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She bent her head in silence; yet a more graceful comprehension of his motive she could not have given than her glance alone gave. Ben Arsli stroked his great beard; more moved than his Moslem dignity would show. "Always so!" he muttered, "always so! My son, in some life before this, was not generosity your ruin?" "Milady was about to purchase the lamp?" asked Cecil, avoiding the question.
"No coffee, no sherbet; thanks, good father," said Cecil, in answer to the Moor's hospitable entreaties. "Give me only license to sit in the quiet here. I am very tired." "Sit and be welcome, my son," said Ben Arsli. "Whom should this roof shelter in honor, if not thee? Musjid shall bring thee the supreme solace."
He stood under the tawny awning of the Moorish house, with the thin, glazed card in his hand. On it was printed: "Mme. la Princesse Corona d'Amague, "Hotel Corona, Paris." In the corner was written, "Villa Aiaussa, Algiers." He thrust it in the folds of his sash, and turned within. "Do you know her?" he asked Ben Arsli. The old man shook his head.
Marvelous caskets of mother-of-pearl; carpets soft as down with every brilliant hue melting one within another; coffee equipages, of inimitable metal work; silver statuettes, exquisitely chased and wrought; feather-fans, and screens of every beauty of device, were spread before her, and many of them were bought by her with that unerring grace of taste and lavishness of expenditure which were her characteristics, but which are far from always found in unison; and throughout her survey Ben Arsli kept her near the entrance, and Cecil had slept on, unaroused by the low tones of their voices.
Ben Arsli glanced at him, and bade Musjid be very quiet. Half an hour or more passed; none had entered the place. The grave old Moslem was half slumbering himself, when there came a delicate odor of perfumed laces, a delicate rustle of silk swept the floor; a lady's voice asked the price of an ostrich-egg, superbly mounted in gold.
Ben Arsli opened his eyes the Chasseur slept on; the newcomer was one of those great ladies who now and then winter in Algeria. Her carriage waited without; she was alone, making purchase of those innumerable splendid trifles with which Algiers is rife, while she drove through the town in the cooler hour before the sun sank into the western sea.
"Your carvings are singularly perfect, and should bring you considerable returns." "Why have you never shown them to me at least?" pursued Ben Arsli "why not have given me my option?" The blood flushed Cecil's face again; he turned to the Princess. "I withheld them, madame, not because he would have underpriced, but overpriced them. He rates a trifling act of mine, of long ago, so unduly."
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