“I spoke in too general a sense. It is my fault entirely. You sinned through ignorance, and Yûsuf should not have been angry⁠—though, indeed, to our ideas your conduct was abominable.”

“But what wrong did I do, beyond going out without permission? Why did the people on the road beset me? Oh, I am so miserable!”

The Pasha shrugged his shoulders with a smile to Yûsuf, as who should say:

“Observe her innocence!”

“No, no, don’t cry, I beg of you!” he pleaded. “God be praised you have derived no hurt from the adventure. It is entirely owing to respect for you that I and my son are so concerned about it. Beloved daughter, women are for us so sacred⁠—the spirit of the house, the secret fount of life⁠—that we never even speak of them with friends for fear some light word or unseemly thought should go towards them. Nothing must be known of them, no talk made about them, outside the world of women and our own harem.