"You do not know these things."
Suddenly she felt like an ignorant and stupid child, like one unworthy of knowledge.
He sipped his coffee. He was now sitting in European fashion beside her on the divan, and his posture made it more difficult for her to accept his strange mentality; for he looked like a tremendously robust, yet very lithe and extremely handsome and determined young man, who might belong to a race of Southern Europe. Even with the tarbush upon his head his appearance was not unmistakably Eastern.
And this man, evidently quite seriously, talked to her about the birds singing to each other the praises of God.
"You ought to be differently dressed," she said.
"How?"
"In Egyptian clothes, not English flannels."
"Some day you shall see me like that," he said, reassuringly. "I often wear the kuftàn at night upon the Loulia."
"At night upon the Loulia! Then how on earth can I see you in it?"
She spoke with a sudden sharp irritation. To-day her marriage with Nigel seemed to her like a sword suspended above her, which would presently descend upon her, striking her to earth with all her capacity for happiness unused.
"You will see me with the drawers of linen, the sudeyree, the kuftàn, the gibbeh--or, as says my father, jubbeh--and the turban on my head. Only you must wait a little. But women do not like to wait for a pleasure. They are always in a hurry."
The cool egoism with which he accepted and commented on her admiration roused in her, not anger, but a sort of almost wondering respect. It seemed part of his strength. He lifted his eyebrows, threw back his head, showing his magnificent throat, and with the gesture that she had noticed in the garden of the Villa Androud thrust two fingers inside his low, soft collar, and kept them there while he added: "They are like children, and must be treated as children. But they can be very clever, too, when they want to trick. I know that. They can be as cunning as foxes, and as light-footed and swift as gazelles. But all that they do and all that they are is just for men. Women are made for men, and they know it so well that it is only about men that they think. I tell you that."
"No doubt it is true," she said, smilingly accepting his assertions.
"Women will run even after the Chinese shadow of a man if they are not shut close behind the grilles."
Mrs. Armine laughed outright.
"And so you Easterns generally keep them there."