but assuming some degree of freedom, from his connexion with Fatima, he asked Heli in what manner he intended to regulate his future conduct.
"I design," answered he, 'to live quietly in the country, not ostentatiously, to avoid observation: To regard Fatima as my wife, and mistress of the other women. I pretend not to have a seraglio here; but as I am unknown, I shall have no visitors, nor will Fatima be exposed to the eyes of men."
Ferdinand accidentally turned his eyes on Fatima at those words, and observed a suppressed smile playing on her lips, and an archness in her looks, that but ill accorded with the plan Heli had designed, nor at all correspondent to the mortified and afflicted air she had assumed, when he first discovered himself to her as a brother. This observation tended to confirm his first suspicions, that she had a light mind, and was capable of much duplicity.
He was mortified, by the conviction from the affinity between them, but he had no
