The poor millionnaire has hardly left his desk in Wall Street during the week, and only arrived this evening in time to dress for dinner. He would give a fair slice of his income for a night's rest. See! He has failed, and is lighting another cigar, preparing, with a sigh, for a long wait. It will be three before my lady is ready to leave."
After a silence of some minutes, during which he appeared to be turning these remarks over in his mind, the young Oriental resumed: "The single men who absorb so much of your women's time and attention are doubtless the most distinguished of the nation, - writers, poets, and statesmen?"
I was obliged to confess that this was not the case; that, on the contrary, the dancing bachelors were for the most part impecunious youths of absolutely no importance, asked by the hostess to fill in, and so lightly considered that a woman did not always recognize in the street her guests of the evening before.
At this moment my neighbor's expression changed from bewilderment to admiration, as a young and very lovely matron threw herself, panting, into a low chair at his side. Her decollete was so daring that the doubts of half an hour before were evidently rising afresh in his mind. Hastily resuming my task of mentor, I explained that a decollete corsage was an absolute rule for evening gatherings. A woman who appeared in a high bodice or with her neck veiled would be considered lacking in politeness to her hostess as much if she wore a bonnet.
"With us, women go into the world to shine and charm. It is only natural they should use all the weapons nature has given them."
"Very good!" exclaimed the astonished Ottoman. "But where will all this end? You began by allowing your women to appear in public with their faces unveiled, then you suppressed the fichu and the collarette, and now you rob them of half their corsage. Where, O Allah, will you stop?"
"Ah!" I answered, laughing, "the tendency of civilization is to simplify; many things may yet disappear."
"I understand perfectly. You have no prejudice against women wearing in public toilets that we consider fitted only for strict intimacy. In that case your ladies may walk about the streets in these costumes?"
"Not at all!" I cried. "It would provoke a scandal if a woman were to be seen during the daytime in such attire, either at home or abroad. The police and the law courts would interfere. Evening dress is intended only for reunions in private houses, or at most, to be worn at entertainments where the company is carefully selected and the men asked from lists prepared by the ladies themselves. No lady would wear a ball costume or her jewels in a building where the general public was admitted. In London great ladies dine at restaurants in full evening dress, but we Americans, like the French, consider that vulgar."
"Yet, last winter," he said, "when passing through New York, I went to a great theatre, where there were an orchestra and many singing people. Were not those respectable women I saw in the boxes? There were no MOUCHARABIES to screen them from the eyes of the public. Were all the men in that building asked by special invitation? That could hardly be possible, for I paid an entrance fee at the door. From where I sat I could see that, as each lady entered her box, opera-glasses were fixed on her, and her `points,' as you say, discussed by the crowd of men in the corridors, who, apparently, belonged to quite the middle class."
"My poor, innocent Padischa, you do not understand at all.
That was the opera, which makes all the difference. The husbands of those women pay enormous prices, expressly that their wives may exhibit themselves in public, decked in jewels and suggestive toilets. You could buy a whole harem of fair Circassians for what one of those little square boxes costs.
A lady whose entrance caused no sensation would feel bitterly disappointed. As a rule, she knows little about music, and cares still less, unless some singer is performing who is paid a fabulous price, which gives his notes a peculiar charm.
With us most things are valued by the money they have cost.
Ladies attend the opera simply and solely to see their friends and be admired.
"It grieves me to see that you are forming a poor opinion of our woman kind, for they are more charming and modest than any foreign women. A girl or matron who exhibits more of her shoulders than you, with your Eastern ideas, think quite proper, would sooner expire than show an inch above her ankle.
We have our way of being modest as well as you, and that is one of our strongest prejudices."
"Now I know you are joking," he replied, with a slight show of temper, "or trying to mystify me, for only this morning I was on the beach watching the bathing, and I saw a number of ladies in quite short skirts - up to their knees, in fact - with the thinnest covering on their shapely extremities. Were those women above suspicion?"
"Absolutely," I assured him, feeling inclined to tear my hair at such stupidity. "Can't you see the difference? That was in daylight. Our customs allow a woman to show her feet, and even a little more, in the morning. It would be considered the acme of indecency to let those beauties be seen at a ball.
The law allows a woman to uncover her neck and shoulders at a ball, but she would be arrested if she appeared decollete on the beach of a morning."
A long silence followed, broken only by the music and laughter from the ball-room. I could see my dazed Mohammedan remove his fez and pass an agitated hand through his dark hair; then he turned, and saluting me gravely, murmured:
"It is very kind of you to have taken so much trouble with me.
I do not doubt that what you have said is full of the wisdom and consistency of a new civilization, which I fail to appreciate." Then, with a sigh, he added: "It will be better for me to return to my own country, where there are fewer exceptions to rules."
With a profound salaam the gentle youth disappeared into the surrounding darkness, leaving me rubbing my eyes and asking myself if, after all, the dreamland Oriental was not about right. Custom makes many inconsistencies appear so logical that they no longer cause us either surprise or emotion. But can we explain them?
