffee was turned cold in the cups, stagnant and greasy; the coal on the narghile was grown gray as death: the magic of great despair had in a twinkling worked the change of cheer to age and shabbiness and frigid gloom. But the laughter and soft voices in the outer room were all unchanged, still light, lifted indifferently above the rattle of dice and the aimless strumming of a canoun; and beyond was the familiar evening hum and clatter of New York’s Washington Street, children’s cries and the patter of feet, drifting in at the open door; and from far off, as before, came the low, receding roar of the Elevated train rounding the curve to South Ferry.
Khayyat smiled in compassion: being old, used to the healing of years, he smiled; and he laid a timid hand on the head of young Salim Awad.
“Salim, poet, the child of a poet,” he whispered, “grieve no more!”