I dare not indulge myself in a pleasure which might cost me the happiness of my life.

I will conceal nothing from you, who treat me with so much confidence.

I have already beheld the charming countenance of your Fatima, but I know that she is destined to be the wife of a happier man.' "Damat Zade seemed much pleased by the frankness with which I explained myself; but he would not give up the idea of my sitting with him in the balcony on the day of the feast of tulips; and I, on my part, could not consent to expose myself to another view of the charming Fatima.

My friend used every argument, or rather every sort of persuasion, he could imagine to prevail upon me; he then tried to laugh me out of my resolution; and, when all failed, he said, in a voice of anger, 'Go, then, Saladin: I am sure you are deceiving me; you have a passion for some other woman, and you would conceal it from me, and persuade me you refuse the favour I offer you from prudence, when, in fact, it is from indifference and contempt.

Why could you not speak the truth of your heart to me with that frankness with which one friend should treat another ?' "Astonished at this unexpected charge, and at the anger which flashed from the eyes of Damat Zade, who till this moment had always appeared to me a man of a mild and reasonable temper, I was for an instant tempted to fly into a passion and leave him; but friends, once lost, are not easily regained.