“Like pitch! Like dung!” he answered in the vulgar speech of Egypt. “The production of ideas is an amusing pastime. It is strange, the things a man can think of if he applies his mind to it. And when a Prince is speaking one admires, of course; though this one is a madman who has lost a fine position and will lose his life merely for love of argument. What we are and do belongs to Allah. No thinking or wild talk affects it, praise to Him!”

He seemed glad to change the subject. Putting his arm round Barakah, he begged her in seductive tones to confide to him the secret about Frankish women.

“It is not for myself I ask,” he whispered fondly; “but Hâfiz, Izz-ud-dîn, and Saïd die to know. Where are these balls at which distinguished women fling aside all shame? We have been to dances, but the women there are base and ribald, showing none of that refinement in depravity which charms the mind in writings of this country.”

In vain did she assure him that good Frankish women were every whit as moral as good Orientals.