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And they were ladies. Right, and right, and right again, Achmet! More than right! Twenty thousand times right! If the Thing can be found at all there must be something of leisure perhaps and certainly of equality. Ladies for love, not women: oh! yes! No doubt at all! And so for you, my Lord, they had to be "Ladies." And you "purchased them." Right again! You went about it in the honourable way, with no misunderstanding, no room for false issues on either side: an honourable price was honourably paid. That, if anything, should open the door of the treasure house. You paid high, you paid well. You were at a charge. You made yourself the poorer to make yourself the richer. You proved to them as to the whole world that you held them dearly indeed—"at a considerable expense."

You acted with discretion and with a fine distinction. You purchased not in bulk or by contract, but neatly, carefully, "at different times." You weighed each opportunity, you gauged each transaction.

Achmet, your perseverance alone should have made you the one, the satisfied of lovers. Into how many eyes you looked! How many whispering voices you gauged! The sincerity of how many protestations did you not search with the white-hot flame of your own profound and tortured spirit! Is it she, or she? Is she here at last ...? Twelve hundred of them—the splendid tale, the royal regiment of many and many, and more still, the dwindling perspective of research. "Who knows?" you said. "At last, as the feet stumble in the final excess of weariness, the fountain may be heard ... at last." You deserved it beyond all men, Boulee, and as we read we expect, breathless, the climax of your surpassing endeavour, we expect to hear at the very end the low tones of the beloved voice that answers, "Que tu perdes ou que tu gagnes, tu les aura toujours." Your reward is upon you. You shall be greeted with the divine reply, "Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens."