“Oh, I had forgotten!” she said.  “I forgot about your wife in Delhi.”  She half turned in the hammock, and after some searching, during which we were silent, succeeded in finding a truant piece of worsted work behind her.  The wool was pulled out of the needle, and she held the steel instrument up against the light, as she doubled the worsted round the eye and pushed it back through the little slit.  I observed that Isaacs was apparently in a line with the light, and that the threading took some time.

“Mr. Griggs,” she said slowly, and by the very slowness of the address I knew she was going to talk to me, and at my friend, as women will; “Mr. Griggs, do you know anything about Mohammedans?”

“That is a very broad question,” I answered; “almost as broad as the Mussulman creed.”  She began making stitches in the work she held, and with a little side shake settled herself to listen, anticipating a discourse.  The little jackal sidled up and fawned on her feet.  I had no intention, however, of delivering a lecture on the faith of the prophet.  I saw my friend was embarrassed in the conversation, and I resolved, if possible, to interest her.

“Among primitive people and very young persons,” I continued, “marriage is an article of faith, a moral precept, and a social law.”

“I suppose you are married, Mr. Griggs,” she said, with an air of childlike simplicity.

“Pardon me, Miss Westonhaugh, I neither condescend to call myself primitive, nor aspire to call myself young.”

She laughed.  I had put a wedge into my end of the conversation.

“I thought,” said she, “from the way in which you spoke of ’primitive and young persons’ that you considered their opinion in regard to—­to this question, as being the natural and proper opinion of the original and civilised young man.”

“I repeat that I do not claim to be very civilised, or very young—­certainly not to be very original, and my renunciation of all these qualifications is my excuse for the confirmed bachelorhood to which I adhere.  Many Mohammedans are young and original; some of them are civilised, as you see, and all of them are married.  ’There, is no God but God, Muhammad is his prophet, and if you refuse to marry you are not respectable,’ is their full creed.”

Isaacs frowned at my profanity, but I continued—­“I do not mean to say anything disrespectful to a creed so noble and social.  I think you have small chance of converting Mr. Isaacs.”

“I would not attempt it,” she said, laying down her work in her lap, and looking at me for a moment.  “But since you speak of creeds, to what confession do you yourself belong, if I may ask?”

“I am a Roman Catholic,” I answered; adding presently—­“Really, though, I do not see how my belief in the papal infallibility affects my opinion of Mohammedan marriages.”

“And what do you think of them?” she inquired, resuming her work and applying herself thereto with great attention.