And because of this God-given love of youth which was causing her heart to thud and the blood to race through her veins, she did not withdraw her hands when he held and kissed them and pressed his forehead upon them.

“Lotus-flower,” he whispered so that she could scarcely hear.  “Bud of innocence! ivory tower of womanhood! temple of love!  Beloved, beloved, I am at thy feet.”  And he knelt and kissed the little feet in the heelless little slippers; then, rising, took both her hands and led her to the door; and his eyes were filled with a great sadness, in spite of the joy which sang in his heart as he took her into the shelter of his arms.

“I love thee too well,” he said, as he bent and kissed the riotous curls so near his mouth.  “Yea I love thee too well to snatch thee even as a hungry dog snatches his food, though, verily, I be more near to starving than any hungry dog.  What dost thou know of love, of life, in the strange countries of the East?  For thy life will be a desert life, my love, if once thou art my wife.  Look up; look around thee.”  He pointed to the stars, he pointed to the dim horizon of the desert over which at that very moment was padding that hound Fate.  “Wilt thou be content with that, and with me and thy children?  Wilt thou not yearn for the comforts of thy heated rooms, the company of those who will point the finger of scorn, maybe, at thee as they have pointed it at my mother?”

He spared her not one jot as he made plain to her what might be the result of her marriage.  She would not be marrying the pure-bred son of a splendid race, as his mother had done; she would be the wife of a half-caste, the mixed off-spring of two great races; her children would be half-castes, outcast from their rightful heritage of the sons of the East and the West.  The women of her race would not own her, the women of his father’s race would not permit her children to play with theirs.  Wealth, palaces, camels, horses, jewels would be hers; a place for her children in the seat of his fathers, or her fathers, never.

“I should be strong, I should be strong, for in my heart something tells me that I am thinking of my happiness and not thine.”

“Your mother,” whispered Damaris, so softly that he had to bend, his head lower still, so that when she moved, in the pain of his arms which crushed her, her cheek brushed his. “She is happy—­everyone says so.”

Happy!  Yes, she was happy, his beloved, most honoured mother; at least she had been, until there had come the question of her child’s happiness, her half-caste child!

Then he laughed, joyfully, stretched the girl’s arms wide, then crushed her hands above her heart.

“Of course! of course!” he cried.  “They are at my House ’an Mahabbha, the House of Love, even now, where they have met to see if they, the dears, thy wise old godmother, my beautiful wise mother, can find an answer to this very question.”