He plucked the ivy leaves and threw them at the chickens on the bricks
without, with a certain impatience in the action. The simplicity and the
directness of the answer disarmed him; he was almost ashamed to use
against her the weapons of his habitual warfare. It was like a maître
d'armes fencing with bare steel against a little naked child armed with a
blest palm-sheaf.

When she had thus brought him all she had, and he to please her had sat
down to the simple food, she gathered a spray of roses and set it in a
pot beside him, then left him and went and stood at a little distance,
waiting, with her hands lightly crossed on her chest, to see if there
were anything that he might want.

He ate and drank well to please her, looking at her often as he did so.

"I break your bread, Bébée," he said, with a tone that seemed strange to
her,--"I break your bread. I must keep Arab faith with you."

"What is that?"

"I mean--I must never betray you."

"Betray me How could you?"

"Well--hurt you in any way."

"Ah, I am sure you would never do that."

He was silent, and looked at the spray of roses.