y dear fellow, that you will cry out against me when
I tell you of this strange feeling which pierced me suddenly like a
thorn in the heart, at the notion of seeing Kondje-Gul dance with
another man. But how could I help it?

I simply relate to you a psychological fact and nothing more.

You may tell me, if you like, that this is a ridiculous exaggeration,
and that I am giving myself the morose airs of a jealous sultan. The
truth is that in my harem life, I have contracted prudish alarms and
real susceptibilities which are excited by things which would not have
affected me formerly. Contact with the outside world will, no doubt,
restore me to the calm frame of mind enjoyed by every good husband.
Perhaps some day I may even be able to feel pride as I watch my wife
with naked arms and shoulders whirling round the room in the amorous
embrace of a hussar. At present my temper is less complaisant: my love
is a master's love, and the notion that any man could venture to press
my Kondje-Gul's little finger would be enough to throw me into a fit of
rage. That's what we Orientals are like, you know!

However that be, I led Kondje-Gul back to my aunt's side, and she did
not dance any more.

From a corner of the drawing-room I saw some half-a-dozen of my friends
march up to get introduced to her, anxiously longing to obtain the same
favour as I had, and I laughed at their discomfiture.

Meanwhile the commodore, who, by the way, is a highly educated and
thoroughly good-natured man, had marked me out, and was so kind in his
attentions to me, that I felt constrained, in spite of my scruples, to
accept his advances. His relations with my uncle, moreover, might have
made the cold reserve which I had so far maintained appear singular.
Finally, towards the middle of the entertainment, when he was going away
with his daughters and Kondje-Gul, whom he had to see home to Madame
Montier's, I had, without meaning it, so completely won his good
opinion, that I found myself invited to accompany my aunt who was dining
with him the next day but one.

Although it was only a fatality that had led to this extraordinary
complication, I must own that, when I began to think over it and to
contemplate the possible consequences, I felt a considerable anxiety.
Hitherto, by a compromise with conscience, which Kondje-Gul's childlike
simplicity rendered almost excusable, I had been enabled to deceive
myself about the consequences of this school-friends