He laughed again. "This Fatima is a watch dog, I warn you, my little one ... but if she does not please you, we can find another. And as for the rooms--I have assigned this suite to you, the suite of honor. This is the salon, and there," he pointed to a curtained door behind them, opening into a small room that Aimée had already seen, "there is your boudoir and beyond that, your sleeping apartment. I have had them done over for you, but you shall choose your own furnishings--everything shall be to your taste, I promise you. You are too sweet to deny. You have but to ask--" Certainly, she thought, he was drunk. He moved his head so jerkily and his whole body swayed so queerly. Desperately she fought against her horror. Perhaps it was better for him to be drunk. Drunken men grow sleepy. Perhaps he would fall down and sleep. Perhaps she ought to urge him to drink. Long ago the black had left the bottle at his elbow and gone out of his room. But she did not move. She sat back in her chair, withdrawn and shrinking, watching him out of those dark, terrified eyes. "You are beautiful as dreams," he told her, leaning towards her with such abruptness that his sword struck clankingly against the table. "Beyond even the words of my babbling cousin--eh, Allah reward her!--but she did me a good turn with her talk of you!" Fixedly he stared at her, out of those intent, inflamed eyes. "I did not know that there was anything like you in the harems of Cairo. You are like a vision of the old poets--but I suppose that you do not know the ancient poetry. You little moderns are brought up upon French and English and music and know little of the Arabic and the Persian.... I daresay that you have never heard of the poet Utayyah." Still leaning towards her he began to intone the stanzas in a very fair tenor voice, and if his movements were at all unsteady, his speech was most precise and accurate. "From her radiance the sun taketh increase when She unveileth and shameth the moonlight bright." He chuckled.... "Ah, I shall put the triple veil upon you, my little moon.... How Is this one? "'On Sun and Moon of Palace cast thy sight, Enjoy her flower-like face, her fragrant light, Thine eyes shall never see in hair so black Beauty encase a brow so purely white.'" He got up and drew his chair closer to her. "That is the song for you, little white rose of beauty." Back went her own chair, and she rose to her feet. "I thank you for the compliment, monsieur. But now have I your permission to retire? For it has been a long day and I am indeed fatigued--" To her vexation her voice was trembling, but she steadied it proudly. "I bid you good evening." "Nonsense, my little white rose. This is not so fatiguing--a few words more. But you are like the flower that flies before the wind.... But your room, yes, to be sure. Shall I show you the way?" "I can discover it, monsieur."