asks, "Am I
not to have some such, _ya habibi_ (O my Love)?" And Khalid, affecting
like bucolic innocence, replies, "What do we need them for, my heart?"
With which counter-question Najma is silenced, convinced.

Finally, to show to what degree of ecstasy they had soared without
searing their wings or losing a single feather thereof, the following
deserves mention. In the dusk one day, Khalid visits Najma and finds
her oiling and lighting the lamp. As she beholds him under the
door-lintel, the lamp falls from her hands, the kerosene blazes on the
floor, and the straw mat takes fire. They do not heed this--they do
not see it--they are on the wings of an ecstatic embrace. And the
father, chancing to arrive in the nick of time, with a curse and a
cuff, saves them and his house from the conflagration.

Aside from these curious and not insignificant instances, these
radiations of a giddy hidden flame of heart-fire, this melting gum of
spooning on the bark of the tree of love, we turn to a scene in the
Temple of Venus which unfolds our future plans--our hopes and dreams.
But we feel that the Reader is beginning to hanker for a few pieces of
description of Najma's charms. Gentle Reader, this Work is neither a
Novel, nor a Passport. And we are exceeding sorry we can not tell you
anything about the colour and size of Najma's eyes; the shape and
curves of her brows and lips; the tints and shades in her cheeks; and
the exact length of her figure and hair. Shakib leaves us in the dark
about these essentials, and we must needs likewise leave you. Our
Scribe thinks he has said everything when he speaks of her as a huri.
But this paradisal title among our Arabic writers and verse-makers is
become worse than the Sultan's Medjidi decorations. It is bestowed
alike on every drab and trollop as on the very few who really deserve
it. Let us rank it, therefore, with the Medjidi decorations and pass
on.

But Khalid, who has seen enough of the fair, would not be attracted to
Najma, enchanted by her, if she were not endowed with such of the
celestial treasures as rank above the visible lines of beauty. Our
Scribe speaks of the "purity and naivete of her soul as purest
sources of felicity and inspiration." Indeed, if she were not constant
in love, she would not have spurned the many opportunities in the
absence of Khalid; and had she not a fine discerning sense of real
worth, she would not have surrendered herself to her poor ostracised
cous