[They regard each other attentively.]

SOBEIDE.
It is long since
We saw each other.

GUeLISTANE.
What com'st thou here
To do?

SOBEIDE.
Then thou liv'st here?--I come to question Ganem

(Faltering.)

About a matter--on which much depends--
Both for my father--

GUeLISTANE.
Hast not seen him lately?
Ganem, I mean.

SOBEIDE.
Nay, 'tis almost a year.
Since Kamkar died, thy husband, 'tis four years.
I know the day he died. How long hast thou
Lived here?

GUeLISTANE.
They are my kin. What is't to thee,
How long? But then, what odds? Why then, three years.
[SOBEIDE is silent.]

GUeLISTANE (to the slave).
Look to't that nothing fall. Hast thou the mats?

(To SOBEIDE.)

For it may be, if one were left to lie
And Ganem found it, he would take the notion
To bed his cheek on it, because my foot
Had trodden it, and then whate'er thou spokest,
He would be deaf to thine affair. Or if
He found the pin that's fallen from my hair
And breathing still its perfume: then his senses
Would fasten on that trinket, and he never
Would know thy presence.

(To the slave.)

Pick it up for me.
Come, bend thy back.

[She pushes the slave. SOBEIDE bends quickly
and holds out the pin to the slave. GUeLISTANE
takes it out of her hand and thrusts
with it at SOBEIDE.]

SOBEIDE
Alas, why prickst thou me?

GUeLISTANE.
That I may circumvent thee, little serpent.
Go, for thy face is such a silly void
That one can see what thou wouldst hide in it.
Go home again, I counsel thee.--Come thou
And carry all thou canst.

(To SOBEIDE.)

Mark thou my words:
What's mine I will preserve and keep from thieves!

[She goes up the stairs with the slave.]

SOBEIDE (alone).
What's left for me? How can this turn to good,