Evening star., 1933-05-20
a. VALIANT ', ANT, D, Dust

50 near were q British garrison, bat
tleships, churches, clubs, messes, shops
and British law and order.
Whether the thousand-year ideas
were extravagant or not, one certainly
travelled back more than 200 years In
travelling that 244 miles.
This castle, this life, these people,
that town down there, below the castle,
were all far more medieval than Tudor
England, in outlook, In mode Of life. in
act and word and thought and deed.
The things her husbands mother.
Lady FL lisa Beth el Ain, had told her!
Unbelievable things. Perfectly incredi-
bic and perfectly true.
SO beautiful-with whom, apparently
she now dwelt in perfect amity-had
done her best to murder Jules, the
Kaid's nephew, now Margaret's hus-
band.
Strange to reflect how, but for that
savage villainy, Jules would never have
been sent to England, and Margaret
herself would not now be Mrs. Jules
Maligni, seated there in that lovely
artificial Moorish garden, beneath the
African moon, contemplating this
strange assembly of her relatives.
No, she would not have been Mrs.
Jules Maligni.
Would she have been Lady Belleme
had Zainub always been as fat and
placid as she was today?
Once more Margaret's eye Travelled
round that amazing circle.
Jules, her husband, graduate OF Ok
ford University, yet bred and born in
Pedro Maligni and the Lady Ell lisa
Beth el Ain, the Kaid's half-sister.
And, undoubtedly, Jules, lolling there
on his cushioned rug, was well In the
picture-Jules, with his black hair, pale
face and great dark eyes. But then,
of course, he belonged. This was his
home, his birthplace. His mother was
half Moorish (oh, her terrible tale Of
her English mother, sold in the mar
ket-place of Mekazzen), his father a
Spaniard, bred and born in Morocco.
No wonder he had seemed to change
50 rapidly and so soon after their ar
rival in this disturbing place. It was
literally the return of the native.
Native? Her husband a native?
What an unpleasant word in this par
ticular connection.
But how absurd to take that view
Anybody Is a native of the place in
which he is born and bred. She was
herself a native-of England.
And Margaret once again firmly put
out of her mind an expression that she
had somewhere heard or read-a phrase
that had been doing its best to intrude
upon her consciousness for some time
Gone native"
It was perfectly absurd. If, as she
kept telling herself, everybody is a ma
tive, and the natives of one country
are as good, or as bad. as the natives
of another-in their own particuler way
and sphere-how could any one go"
native?
II the phrase meant anything at all
it meant departing from the ways and
customs and standards of your own
country and adopting the ways and
customs and standards Of the foreign
country in which you were sojourning.
But this was Jules own country.
she kept telling herself. He couldn't
go native. for the excellent reason that
he was native.
Had she, then, married a Moor?
And thereupon a horrible little voice
from somewhere at the back Of her
mind. coolly remarked that she hadn't
married Moor so much as mongrel
in whose veins ran Moorish, English
and Spanish blood-Spanish blood di
lutte, for Senor Pedro Maligni's mother
had been of African extraction un-
specified-Berber, Kabyle, Ouled-Nail,
or, perhaps. NegreSS, again unspecifled
Angrily Margaret replied to the hor-
hible little voice, telling it to cease its
beastly remarks, for she was married
to an English gentleman whom she had
known from childhood, who had almost
grown up in her fathers house, and
who had there spent his holidays from
prep school, from Eton and from OK
ford, at all Of which seats of learning
he had been with her brother Jack
OF course. it was only natural and
er-right that. back in Morocco, the
land Of his birth, he should wear native
dress.
That word native again.
1t had begun with their all dressing
up" for fun, and very good fun it had
been. Margaret had thoroughly en-
Sara's lovely scented silken clothing
and barbaric jewelry, and wished she
could keep them to take home to wear
at fancy dress dances.
But to wear them regularly just be-
cause they were Moorish clothes and
she was in Morocco, was quite differ
ent thing. She was an English girl and
she would wear English clothes wherev-
er she might be and retain English
manners and morals and customs and
standards.
No. Morocco had not done Jules any
good at all, and the sooner they went
away again the better.
:. eTo be continued tamorr0wA