murmur or question, no matter what the danger.
Higher up, her loose white robes splashed with the
molten silver of the moon filtering through overhanging
leaves, where even the nightingale stopped to
listen, could be heard the cooing of two voices. Then
would come a warning cry, and a figure closely
veiled would speed up the path. Next could be heard
the splash of oars of the first caique homeward bound.

Locksmiths are bunglers in the East compared to
patrols and eunuchs. Lovers may smile, but they
never laugh at them. There is always a day of
reckoning. A whisper goes around; some disgruntled
servant shakes his head; and an old fellow
with baggy trousers and fez, says: "My daughter,
I am surprised" or "pained" or "outraged," or
whatever he does say in polite Turkish, Arabic, or
Greek, and my lady is locked up on bread and water,
or fig-paste, or Turkish Delight, and all is over.
Sometimes the young Lothario is ordered back to his
regiment, or sent to Van or Trebizond or Egypt for
the good of his morals, or his health or the community
in which he lives. Sometimes everybody accepts the
situation and the banns are called and they live happy
ever after.

What complicated this situation was that the girl,
although as beautiful as a dream--any number of
dreams, for that matter, and all of paradise--was
a plebeian and the young man of royal blood. Furthermore,