“I can well imagine your feelings and sympathize with them,” said Mr. Middleton. “There you sat in the encircling darkness, asking yourself with no hope of an answer, ‘Was it Mildred? Was it her sister? Was it Mildred contemptuously repudiating the idea of marriage with me, or the sister haughtily scoffing at some sentiments just professed by Mildred? But I should not have spent too long a time asking how I was to know. I should put the matter to the test and had it out with Mildred, Miss Mildred, I should say.”
The emir looked steadily at Mr. Middleton. There was surprise, annoyance, perhaps even vexation in his gaze. With incisive tones, he said:
“How could you so mistake me? Ours is a line whose lineage goes back twelve hundred years, a noble and unsullied line. Could I, sir, think of making my wife, making a princess of my race, a woman who could entertain the thought of stooping to marry a Dago cheap circus man? Suppose I had gone to Mildred and had asked her if she had expressed herself of such a demeaning declaration? Suppose she had said, ‘Yes,’ then there I would have been, compromised, caught in an entanglement from which as a man of honor, I could not withdraw. The only thing to do was to keep silence. The risk was too great, I resolved to leave on the morrow. For the first time did I learn that I was believed to be a Dago and the proprietor of the little menagerie. This strengthened my resolve to leave.
“I left. Your happy encounter with the young ladies in the restaurant changed all. They learned from you that I was their social equal. They looked me up and apologized for their apparent lack of appreciation of my services and explained that they thought me a Dago circus man. I learned that neither of them believed in a mesalliance, that the question I had heard was a rhetorical question merely, one not expecting an answer, much used by orators to express a strong negation of the sentiments apparently contained in the question. But I have not yet learned which girl it was who asked the question. It is entirely immaterial and I don’t think I shall try to find out, even after I am married, for of course you have surmised I am to be married, to be married to Mildred.”
“Yes, another American heiress marries a foreign nobleman,” said Mr. Middleton, with a bitterness that did not escape the emir.
“Permit me to correct a popular fallacy,” said the emir. “Nothing could be more erroneous than the prevalent idea that American girls marry foreign noblemen because attracted by the glitter of rank, holding their own plain republican citizens in despite. Sir, it takes a title to make a foreigner equal to American men in the eyes of American women. A British knight may compete with the American mister, but when you cross the channel, nothing less than a count will do in a Frenchman, a baron in the line of a German, while, for a Russian to receive any consideration, he must be a prince.
“And now,” said the emir, “my little establishment here being about to be broken up, I am going to ask you to accept certain of my effects which for sundry reasons I cannot take with me to my new abode. My jewels, hangings, and costumes, my wife will like, of course. But as she is opposed to smoking, there are six narghilehs and four chibouques which I will never use again. As I am about to unite with the Presbyterian church this coming Sunday, it might cause my wife some disquietude and fear of backsliding, were I to retain possession of my eight copies of the Koran. She may be wise there,” said the emir with a sigh. “If perchance you should embrace the true faith and thereby make compensation for the loss of a member occasioned by my withdrawal——”
“That would not even matters up,” interrupted Mr. Middleton, “for I am not a Presbyterian, but a Methodist.”
“Oh,” said the emir. “Well, there are five small whips of rhinoceros hide and two gags. My wife will not wish me to keep those, nor a crystal casket containing twenty-seven varieties of poisons. Then there are other things that you might have use for and I have not. I have sent for a cab and Mesrour will stow the things in it.”
At that moment the cab was heard without and Mesrour began to load it with the gifts of the emir. At length he ceased his carrying and stood looking expectantly. With an air of embarrassment, and clearing his throat hesitatingly, the emir addressed Mr. Middleton.