The court ladies did not treat Egle with greater tenderness. They suspected her intimacies, gave her gallants, even honored her with some great adventures, made her a party concerned in others: they knew particulars, and quoted witnesses. “Good,” whispered they, “she has been surprised tête à tête with Melraim in one of the groves of the great park. Egle does not want wit,” added they; “but Melraim has too much good sense to be amused with her speeches alone, at ten at night, in a grove.”

“You are mistaken,” said a Petit-Maître, “I have walked with her a hundred times in the dusk of the evening, and found my account in it. But apropos, do you know that Zulemar is daily at her toilette?”

“Doubtless, we know it, and that she has no toilette but when her husband is in waiting at court.”

“Poor Celebi,” continued another, “indeed his wife advertises him by the aigrette and diamond buckles, which she received of the pacha Ismael.”

“Is that true, madam?”