think."

"That he shut her up?"

"That he forced her to live the life of a Mussulman woman. Why, what
else could you expect, when you come to look at it?"

"But an American girl----"

"A woman who marries gives herself to her husband's nation as well as to
her husband, doesn't she--especially if he's an Arab? Only, thank God,
it happens to very few European girls, except of the class that doesn't
so much matter. Think of it. This Ben Halim, a Spahi officer, falls dead
in love with a girl when he's on leave in Paris. He feels he must have
her. He can get her only by marriage. They're as subtle as the devil,
even the best of them, these Arabs. He'd have to promise the girl
anything she wanted, or lose her. Naturally he wouldn't give it away
that he meant to veil her and clap her into a harem the minute he got
her home. If he'd even hinted anything of that sort she wouldn't have
stirred a step. 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. Besides, they have the
jealousy of the tiger, these Eastern fellows. It's a madness."

"Then perhaps no one ever knew, out here, that the man had brought home
a foreign wife?"

"Almost surely not. No European, that is. Arabs might know--through
their women. There's nothing that passes which they can't find out. How
they do it, who can tell? Their ways are as mysterious as everything
else here, except the lives of us _hiverneurs_, who don't even try very
hard to hide our own scandals when we have any. But no Arab could be
persuaded or forced to betray another Arab to a European, unless for
motives of revenge. For love or hate, they stand together. In virtues
and vices they're absolutely different from Europeans. And if Ben Halim
doesn't want anybody, not excepting his wife's sister, to get news of
his wife, why, it may be difficult to get it, that's all I say. Going to
Miss Ray's hotel, you could see something of that Arab street close by,
on the fringe of the Kasbah--which is what they call, not the old fort
alone, but the whole Arab town."

"Yes. I saw the queer white houses, huddled together, that looked like
blank walls only broken by a door, with here an