Nevill was excited and talkative as they drove into the old town, once
the light of western Algeria. They passed in by the gateway of Oran, and
through streets that tried to be French, but contrived somehow to be
Arab. Nevill told stories of the days when Tlemcen had queened it over
the west, and coined her own money; of the marabouts after whom the most
famous mosques were named: Sidi-el-Haloui, the confectioner-saint from
Seville, who preached to the children and made them sweetmeats; of the
lawyer-saint, Sidi Aboul Hassan from Arabia, and others. But he did not
speak of Josette Soubise, until suddenly he touched Stephen's arm as
they passed the high wall of a garden.
"There, that's where _she_ teaches," he said; and it was not necessary
to add a name.
Stephen glanced at him quickly. Nevill looked very young. His eyes no
longer seemed to gaze at far-away things which no one else could see.
All his interests were centred near at hand.
"Don't you mean to stop?" Stephen asked, surprised that the car went on.
"No; school's begun. We'll have to wait till the noon interval, and even
then we shan't be allowed indoors, for a good many of the girls are over
twelve, the age for veiling--_hadjabah_, they call it--when they're shut
up, and no man, except near relations, can see their faces. Several of
the girls are already engaged. I believe there's one, not fourteen,
who's been divorced twice, though she's still interested in dolls.
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