He said scornfully, “These pains are more severe than the luxury of conscience.”

Mustapha pointed out the problems involved in such affairs, but Omar interjected, “In the feminine sex, I seem to see life on two feet.”

Warda walked directly toward them, without pretense of delay, her wide, gray eyes glancing steadily at Omar. The scent of the jasmine flowers she wore in her bracelet diffused in the air. Shaking his hand, she exclaimed happily, “At last I’ve found a man I don’t have to look at from above!”

She sat down between the two men and flicked her hand so that the jasmine spilled onto the red tablecloth. The champagne came and bubbled forth. Warda seemed composed, but there was a look in her gray eyes that cautioned against haste. She exchanged a smile of familiarity with Mustapha and listened to the accustomed praise of her dancing and beauty. Throughout, she continued looking at Omar with respect, while he searched her gray eyes for some clue, some answer to his unsatisfied longings. I came not because I loved but in order to love. The complexion is clear, the scent pleasant, and the long eyelashes alluring.

“So you’re the famous lawyer?”

“That’s of little importance unless you have problems.”

“My problems can’t be solved through the law courts, unfortunately.”

“Why unfortunately?”

“They might have been solved by you.”

Mustapha said, laughing, “He’s trustworthy, both in court and outside it.”

He noticed her long neck surrounded by a simple pearl strand, the bare spread of her chest, the healthy passion expressed in her full, colored lips and flowing from her eyes, and felt his being throb with a strange and unbounded desire, like the mysterious yearnings which assailed him in the late hours of the night. He wished to address the depths, and to have the depths speak to him without an intermediary, but if the long-sought ecstasy eluded him, he would find a substitute in the firebrand of sex, the convulsive climax which consumes the wine of life and all its dreams in one gulp. He was delirious with longing, anticipation, the titillation of adventure, the effect of abandoned drinking, the scent of jasmine pressed under his glass, Warda’s encouraging glance, a star blinking through a gap in the trellis. As the club showed signs of closing, he said, “Shall we go?”

Mustapha said his farewells and left.

Warda was impressed by the sight of his Cadillac, an elegant little coupe de ville. “Where’s your home?” he asked.

“It’s out of the question. Don’t you have a place?”

“With a wife and two daughters.”

“Then take me home as those without homes do.”