"Zümbül Agha!" exclaimed the Pasha. "I sent him away."
"Ah, but you must know him well enough to be sure he would not go. Let us see." She clapped her hands. The servant of the lantern immediately came out to her. "Will you ask Zümbül Agha to come here?" she said. "He is on the porch."
The man went to the door, looked out, and said a word. Then he stood aside with a respectful salaam, and the eunuch entered. He negligently returned the salute and walked forward until his air of importance changed to one of humility at sight of the Pasha. Salaaming in turn, he stood with his hands folded in front of him.
"I will go down with you," said the Pasha to his wife, rising. "It is too late for you to go through the woods in the dark."
"Nonsense!" She gave him a look that had more in it than the tone in which she added: "Please do not. I shall be perfectly safe with four servants. You can tell them not to let me run away." Coming nearer, she put her hand into the bosom of her dress, then stretched out the hand toward him. "Here is the key--the key of which Zümbül Agha spoke--the key of Pandora's box. Will you keep it for me, please? _Au revoir_."
And making a sign to the servants she walked out of the kiosque.
The Pasha was too surprised, at first, to move--and too conscious of the eyes of servants, too uncertain of what he should do, too fearful of doing the wrong, the un-European, thing. And afterward it was too late. He stood watching until the flicker of the lantern disappeared among the dark trees. Then his eyes met the eunuch's.
"Why don't you go down too?" suggested Zümbül Agha. The variable climate of a great house had made him too perfect an opportunist not to take the line of being in favour again. "It might be better. Give me the key and I will do what there is to do. But you might send up Shaban."
Why not, the Pasha secretly asked himself? Might it not be the best way out? At the same time he experienced a certain revulsion of feeling, now that Hélène was gone, in the way she had gone. She really was prodigious! And with the vanishing of the lantern that had brought him a measure of reassurance he felt the weight of an uncleared situation, fantastic but crucial, heavy upon him. And the Negro annoyed him intensely.