Faster and faster the horses were trotting, leading the long file of carriages and impatient motors that bore the relatives and guests and trousseau, rolling on under the lebbeks and sycamores of the wide Shubra Avenue, once the delight of fashionables before the Gezireh Drive had drained it of its throngs and its prestige.

Now some bright-eyed urchins ran out from their games in the dust to curious attention, and through a half open gate Aimee caught once a glimpse of a young, unveiled girl watching eagerly from the tangled greens and ruined statuary of an old garden.  Farther on came glimpses of farm lands, the wheat rising in bright spears, and of well-wooded heights and in the distance the white houses of Demerdache against the Gibel Achmar beyond.

But where were they bearing her?  Aimee had a despairing sense of distance and desolation as the carriage turned again—­Abdullah, the coachman, having traversed unnecessary miles to gratify his pride before the house of his parents—­and made a zigzag way towards the river, where old palaces rose from the backwaters, their faces hidden by high walls or covered with heavy vines and moss.

Deeper and deeper grew the girl’s dismay.  It was a different world from that bright, modern Cairo that she knew; this was as remote from her daily life as the old streets of Al Raschid.  Her thoughts flew forward to that unknown lord, that Hamdi Bey, whose image she had refused to assemble to her consciousness.  Now she comforted her terror with a sudden assumption of age and dignity and kindness, of a courtesy that would protect her and a deference that would assuage the horror of a life together, when unknown, fearful familiarities would alone vibrate in the empty monotonies.

Before a high wall the carriage had stopped.  A huge, repellent Ethiopian was standing before an opened doorway, through which a rich carpet was spread.

“Ah, but he looks like an ogre, that new eunuch of yours, Aimee,” murmured one of the little Turks.  The other, more touched with thought, gave her a disturbed glance, and laughed in nervousness.

Madame, alone serene, ignored the dismaying impression.

“The palace is of a fine, ancient beauty, I am told,” she mentioned cheerfully.

For one wild instant Aimee thought to plead with her, to implore her to tell Abdullah to drive on, to give her the freedom of flight, if only flight down those deserted streets.  And then a mad vision of herself in her bridal robes in flight, brought the hysterical laughter to her throat.  The time for flight had gone by ...  And as for madame’s pity on her—­this was not the first time that Aimee had thought of invoking her aid, but she had always known, too well, that thought’s supreme futility.

Sympathetic as Madame de Coulevain might be in her inmost heart—­and Aimee divined in her an understanding pity for the necessities of existence—­never would that sympathy betray her to rashness.  She never would believe that in serving Aimee she would not be ruining her; and even if assured of Aimee’s safety, she could never be brought to betray her own reputation for truthworthiness among the harems of Cairo....  As well appeal to the rocks of the Mokattam hills.