"
"Condescend!" Stephen repeated.
"By Jove, yes. I'm sure they think it's a great condescension. And I'm
not sure you won't think so too, when you see them--as of course you
will. You must go to the Governor's ball with me, even if you can't be
bothered going anywhere else. It's a magnificent spectacle. And I get on
pretty well among the Arabs, as I've learned to speak their lingo a bit.
Not that I've worried. But nearly nine years is a long time."
This was Stephen's chance to tell what he chose to tell of his brief
acquaintance with Victoria Ray, and of the mission which had brought her
to Algiers. Somehow, as he unfolded the story he had heard from the girl
on board ship, the scent of orange blossoms, luscious-sweet in this
region of gardens, connected itself in his mind with thoughts of the
beautiful woman who had married Cassim ben Halim, and disappeared from
the world she had known. He imagined her in an Arab garden where orange
blossoms fell like snow, eating her heart out for the far country and
friends she would never see again, rebelling against a monstrous tyranny
which imprisoned her in this place of perfumes and high white walls. Or
perhaps the scented petals were falling now upon her grave.
"Cassim ben Halim--Captain Cassim ben Halim," Nevill repeated. "Seems
familiar somehow, as if I'd heard the name; but most of these Arab names
have a kind of family likeness in our ears. Either he's a person of no
particular importance, or else he must have left Algiers before my Uncle
James Caird died--the man who willed me his house, you know--brother of
Aunt Caroline MacGregor who lives with me now.
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