Chapter 26

Next day, when a maid announced that Hamoud-bin-Said was waiting in the library, Lilla felt that the time had come to "stop that nonsense." Her desire to learn Arabic now seemed to her an absurd caprice; and once more she had reason to wonder at her swift passage from one enthusiasm to another, her intense preoccupation with things that suddenly became insufferable. She entered the library dressed and hatted for the street, pulling on her gloves; and while occupied with her glove buttons said calmly, in her enchanting voice:

"I'm going to be very busy for a while. I suppose I ought to have given you a little notice; so I'm writing you a check for two-weeks' lessons."

Hamoud stood before her, tall and spare, in a new, black alpaca suit as incongruous-looking as the old one. He made no response at once; and there was no change in his perfectly chiseled, tan features; but for all his impassiveness he managed remarkably to convey the impression that an immense calamity had befallen him. His full eyelids remained lowered, as if he were considering his whole unfortunate destiny; and a sort of loneliness, produced no doubt by his strangeness in this room, hovered round his shapely head that was covered with straight, black locks.

Lilla felt a twinge of compunction, as she reflected:

"Who in this town except myself would ever take Arabic lessons! Poor young caliph! Now he must work or starve."

She added, aloud:

"In fact, you've been such a good teacher that I ought--well, haven't I made great progress?"

He raised his eyes, and a bitter smile appeared on his gemlike lips. He replied in Arabic:

"It is a difficult language, madam. Perhaps you understand what I am saying now because I am speaking very simply and slowly. But you yourself can speak only the most ordinary phrases; and I doubt if any one but I could understand you. However, why should you trouble to learn this language of mine? It always seemed folly to me. It is just a part of this life, which has little meaning except to thoughtless persons, and in which, to the wise, all events are like the shadows of passing birds."

Her pride was affronted; and yet it was not as if an inferior had rebuked her. He picked up his hat, a frightful confection of tan and yellow straw, and the textbook out of which she had learned--in heaven's name, why?--the facts that "el" and "al" are assimilated before dentals, and that "elli" is omitted after general substantives. Hamoud-bin-Said inclined his handsome head, while concluding:

"You will soon forget all you have learned from me, and I shall have received your money for nothing." His impassiveness was deranged by a look of chagrin, as he blurted out harshly: "I regret that the money also has flown away, or I should insist----"

He held his head high, as if trying to rise above his feeling of degradation.

Lilla stood looking at him thoughtfully from under the edge of a verdigris-colored turban that matched the high collar of her walking suit. She was reluctant to let him drift away to some obscure, wretched fate, to which his native apathy would surely direct him. She perceived in him again a certain relationship to herself, a relationship due not only to his past good fortune, but also to something in his character--perhaps some likeness of enthusiasm, or even some identical kind of ardor, or else some weakness that had ruined him but had not yet ruined her. So it was with a blush that she suggested:

"See here, an invalid friend of mine is dissatisfied with the man who takes care of him----"

When she had made herself clear, his face turned brick-red, and for an instant his eyes were terrible. One would have said that some ancestor uncontaminated by Zanzibar, some true Arab of Omân, stood there in his place, flaming with outraged dignity. He cast back at her one more burning look before he stalked from the house.

The following week, when she had forgotten him, she found him, at twilight, in the black-and-white hall.

He looked exhausted, as if he had tramped innumerable miles; and his face was as pale as death. He bowed humbly, muttering:

"Madam, if you will forgive, I am now ready to be the servant of that sick man."