And I, Marcus Ordeyne, sit by watching her, a most contented philosopher of forty.  A dingo dog could not be so contented.  That young fellow, I unhesitatingly assert, must be the most brainless of his type.  I suffer fools gladly, as a general rule, but if I see much of this one I shall do him some injury.

After dejeuner we strolled to the top of the west cliff and lay on the thick dry grass.  The earth has never known a more perfect afternoon.  A day of turquoise and diamond.

The air itself was diaphanous blue.  Below us the tiny place slumbered in the sunshine; scarcely a sign of life save specks of washer-women on the beach bending over white patches which we knew were linen spread out to dry.  The ebb-tide lapped lazily on the shingle, where the sea changed suddenly from ultramarine to a fringe of feathery white.  A white sail or two flecked the blue of the bay.  A few white wisps of cirrus gleamed above our heads.  Around us, on the cliff-tops, the green pastures and meadows and, farther inland, the cornfields stacked in harvest, and great masses of trees.  Lying on our backs, between sea and sky, we seemed utterly alone.  Carlotta and I were the sole inhabitants of the earth.  I dreamily disintegrated caramels from their sticky tissue-paper wrappings for Carlotta’s consumption.

After a while unconquerable drowsiness crept over me; and a little later I had an odd sense of perfect quietude.  I was lying amid moss and violets.  In a languorous way I wondered how my surroundings had changed, and at last I awoke to find my head propped on Carlotta’s lap and shaded by her red parasol, while she sat happy in full sunshine.  I was springing from this posture of impropriety when she laughed and laid restraining hands on my shoulders.

“No.  You must not move.  You look so pretty.  And it is so nice.  I put your head there so that it should be soft.  You have been sound asleep.”

“I have also been abominably impolite,” said I.  “I humbly beg your pardon, Carlotta.”

“Oh, I am not cross,” she laughed.  Then still keeping her hands on me, she settled her limbs into a more comfortable position.

“There!  Now I can play at being a good little Turkish wife.”  She fashioned into a fan the Matin newspaper, which I had bought for the luxurious purpose of not reading, and fanned me.  “That is what Ayesha used to do to Hamdi.  And Ayesha used to tell him stories.  But my lord does not like his slave’s stories.”

“Decidedly not,” said I.

I have heard much of Ayesha, a pretty animal organism who appears to have turned her elderly husband into a doting fool.  I am beginning to have a contempt for Hamdi Effendi.

“They are what you call improper, eh?” she laughed, referring to the tales.  “I will sing you a Turkish song which you will not understand.”

“Is it a suitable song?”

“Kim bilir—­who knows?” said Carlotta.