She doesn't see that it's not the thing, just because she thinks I'm a Sir Galahad--me!" He glanced at the picture of his mother, and nodded toward it tenderly.

"So did she always.

I might have turned Kurd and robbed caravans, or become a Turk and kept concubines, and she'd never have seen that it was so.

But Al'mah mustn't come here any more, for her own sake....

I'd find it hard to explain if ever, by any chance--" He fell to thinking of Jasmine, and looked at the clock.