“‘Come into the house,’ I said to her.

“She got up, and I took her hand, her delicate hand, with its slender fingers, and triumphant in her rags, with her bracelets and her necklace ringing, she went gravely towards my house, where Mohammed was waiting for us, but before going in, I said: 

“’Allouma, whenever you want to return to your own people, tell me, and I will allow you to go.’

“‘You promise?’

“‘Yes, I promise.’

“’And I will make you a promise also.  When I feel ill or unhappy’—­and here she put her hand to her forehead, with a magnificent gesture—­’I shall say to you:  “I must go yonder,” and you will let me go.’

“I went with her to her room, followed by Mohammed, who was carrying some water, for there had been no time to tell the wife of Abd-el-Kader-el-Hadam that her mistress had returned.  As soon as she got into the room, and saw the wardrobe with the looking-glass in the door, she ran up to it, like a child does when it sees its mother.  She looked at herself for a few seconds, made a grimace, and then in a rather cross voice, she said to the looking-glass: 

“’Just you wait a moment; I have some silk dresses in the wardrobe.  I shall be beautiful in a few minutes.’

“And I left her alone, to act the coquette to herself.

“Our life began its usual course again, as formerly, and I felt more and more under the influence of the strange, merely physical attractions of that girl, for whom, at the same time, I felt a kind of paternal contempt.  For two months all went well, and then I felt that she was again becoming nervous, agitated, and rather low-spirited, and one day I said to her:—­

“‘Do you want to return home again?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘And you did not dare to tell me?’

“‘I did not venture to.’

“‘Go, if you wish to; I give you leave.’

“She seized my hands and kissed them, as she did in all her outbursts of gratitude, and the same morning she disappeared.

“She came back, as she had done the first time, at the end of about three weeks, in rags, covered with dust, and satiated with her Nomad life of sand and liberty.  In two years she returned to her own people four times in this fashion.

“I took her back, gladly, without any feelings of jealousy, for with me jealousy can only spring from love as we Europeans understand it.  I might very likely have killed her if I had surprised her in the act of deceiving me, but I should have done it, just as one half kills a disobedient dog, from sheer violence.  I should not have felt those torments, that consuming fire—­Northern jealousy.  I have just said that I should have killed her like a disobedient dog, and, as a matter of fact, I loved her somewhat in the same manner as one loves some very highly bred horse or dog, which it is impossible to replace.  She was a splendid animal, a sensual animal, an animal made for pleasure, and which possessed the body of a woman.