“What is sex?” asked Carlotta.

“It is the Fundamental Blunder of Creation,” said I.

“I do not understand,” said Carlotta.

“Nobody tries to understand Sir Marcus,” said Pasquale, cheerfully.  “We just let him drivel on until he is aware no one is listening.”

“Seer Marcous is very wise,” said Carlotta, in serious defence of her lord and master.  “All day he reads in big books and writes on paper.”

I have been wondering since whether that is not as ironical a judgment as ever was passed.  Am I wise?  Is wisdom attained by reading in big books and writing on paper?  Solomon remarks that wisdom dwells with prudence and finds out knowledge of witty inventions; that the wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way; that wisdom and understanding keep one from the strange woman and the stranger which flattereth with her words.  Now, I have not been saved from the strange young woman who has begun to flatter with her words; I don’t in the least understand my way, since I have no notion what I shall do with her; and in taking her in and letting her loll upon my sofa of evenings, so as to show off her red slippers to my guests, I have thrown prudence to the winds; and my only witty invention was the idea of teaching her typewriting, which is futile.  If the philosophy of the excellent aphorist is sound, I certainly have not much wisdom to boast of; and none of the big books will tell me what a wise man would have done had he met Carlotta in the Embankment Gardens.

I did not think, however, that my wisdom was a proper subject for discussion.  I jerked back the conversation by asking Carlotta why she called Hamdi Effendi a shocking bad man.  Her reply was startling.

“My mother told me.  She used to cry all day long.  She was sorry she married Hamdi.”

“Poor thingl” said I.  “Did he ill-treat her?”

“Oh, ye-es.  She had small-pox, too, and she was no longer pretty, so Hamdi took other wives and she did not like them.  They were so fat and cruel.  She used to tell me I must kill myself before I married a Turk.  Hamdi was going to make me marry Mohammed Ali one—­two years ago; but he died.  When I said I was so glad” (that seems to be her usual formula of acknowledgment of news relating to the disasters of her acquaintance), “Hamdi shut me up in a dark room.  Then he said I must marry Mustapha.  That is why I ran away with Harry.  See?  Oh, Hamdi is shocking bad.”

From this and from other side-lights Carlotta has thrown on her upbringing, I can realise the poor, pretty weak-willed baby of a thing that was her mother, taking the line of least resistance, the husband dead and the babe in her womb, and entering the shelter offered by the amorous Turk.  And I can picture her during the fourteen years of her imprisoned life, the disillusion, the heart-break, the despair.  No wonder the invertebrate soul could do no more for her daughter than teach her monosyllabic English and the rudiments of reading and writing.  Doubtless she babbled of western life with its freedom and joyousness for women; but four years have elapsed since her death, and her stories are only elusive memories in Carlotta’s mind.