“How loud the music is getting,” Domini said to him.
“It will deafen Madame’s ears if she gets nearer,” said Hadj, eagerly. “And the dancers are not for Madame. For the Arabs, yes, but for a great lady of the most respectable England! Madame will be red with disgust, with anger. Madame will have mal-au-coeur.”
Batouch began to look like an idol on whose large face the artificer had carved an expression of savage ferocity.
“Madame is my client,” he said fiercely. “Madame trusts in me.”
Hadj laughed with a snarl:
“He who smokes the keef is like a Mehari with a swollen tongue,” he rejoined.
The poet looked as if he were going to spring upon his cousin, but he restrained himself and a slow, malignant smile curled about his thick lips like a snake.
“I shall show to Madame a dancer who is modest, who is beautiful, Hadj-ben-Ibrahim,” he said softly.
“Fatma is sick,” said Hadj, quickly.
“It will not be Fatma.”