It is strange that among the deadening influences of the harem she has kept the hereditary alertness of the Englishwoman.  She has a baby mouth, it is true; she pleads to you with the eyes of a dog; her pretty ways are those of a young child; but she has not the dull, soulless, sensual look of the pure-bred Turkish woman, such as I have seen in Cairo through the transparent veils.  In them there is no attraction save of the flesh; and that only for the male who, deformity aside, reckons women as merely so much cubical content of animated matter placed by Allah at his disposal for the satisfaction of his desires and the procreation of children.  I cannot for the life of me understand an Englishman falling in love with a Turkish woman.  But I can quite understand him falling in love with Carlotta.  The hereditary qualities are there, though they have been forced into the channel of sex, and become a sort of diabolical witchery whereof I am not quite sure whether she is conscious.  For all that, I don’t think she can have a soul.  I have made up my mind that she hasn’t, and I don’t like having my convictions disturbed.

Until I saw her perched in the corner of the sofa, with her legs tucked up under her, and the light playing a game of magic amid the reds and golds and browns of her hair, while she cheerily discoursed to us of Hamdi’s villainy, I never noticed the dull decorum of this room.  I was struck with the decorative value of mere woman.

I must break myself of the habit of wandering off on a meditative tangent to the circle of conversation.  I was brought back by hearing Pasquale say: 

“So you’re going to marry an Englishman.  It’s all fixed and settled, eh?”

“Of course,” laughed Carlotta.

“Have you made up your mind what he is to be like?”

I could see the unconscionable Don Juan instinctively preen himself peacock fashion.

“I am going to marry Seer Marcous,” said Carlotta, calmly.

She made this announcement not as a jest, not as a wish, but as the commonplace statement of a fact.  There was a moment of stupefied silence.  Pasquale who had just struck a match to light a cigarette stared at me and let the flame burn his fingers.  I stared at Carlotta, speechless.  The colossal impudence of it!

“I am sorry to contradict you,” said I, at last, with some acidity, “but you are going to do no such thing.”

“I am not going to marry you?”

“Certainly not.”

“Oh!” said Carlotta, in a tone of disappointment.

Pasquale rose, brought his heels together, put his hand on his heart and made her a low bow.

“Will you have me instead of this stray bit of Stonehenge?”

“Very well,” said Carlotta.

I seized Pasquale by the arm.  “For goodness sake, don’t jest with her!  She has about as much sense of humour as a prehistoric cave-dweller.  She thinks you have made her a serious offer of marriage.”  He made her another bow.