"How silent you are, Mitsos!" she went on. "Tell me what you have been doing all this time. For me, I have done nothing--nothing--nothing. I have never been so dull." Mitsos looked up suddenly. "Are you less dull now?" he said. "Do you care to come out like this with me?" "Surely, or else I should not come. I think I have even missed you, which is odd, for I never missed any one before. I care for none of those in the house, and some I hate." Mitsos took her hand in his. "Promise you will never hate me," he said. Suleima laughed. "That is a big thing to promise," she said, "for 'never' is the greatest of all words, greater even than 'always'; but I don't feel as if I should ever hate you. I liked you since the first, even before I had ever seen you, when you sang that song out of the darkness. It was very rash and foolish of you, for Abdul would make nothing of having a sailor-boy shot. Supposing I had been--well, some one else--I should have told Abdul, and thus there would have been no more songs for Mitsos." "But because it was you, you did not?" asked Mitsos, awkwardly. "Yet if it had not been you, I should not have sung to you." The girl's hand still rested in his, but suddenly she disengaged it. "You are talking nonsense," she said, quickly, yet finding nonsense somehow delightful; "of course, if you had not sung to me you would not have sung to me. By the way, Zuleika--" She stopped suddenly. "Who is Zuleika?" said Mitsos; "and what of her?" "Oh, nothing. Zuleika is the woman who watched to see that no one came while we talked. She's quite old, you know, though not as old as Abdul. Well, why shouldn't I tell you? Zuleika is getting impatient for her payment. She watched four times, she said, but I am sure it was only three. Won't you pay her?" Mitsos got up and stood in front of her. "Zuleika, what is Zuleika to me?" he said again. The girl stared at him for a moment. "Are you angry, Mitsos? Why should you be angry? But--but--" Mitsos turned away impatiently. "Why are you angry?" repeated the girl. "Is it because of what Zuleika said? I told you because I thought it would please you. Most men, I think, would like to hear that sort of thing. Zuleika says you are the handsomest boy she ever saw, and she is pretty herself--at least I suppose she is pretty." Mitsos had the most admirable temper, and though it had been touched in a quarter where he could not have anticipated attack, he regained it in a moment. "Never mind Zuleika," he said, sitting down again; "go on talking to me. I like to hear you talk, and give me your hand again. Put it in mine; it is so soft and white. I never saw a hand like yours!" Suleima laughed. "There you are, then. Oh, Mitsos, don't squeeze it so; you hurt me! What shall I talk about? I have nothing to talk about. Nothing ever happened to me. Zuleika--" "Don't talk about Zuleika!" said Mitsos, between his teeth.