“What are your terms?” asked Gregorio, roughly.

The woman laughed, but did not answer.  The stars were shining, and the kempsin that had blown all day was dead.  It was cool sitting outside the door of the cafe under the little awning, and pleasant to watch the blue cigarette smoke float upward in the still air.  Gregorio sat for a while silent, and the woman came and stood by him.  “You know my terms,” she whispered, and Gregorio smiled, took her hand, and kissed her.  At that moment the blind of the opposite house was flung back.  Xantippe leaned out of the window and saw them.

VI—­BABY AND JEW

When the Penny-farthing Shop began to fill Gregorio disappeared quietly by the back door.  He muttered a half-unintelligible answer to the men who were playing cards in the dim parlour through which he had to pass, who called to him to join them.  Gaining the street, he wandered along till he reached the bazaars, intending to waste an hour or two until Xantippe should have left the house.  Then he determined to go back and see the boy in whom all his hopes and ambitions were centered, who was the unconscious cause of his villainy and degradation.

There was a large crowd in the bazaars, for a Moolid was being celebrated.  Jugglers, snake-charmers, mountebanks, gipsies, and dancing-girls attracted hundreds of spectators.

The old men sat in the shadows of their stalls, smoking and drinking coffee.  They smiled gravely at the younger people, who jostled one another good-humouredly, laughing, singing, quarrelling like children.  Across the roadway hung lamps of coloured glass and tiny red flags stamped with a white crescent and a star.  Torches blazed at intervals, casting a flickering glow on the excited faces of the crowd.

Gregorio watched without much interest.  He had seen a great many fantasias since he came to Egypt, and they were no longer a novelty to him.  He was annoyed that a race of people whom he despised should be so merry when he himself had so many troubles to worry him.  He would have liked to go into one of the booths where the girls danced, but he had no money, and he cursed at his stupidity in not asking the Marx woman for some.  He no longer felt ashamed of himself, for he argued that he was the victim of circumstances.  Still he wished Xantippe had not looked out of the window, though of course he could easily explain things to her.  And Xantippe was really so angry the night before, explanations were better postponed for a time.  “After all,” he thought, “it really does not much matter.  Once we get over our present difficulties we shall forget all we have gone through.”  This comfortable reflection had been doing duty pretty often the last day or two, and though Gregorio did not believe it a bit, he always felt it was a satisfactory conclusion, and one to be encouraged.

Meanwhile he would not meet Xantippe.  That was a point upon which he had definitely made up his mind.  As he strolled through the bazaars, putting into order his vagabond thoughts, in a tall figure a few yards in front of him he recognised Amos.  Nervous, he halted, for he had no desire to be interviewed by the Jew, and yet no way of escape seemed possible.