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"My guest is a Roumia, and it is not forbidden that she show her face to men," answered Hsina's mistress. "She will travel veiled, because, for reasons that do not concern thee, it is wiser. But she is free to appear before the Lord Maïeddine. Bring her; and remember this, when I am gone.
But for a Mussulman to let his wife walk the streets unveiled, like a Roumia, or some woman of easy virtue, would be a horrible disgrace to them both. His relations and friends would cut him, and hoot her at sight. The more he loved his wife, the less likely he'd be to keep a promise, made in a different world. It wouldn't be human nature Arab human nature to keep it.
"Eïhoua!" cried the woman, "The little pink rose has the gift of tongues!" As she grew accustomed to the twilight, Victoria made out a black face, and white teeth framed in a large smile. A pair of dark eyes glittered with delight as the Roumia answered in Arabic, although Arabic was not the language of the negress's own people. She chattered as she helped Victoria into a plain white gandourah.
She was old-fashioned in her ideas, would have no European furniture or decorations, and until to-night had never consented to know a Roumia, much less receive one into her house.
"Something whispers to my spirit that thou wilt never again pass this way, oh Roumia; that never again will we talk together in this court of oranges." If it had not been for Zorah and her twin sister Khadijah, Maïeddine would have said to himself at Ouargla, "Now my hour has come."
The master would not permit me to do so, even if I wished it, which I do not." "Pardon, loveliest lady. But this is another matter. A friend of our lord brings these visitors to thee. One is kin of his. She seeks to be healed of a malady, by the power of the Baraka. But the other is a Roumia."
He explained to the astonished men that this was the great explorer, the Sidi who found new countries where no other white men had ever been, and the young Roumia lady had known him ever since she was a child. The Sidi was starting out on a dangerous expedition, and it was well that chance had brought them together, for now the daughter of the explorer's oldest friend could bid him good-bye.
Sanda, who had been grudgingly granted a thin muslin robe for the bath because of her strange Roumia ideas of baring the face and covering the body, noticed these bendings of la hennena, but thought nothing of them until she happened to catch a new expression in Ourïeda's eyes.
Yet it was on his tongue to say; "the lady herself, when she hears the sound of the car, may do some unwise thing." But he did not finish the sentence. Even though the young girl whom he had not seen was a Roumia, obsessed with horrible, modern ideas, which at present it would be dangerous to try and correct, he could not discuss her with Maïeddine.
He was well aware of the freemasonry existing among the wearers of veils, the dwellers behind shut doors; and though Victoria was only a Roumia, the Caïd's daughters would joyfully scheme to help her against a man, if she asked their help.
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