"Though changed," he said, "O Sa-adeh, you are as beautiful as ever."
"Your beard has grown so long and so white," she answered, "that—surely thou art the (what is the name?) the Es-siddeeh I once knew, are you not?"
"I am."
"And you know all secrets?"
"I do."
Then she plied him with various questions concerning the value as an amulet of this or that precious stone, of the pedigree of famous horses, of music as an Emotional Sound or as an Architecture, and many other matters of a similar nature.
All these questions he answered with such a considerable wealth of detail that Sa-adeh appeared confused. Both fell silent.
After her eyes had rested for some time upon his face in a musing fashion, she asked with a strange inflection, "What is love?"
He was dumbfounded.
"I believe you have forgotten," she said, and in the intonation of her voice there was a hint of the equivocal.