They only spoke Albanian, and a few words of Serb.  One had been very beautiful, but her teeth were decayed, another was a healthy-looking young woman, and the third was frankly hideous.

They brought coffee, the chief wife presenting it with her hand across her chest—­a polite way of saying—­

“I am your slave.”

Jo spoke Serb, and they clearly said in Albanian—­

“If only we could tell what you are saying.”

After which every one sat and beamed, and they kept calling for somebody.

A plump dark-eyed girl came in, the first wife’s daughter.  She spoke
Serb, and interpreted for the wives.

They wanted to know everything, but knew so little that they could grasp nothing.

Where had Jo come from?  She tried London, Paris; no use, they had never heard of them—­two weeks on the sea—­they didn’t know what the sea was, nor ships nor boats.  They had never left Ipek and only knew the little curly river.

The girl said that “devoikas” did not learn to read and write.  That was for the men.

Jo finally explained that she had ridden on horseback from Plevlie.  Then they gasped—­

“How far you have travelled!  What a wonderful life, and does your husband let you speak to other men?”

She asked them what they did.

“Nothing.”  “Sewing?” “A little,” they owned with elegant ease.

The chief wife had recently lost one of her children, but did not seem to know of what it had died.

“I should think a woman doctor would be useful here,” said Jo.

They screamed with laughter.  “How funny!  Why, she would be so thick!” they said, stretching their arms as wide as they could.

They kept inventing pretexts for keeping her, but when she rose to go for the third time they regretfully bade her farewell, the daughter took both her hands and imprinted a smacking kiss.

Outside the healthy-looking wife emerged from the basket hut, where she was evidently preparing some delicacy to bring up, and showed signs of deep disappointment.

The responsible-looking man who let her out also expressed his regrets that she had not stayed longer.  In the great street doorway was seated the husband, but no Jan, no Pavlovitch, so Jo sat with him, somewhat embarrassed, eating bits of apple which he peeled for her.

In the afternoon we went to bid farewell to the Archbishop and took Pavlovitch with us.  The Archbishop gave Pavlovitch a poor welcome until he heard his name.

“Are you Nikola Pavlovitch, of whom I have heard so much from the Governor?  I thought you were only a common soldier.  I have met you at last.”

We felt we were really consorting with the great.

Jo related her harem experiences, and he told of the attempts of the young Turks in Constantinople to abolish the veil, of how he had assisted at small dinner parties where the ladies had discarded their veils, and of the ferocity with which the priests and leaders had fought and quashed the movement.