side the house again, his mother punched Iskender in the back and spat
at him, calling him fool and marplot, cursing all his ancestry.

"Hast thou no sense, no perspicacity? When all went well, what need to
show thy picture? Why bring a picture that had angels in it? I saw them
shudder and go yellow at the sight of those white, holy ones. Couldst
thou not paint a picture all of devils, or else of things without
religious meaning? And what possessed thee to inquire concerning the
health of that bad Emir, who spurned the love of the Sitt Hilda? Thou
knewest nothing of the story? Say that again, unblushing liar!--when I
myself informed thee on our way up thither. Merciful Allah! So thou
heardest nothing; thy wits went wandering off, as always, to thy
painting, or the pleasures of thy bride; and, for the lack of a little
attention, mere politeness, the hopes of our house lie ruined. Naturally
poor Hilda thought thy question was designed to taunt her. I saw how red
she went, though thou didst not. But for that she would certainly have
praised thy picture. Now she hates thee. Well, no doubt it is from
Allah! But none the less it is hard for me to bear, with the wife of
Costantin for ever dinning in my ear her son's achievements. And why, if
thou must be a painter, dost thou not go to Beyrut, that great
fashionable city, superior to any in Europe, where folks have taste, and
thou couldst make a fortune by thy art? Thy bride could help thee in the
world of fashion, for her father is well known and has rich friends among
the Orthodox. But where is the use in talking to a man like thee? Thou
hast no spirit, no ambition."

Iskender did not argue. His mother's note of angry lamentation, in
strange accordance with his feelings at that moment, condoned the
sharpness of her words, which hardly reached him. The failure of the
missionaries to see the merit in his work showed ignorance, but was their
own affair; the omission to say "thank you" for his gift was downright
rudeness. Their open contempt of his little masterpiece rankled hot in
his mind. He vowed before Allah never again to seek to please a Frank
and risk such insult. Henceforth he would cleanse his mouth whenever he
so much as passed in the street near one of that accursed race.

With pride he called himself a Nazarene, a native Christian of the land,
preferring the insolent domination of the Muslim, his blood-relative, to
the arrogance of so-called