The girl stirred now. Her eyes narrowed; the dark line of her lips thinned. At last something comprehensible had touched her mind.
"Thou hast known many women, then, sidi! Thou hast come here but to tell me that? Me, who am of little beauty in a man's eyes!"
Habib laughed under his breath. He shook her again. He kissed her and kissed her again on her red lips.
"Thou art jealous, then! But thou canst not comprehend. Canst thou comprehend this, that thou art more beautiful by many times than any other woman I have ever seen? Thou art a heaven of loveliness, and I cannot live without thee. That is true … Nedjma. I am going to take thee for my wife, because I cannot live without thine eyes, thy lips, the fragrance of thy hair…. Yes, I am going to marry thee, my star. It is written! It is written!"
For the first time he could not see her eyes. She had turned them away. Once again something had come in contact with the smooth, heavy substance of her mind. He pulled at her.
"Say! Say, Nedjmà!… It is written!"
"It is not written, sidi." The same ungroping acquiescence was in her whisper. "I have been promised, sidi, to another than thee."
Habib's arms let go; her weight sank away in the dark under the vine.
The silence of the dead night crept in and lay between them.
"And in the night of thy marriage, then, thy husband—or thy father, if thou hast a father—will kill thee."
"In-cha-'llah. If it be the will of God."