"Does he come past here often?"
"Yes, yes, Zan. Every day."
"Does he stop and look into the court like that, every time?"
"Yes, Zan. Every time," she smiled.
"Do you know whom he's looking for?"
"Yes, Zan. For me."
Campbell's hand shot out suddenly and caught her wrist.
"Fenzile," his voice was cold. "You aren't carrying on with, encouraging
this--Ahmet Ali?"
"Zan Cam'el," her child's eyes flashed unexpectedly. "I am no cheap
Cairene woman. I am a Druse girl. The daughter of a Druse Bey."
"I am sorry, Fenzile."
She looked at him steadily with her great green eyes, green of the sea,
and as he looked at her sweet roundish face, her little mouth half open
in sincerity, her calm brow, her brown arch of eyebrow, she seemed to
him no more than a beautiful proud child. There was no guile in her.
"You mustn't be foolish, you know, Fenzile."
"_Severim Seni._ I love only you, Zan. But it is so funny to see him go
by, I must always smile. Don't you think it funny, Zan?"
"No, I don't think it at all funny."
"Oh, but it is funny, Zan. A big strong wrestler like that to be foolish
over a very little woman. And for a cheap showman of the market-place to
be lifting his eyes to a daughter of the Druse emirs. It is funny."
"It isn't funny. And he isn't much of a wrestler anyway."
"Oh, but he is, Zan. He is a very great wrestler. They say he threw and
killed a bear."
"O kooltooluk. Hell! I could throw him myself."
She said nothing, turning her head, and reaching for her embroidery.
"Don't you believe me, Fenzile? I tell you I could make mince-meat of
him."
"Of course, Zan. Of course you could." And she smiled. But this time it
wasn't the delighted smile of a child. It was the grave patient smile of
a wise woman. And Shane knew it. Past that barrier he could not break.
And on her belief he could make no impress. There was no use arguing,
talking. She would just smile and agree. And her ideal of strength and
power would be the muscle-bound hulk of the Aleppo man, with the girl's
face and the girl's eyes, and the rose in his hand. And Shane, all his
life inured to sport, hard as iron, supple as a whip, with his science
picked up from Swedish quartermasters and Japanese gendarmes, from mates
and crimps in all parts of the world, would always be in her eyes an
infant compared to the monstrous Syrian! Not that it mattered a tinker's
curse, but--
Oh, damn the wrestler from Aleppo!
Section 3
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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