"Why should I talk to you? I am not like those who make a noise always whether they have words within them that need to be spoken or not. What do you wish me to say to you?" he answered.
"Well—"
She took up the palm-leaf fan which he had laid upon the table.
"Let me see!"
How should she get at him? What method was the best? Somehow she did not feel inclined to be subtle with him. As she had powdered her face before him so she could calmly have applied the kohl to her eyelids, and so she could now be crude in speech with him. What a rest, what an almost sensuous joy that was! And she had only just realized it, suddenly, very thoroughly.
"What are you like?" she said. "I want to know."
She moved the fan gently, very languidly, to and fro.
"But you can tell me, because you can see me all the time, and I cannot see myself unless I take the glass," he said.
"Not outside, Baroudi, inside."
She spoke rather as if to a child.