_Countess._ Call the children. _Count._ No; they must not affront her: they must not even stare at her: other eyes, not theirs, must stab me to the heart. _Countess._ They shall bless her; we will all. Bring her in. [_Zaida is led in by the Count._] _Countess._ We three have stood silent long enough: and much there may be on which we will for ever keep silence. But, sweet young creature! can I refuse my protection, or my love, to the preserver of my husband? Can I think it a crime, or even a folly, to have pitied the brave and the unfortunate? to have pressed (but alas! that it ever should have been so here!) a generous heart to a tender one? Why do you begin to weep? _Zaida._ Under your kindness, O lady, lie the sources of these tears. But why has he left us? He might help me to say many things which I want to say. _Countess._ Did he never tell you he was married? _Zaida._ He did indeed. _Countess._ That he had children? _Zaida._ It comforted me a little to hear it. _Countess._ Why? prithee why? _Zaida._ When I was in grief at the certainty of holding but the second place in his bosom, I thought I could at least go and play with them, and win perhaps their love. _Countess._ According to our religion, a man must have only one wife. _Zaida._ That troubled me again. But the dispenser of your religion, who binds and unbinds, does for sequins or services what our Prophet does purely through kindness. _Countess._ We can love but one. _Zaida._ We indeed can love only one: but men have large hearts. _Countess._ Unhappy girl! _Zaida._ The very happiest in the world. _Countess._ Ah! inexperienced creature! _Zaida._ The happier for that perhaps. _Countess._ But the sin! _Zaida._ Where sin is, there must be sorrow: and I, my sweet sister, feel none whatever. Even when tears fall from my eyes, they fall only to cool my breast: I would not have one the fewer: they all are for him: whatever he does, whatever he causes, is dear to me. _Countess._ [_Aside._] This is too much. I could hardly endure to have him so beloved by another, even at the extremity of the earth. [_To Zaida._] You would not lead him into perdition? _Zaida._ I have led him (Allah be praised!) to his wife and children. It was for those I left my father. He whom we love might have stayed with me at home: but there he would have been only half happy, even had he been free. I could not often let him see me through the lattice; I was too afraid; and I dared only once let fall the water-melon; it made such a noise in dropping and rolling on the terrace: but, another day, when I had pared it nicely, and had swathed it up well among vine-leaves, dipped in sugar and sherbet, I was quite happy. I leaped and danced to have been so ingenious. I wonder what creature could have found and eaten it. I wish he were here, that I might ask him if he knew. _Countess._ He quite forgot home then!