“Not so,” said the Princess, decisively, “for had that been all, my love would have won him to honour our customs for my sake,” and her hard eyes softened at the touch of some early memory. “Listen to me, O doctor lady, and judge between my lord and me. My first husband was very old, and when he died I mourned for him almost as for a father. To him I was a child and a plaything--he was not unkind, but I was nothing to him, and I knew it. Then for some time I dwelt at the Palace, under the protection of my cousin the Queen. In those days every one was talking of the valour and wisdom of a new favourite of our lord the King, a captive from among the hillmen of the south, but a convert to the faith of Islam. He had repelled the hostile tribes on our northern border, and extended the kingdom beyond the utmost limits it had hitherto attained, and he was coming in triumph to Kubbet-ul-Haj to lay his spoils at the King’s feet. When that day came, the Queen and I, with our women, were watching the ceremony from our balcony above the throne. The slave-girls exclaimed at the vastness of the spoil, but I saw only the victor. Surely, I thought, he is as an angel of God! While I watched him, the Queen came close to me and whispered in my ear, ‘That is the bridegroom our lord intends for thee, my Nafiza. Doth he please thee?’ O doctor lady, I thought that I should die of joy! On all sides I heard congratulations, but I congratulated myself most of all. Surely never did woman gain her heart’s desire more speedily, nor more speedily see it turn to dust and ashes when gained! My nurse told me afterwards that on our wedding-night she had seen how things would fall out. I was waiting for my bridegroom, she with me, that she might remove my veil and leave him to behold my face. He came in without a salutation to either of us, and sat down beside me upon the divan. My nurse was angry, and said sharply, ‘It is not the custom in Ethiopia to sit uninvited in the presence of the daughter of the King’s uncle.’ ‘O mother,’ he replied, ‘I stand before no woman in Ethiopia, least of all my own wife.’ My nurse was much disturbed. ‘Wilt thou still marry him, Nafiza, my dove?’ she whispered, so that only I could hear; ‘the King will not suffer thee to be insulted.’ But I, thinking, ‘He must surely be a great prince in his own country, to speak thus to a king’s granddaughter!’ motioned to her to lift my veil, saying, ‘It is well, O my nurse; go on.’ And thus was I married, and evil was my marriage. For in the night I would hear my lord speaking in his own tongue in his sleep, and I knew that he spoke of his own land. But more; I learnt why nothing that I could do could please him, or bring his eyes to look upon me with favour. He had no love for me, he had married me at the King’s command, and I could not even hope that in time I might be able to win his affection, for always in the night he called upon the name of another woman.”