“But you are beautiful! Men pay for beauty, need no bribe with it. And you mean to say they would have let you die a virgin⁠—with that loveliness? O Lord of Heaven! What a wicked waste!”

Their dread of dying in virginity appealed to Barakah as something comical when she remembered the ideals preached in Christendom.

Leylah Khânum told her stories of true love, all far from proper judged by English taste; and shocked her by the cool assertion that poison was a woman’s natural weapon. In the afternoon they were invited to Murjânah Khânum’s rooms, where the business of the trousseau still proceeded. It went on for days. Each morning when she woke, the bride-elect found some fresh present from the Pasha in her room, which Gulbeyzah made her carry forth and show to everyone. The whole haremlik frolicked round her in excitement.

Gulbeyzah’s status in the household puzzled her. The Circassian seemed the equal of the ladies, yet was called a slave.