“Remember, my son’s life is in your hands⁠—such pretty hands! His earthly happiness is trusted to this carriage, all too vile to hold so sweet a burden. Day and night he dreams of nothing but your charms. If your mind changes he will surely die.”

She laughed and kissed her fingers to the dear old man, as she stepped up into the carriage. The eunuch slammed the door, which was close-shuttered, leaving her in perfumed shade. A burning blush suffused her as she thought of Yûsuf⁠—his strained, eager face, his yearning lips, beheld that once to haunt her consciousness, a naked shape of love. But pride was uppermost in all her thoughts just then⁠—pride in the comfortable carriage, the attentive servants⁠—pride in her newfound value, in her newfound relatives, and in the daring resolution she had made to break with England. The foreign clamour of the streets, the curious, heady odours, flattered her with a sense of strange adventure.