She began a melancholy, crooning, guttural ditty; but broke off suddenly.

“Oh! but it is stupid.  Like the Turkish dancing.  Oh, everything in Alexandretta was stupid!  Sometimes I think I have never seen Alexandretta—­or Ayesha—­or Hamdi.  I think I always am with you.”

This must be so, as of late she has spoken little of her harem life; she talks chiefly of the small daily happenings, and already we have a store of common interests.  The present is her whole existence; the past but a confused dream.  The odd part of the matter is that she regards her position with me as a perfectly natural one.  No stray kitten adopted by a kind family could have less sense of obligation, or a greater faith in the serene ordering of the cosmos for its own private and peculiar comfort.  When I asked her a while ago what she would have done had I left her on the bench in the Embankment Gardens, she shrugged her shoulders and answered, as she had done before, that either she would have died or some other nice gentleman would have taken care of her.

“Do you think nice gentlemen go about London looking for homeless little girls?” I asked on that occasion.

“All gentlemen like beautiful girls,” she replied, which brought us to an old argument.

This afternoon, however, we did not argue.  The day forbade it.  I lay with my head on Carlotta’s lap, looking up into the deep blue, and feeling a most curious sensation of positive happiness.  My attitude towards life has hitherto been negative.  I have avoided more than I have sought.  I have not drunk deep of life because I have been unathirst.  To me—­

               “To stand aloof and view the fight
               Is all the pleasure of the game.”

My interest even in Judith has been of a detached nature.  I have been like Faust.  I might have said: 

               "Werd’ ich zum Augenblicke sagen
               Werweile doch!  Du bist so schon!

Then may the devil take me and do what he likes with me!”

I have never had the least inclination to apostrophise the moment in this fashion and request it to tarry on account of its exceeding charm.  Never until this afternoon, when the deep summer enchantment of the turquoise day was itself ensorcelised by the witchery of a girl’s springtide.

“You have three, four, five—­oh, such a lot of grey hairs,” said Carlotta, looking down on my reclining head.

“Many people have grey hair at twenty,” said I.

“But I have none.”

“You are not yet twenty, Carlotta.”

“Do you think I will have them then?  Oh, it would be dreadful.  No one would care to have me.”

“And I?  Am I thus the object of every one’s disregard?”

“Oh, you—­you are a man.  It is right for a man.  It makes him look wise.  His wife says, ’Behold, my husband has grey hair.  He has wisdom.  If I am not good he will beat me.  So I must obey him."’