"How could I? Am I a child?"
He spoke with gentle irony, but she felt he was playing with her.
"Cannot a man believe such things?"
He did not answer her, but said:
"My fate has come to pass. Do you not care to know what it is?"
"Yes, do tell me."
She spoke earnestly. She felt a change in him, a great change which
as yet she did not understand fully. It was as if he had been a man in
doubt and was now a man no longer in doubt, as if he had arrived at some
goal and was more at peace with himself than he had been.
"I have become a Mohammedan," he said simply.
"A Mohammedan!"
She repeated the words as a person repeats words in surprise, but her
voice did not sound surprised.
"You wonder?" he asked.
After a moment she answered:
"No. I never thought of such a thing, but I am not surprised. Now
you have told me it seems to explain you, much that I noticed in you,
wondered about in you."
She looked at him steadily, but without curiosity.
"I feel that you are happy now."
"Yes, I am happy. The world I used to know, my world and yours, would
laugh at me, would say that I was crazy, that it was a whim, that I
wished for a new sensation.
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