did he know of these people of the
East anyhow? In six years one could learn their language perfectly,
know their customs, know themselves, but know only as much as they
wanted to be known. The outer person, which is hallucination, one might
know, but what of the inner, which is reality? A strange country, where
the merchants spoke like princes and the princes like cameleers, and the
_sakyeh_, the water-carrier, might quote some fancy of Hafiz, as the
water gurgled from the skin. The obedience, the resignation in the
women's eyes might cover intrigue, and what was behind the eyes of the
men, soft as women's?

"Fenzile, you say you love me, because I am kind. Don't you love me
because I am strong?"

"Anyway, anyhow, dear Zan."

"I am strong, you know. As strong as your friend, Ahmet Ali."

"Of course, dear Zan." But somehow her tone did not carry conviction. If
she understood there was nothing this wrestler had he did not have
better, it would have been all right. All attributes in the world would
have been for her in him. But she thought the wrestler was strong. Damn
women! Couldn't they understand the difference between the muscles of a
hunting leopard and the bulk of a sea-cow? It was silly, but it
irritated him.

And then a thought came to him that he felt degraded him, but of which
he could not rid himself, try as he would. What did he know of Fenzile,
barring that she was young and strong and beautiful? Nothing. Of what
was she thinking in those dreamy eyes, green of the sea? And women
always admired strength in a man. And he was away most of the time, half
anyway. And the breath of the East was intrigue.

"Oh, don't be rotten," he told himself. But the occasional hot and
searing pain remained, and the little black cloud was in his mind. When
they were close in the soft gloom, shoulder to shoulder, her eyes
closed, her slim cinnamon hands clenched, pain stabbed him like a knife.
And in the gay mornings, when she was arranging her flowers in vases of
Persian blue, it made him silent as the grave. And in the evening when
she was doing her subtle Syrian broideries, it aroused in him queer
gusts of controlled fury.... Could it be possible? A mountebank.... And
the "Thousand and One Nights" began with _Shah Zamon's_ queen and her
love for the blackamoor slave....

If the wrestler would only go away, become tired of parading, and
Fenzile would tire of smiling.... And later on Campbell would laugh....

But the w