Alas, the tea is long in the making, and when the scrapbook is laid aside, she reinforces him with a lot of magazines adorned with stories of the short and long and middling size, from her fertile pen.
“These are beautiful,” says he, in glancing over a few pages, “but no matter how you try, you can not with your pen surpass your own beauty. The charm of your literary style can not hold a candle to the charm of your—permit me to read your hand.”
And laying down the magazine, he takes up her hand and presses it to his lips. In like manner, he tries to read somewhat in the face, but the Enchantress protests and smiles. In which case the smile renders the protest null and void.
Henceforth, the situation shall be trying even to the Dervish who can eat live coals. He oscillates for some while between the Medium and the Enchantress, but finds the effort rather straining.
The first climax, however, is reached, and our Scribe thinks it too sad for words. He himself sheds a few rheums with the fair-looking, fair-spoken Dame, and dedicates to her a few rhymes.
Her magnanimity, he tells us, is unexampled, and her fatalism pathetic. For when Khalid severs himself from the Spiritual Household, she kisses him thrice, saying, “Go, Child; Allah brought you to me, and Allah will bring you again.”
Khalid refers, as usual, to the infinite wisdom of the Almighty, and, taking his handkerchief from his pocket, wipes the tears that fell—from her eyes over his. He passes out of the vestibule, silent and sad, musing on the time he first stood there as a beggar.
Now, the horizon of the Enchantress is unobstructed. Khalid is there alone; and her free love can freely pass on from him to another. And such