Is it you? Is it really you?" She would rush and hold him. What
amazing strength her little arms had! And she would stand back and look
at him again. "O Zan! Zan!" And she would bury her perfumed head in his
shoulder to hide the glad tears. "O Zan!"

"Do you know why I love you so much, Zan dear?" she once said.

"Why, Fenzile?"

"Because you are so big, and yet you are so gentle. And you wouldn't do
a little thing, my Zan."

"Don't be foolish, Fenzile!"

"I am not foolish."

Only once she asked him how he loved her.

"I wonder--how much do you love me, my Zan?"

"Oh, lots, Fenzile. A terrible lot." And he smiled.

"As much as you do your ship?"

"Yes, as much as I do my ship."

"That is a lot, Zan.... Zan, would you miss me, if I should die?"

"I should miss you terribly."

"If you died, I should die, too." Her voice quavered.

"Don't be silly. Of course you wouldn't."

"Don't you think I would?" And she laughed with him one of her rare,
rare laughs. And that was the way it all should end, in pretty laughter.
Let there be none of this horrible emotionalism, this undignified welter
of thought and feeling. Kindness of eyes, and pleasantness of body, but
keep the heart away. Let them be--how? There wasn't a word in English,
or in Gaidhlig to express it; in French there was--_des amis_, not _des
amants_. Let them be that. Let there be no involution of thought and
mind about it. Let there be this time no mistake.... Where before he had
made his mistake with women was allowing them to become spiritually
important....

Section 10

Into this idyl of Beirut came now the wrestler from Aleppo, Ahmet Ali,
and the occurrence irritated Campbell to a degree which he had not
conceived possible. There he passed the door with his dreamy Syrian
face, his red rose, his white burnoose, his straggling followers. And
Fenzile smiled her quiet aloof smile.

There might be amusement in it, a queer Eastern comedy of the mountebank
who raised his eyes to a Druse princess, and wife of a Frank ship's
master. It might be amusing to Fenzile to see this conqueror of men
conquered by her presence, but it wasn't dignified. By God! it wasn't
dignified.

But it wasn't dignified to talk about it. To show Fenzile that it
mattered a tinker's curse to him. So he said nothing, and the wrestler
went by every day. It was becoming intolerable. It seemed to amuse
Fenzile, but it didn't amuse him.

And suddenly a chill smote him. What