“To Hemerlingue’s.”

She raised her great eyes, thinking he was making game of her.  Then he told her of his meeting with the baron at the funeral of de Mora and the understanding they had come to.

“Go there, if you like,” said she coldly.  “But you little know me if you believe that I, an Afchin, will ever set foot in that slave’s house.”

Cabassu, prudently seeing what was likely to happen, had fled into a neighbouring room, carrying with him the five acts of The Revolt under his arm.

“Come,” said the Nabob to his wife, “I see that you do not know the terrible position I am in.  Listen.”

Without thinking of the maids or the negresses, with the sovereign indifference of an Oriental for his household, he proceeded to picture his great distress, his fortune sequestered over seas, his credit destroyed over here, his whole career in suspense before the judgment of the Chamber, the influence of the Hemerlingues on the judge-advocate, and the necessity of the sacrifice at the moment of all personal feeling to such important interests.  He spoke hotly, tried to convince her, to carry her away.  But she merely answered him, “I shall not go,” as if it were only a matter of some unimportant walk, a little too long for her.

He said trembling: 

“See, now, it is not possible that you should say that.  Think that my fortune is at stake, the future of our children, the name you bear.  Everything is at stake in what you cannot refuse to do.”

He could have spoken thus for hours and been always met by the same firm, unshakable obstinacy—­an Afchin could not visit a slave.

“Well, madame,” said he violently, “this slave is worth more than you.  She has increased tenfold her husband’s wealth by her intelligence, while you, on the contrary——­”

For the first time in the twelve years of their married life Jansoulet dared to hold up his head before his wife.  Was he ashamed of this crime of lese-majeste, or did he understand that such a remark would place an impassable gulf between them?  He changed his tone, knelt down before the bed, with that cheerful tenderness when one persuades children to be reasonable.

“My little Martha, I beg of you—­get up, dress yourself.  It is for your own sake I ask it, for your comfort, for your own welfare.  What would become of you if, for a caprice, a stupid whim, we should become poor?”

But the word—­poor—­represented absolutely nothing to the Levantine.  One could speak of it before her, as of death before little children.  She was not moved by it, not knowing what it was.  She was perfectly determined to keep in bed in her djebba; and to show her decision, she lighted a new cigarette at her old one just finished; and while the poor Nabob surrounded his “dear little wife” with excuses, with prayers, with supplications, promising her a diadem of pearls a hundred times more beautiful than her own, if she would come, she watched the heavy smoke rising to the painted ceiling, wrapping herself up in it as in an imperturbable calm.  At last, in face of this refusal, this silence, this barrier of headstrong obstinacy, Jansoulet unbridled his wrath and rose up to his full height: