Page:Marion Crawford - Khaled.djvu/57

 'There were and still are many and good reasons,' answered Zehowah calmly, and at the same time withdrawing her hand from his and smoothing back the black hair from her forehead. 'I told them all to my father, and he was convinced.'

'Tell them to me also,' said Khaled.

So she explained all to him in detail, making him see everything as she saw it herself. And the explanation was so very clear, that Khaled felt a cold chill in his heart as he understood that she had chosen him rather for politic reasons, than because she wished him for her husband.

'And yet,' she added at the end, 'it was the will of Allah, for otherwise I would not have chosen you.'

'But surely,' he said, somewhat encouraged by these last words, 'there was some love in the choice, too.'

'How can I tell!' she exclaimed, with a little laugh. 'What is love?'

Finding himself confronted by such an amazing question, Khaled was silent, and took her hand again. For though many have asked what love is, no one has ever been able to find an answer in words to satisfy the questioner, seeing that the answer can have no more to do with words than love itself, a matter sufficiently explained by a certain wise man, who understood the heart of man. If, said he, a man who loves a woman, or a woman who loves a man could give in