"She looks like an angel," Saidee thought, and with a curious mingling
of reluctance and eagerness, moved softly toward the bed, her little
velvet slippers from Tunis making no sound on the thick rugs.
Very well the older woman remembered an engaging trick of the child's, a
way of sleeping with her cheek in her hand, and her hair spread out like
a golden coverlet for the pillow. Just so she was lying now; and in the
moonlight her face was a child's face, the face of the dear, little,
loving child of ten years ago. Like this Victoria had lain when her
sister crept into their bedroom in the Paris flat, the night before the
wedding, and Saidee had waked her by crying on her eyelids. Cassim's
unhappy wife recalled the clean, sweet, warm smell of the child's hair
when she had buried her face in it that last night together. It had
smelled like grape-leaves in the hot sun.
"If you don't come back to me, I'll follow you all across the world,"
the little girl had said. Now, she had kept her promise. Here she
was--and the sister to whom she had come, after a thousand sacrifices,
was wishing her back again at the other end of the world, was planning
to get rid of her.
Suddenly, it was as if the beating of Saidee's heart broke a tight band
of ice which had compressed it. A fountain of tears sprang from her
eyes. She fell on her knees beside the bed, crying bitterly.
"Childie, childie, comfort me, forgive me!" she sobbed.
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