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Updated: June 7, 2025
In the adjoining room, beyond the open door, far into the night, rustled book-leaves turned by the English governess. Miss Mary watched long, and stood often in the open door, between her room and Cara's, inclining forward, looking from a distance at the bed from which the regular, unbroken sound of breathing came to her. She is asleep.
Grumbled when his mother rested as her kind master allowed her to do, for a few days after Cara's birth; grumbled when the Arabs and camels moved on; grumbled when any one touched him with a pat or caress, and grumbled when let alone. In fact, the only time when Cara did not grumble was when he took his meals, and this was simply because his mouth and tongue were occupied with getting his food.
Both looked at the girl, who, as they thought, was sleeping soundly; she breathed slowly and evenly, with a deep flush on her cheeks. Malvina bent down and impressed a long kiss on the forehead of her sleeping daughter. Then Miss Mary noted something of which she was not sure: when her mother's lips rested on Cara's forehead a quiver ran through the girl's body, from head to foot.
Again, with a gesture he pointed to the door leading to the more distant apartments, and in the short laugh which accompanied his last words there was sarcasm almost hatred. At the same moment he met Cara's eyes, and asked: "Why look at me, little one, in that way? There are eyes! curious, anxious, and as frightened as those of a hunted deer. Why so curious? What do you fear?"
Amid all these tones of spring, joyous themes, light and graceful forms, the sunlight went to Cara's bed, and, from the white cambric on which she was lying, increased the paleness of her yellow hair. On the pillow with lace it was difficult at first to distinguish where the sunrays ended and the maiden's hair began.
Jarman could see that the older girl was evidently embarrassed, and changed the subject. "I sometimes go out," he said, "when I can see there are no vessels in sight, and I take ray glass with me. I can always get back in time to make signals. I thought, in fact," he said, glancing at Cara's brightening face, "that I might get as far as your house on the shore some day."
There was silence except for the quiet dipping of their paddles, the dripping of the water from the lifted blades, and the song drifting down river. Finally Benton added: "I don't know what he will say to you, but perhaps he will give you good advice on those matters which the centuries can't change." Cara's voice came soft, with a hint of repressed tears.
The Arabs lay with their faces downwards and their cloaks thrown over their heads; the camels, not even stopping to grumble, stretched their necks straight out along the sand, closed their curious, oblique nostrils and lay absolutely motionless. Cara's mother had often told him about this, and taught him how to close his nostrils when caught in a simoom.
Assassination claimed his father and brothers, and, facing the same peril, he took up the distasteful duties of government. My aunt's life was intolerably shadowed by the terror of violence for him. She died at Cara's birth and the child inherited all the protest and acceptance so paradoxically bequeathed by her heart-broken mother."
This was an answer thoroughly unexpected, but the impression which it might have made was hindered at once by Irene through a laugh and an exclamation too loud, perhaps: "See where pessimism is going to fix itself! Is Puffie sick?" "Cara's remark is precocious but pointed," said Maryan, with the edges of his lips. Malvina, too, began to speak.
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