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Page 52
And still he continued to stare at her, finding her unbelievably
lovely. "My grandfather would call you an _houri_ from paradise,"
he told her, the warmth of admiration deepening in his eyes.
"And your grandfather's grandson knows that I am only an _houri_
from America!... But that _is_ paradise for _houris_!"
"And not for men, no!... Sometimes I have wished that those English
would restore in me that young belief in the heaven of the Prophet,"
he continued, smiling, "and now that wish is granted. It is here,
that paradise," and his smile, flashing about the lonely garden,
came to dwell again upon the girl before him.
She laughed. "But does one _houri_ make a paradise?" she bantered,
while the beating, hurrying heart of her went faster and faster till
she thought his ears would hear it. "We have a proverb--one swallow
does not make a summer."
"_Cela d�pend_--that depends upon the _houri_.... When _you_ are
that one it is paradise indeed." He leaned toward her, speaking
softly, but with a voice that thrilled more and more in its own
eloquence.
She was the Rose of Desire, he reminded her, and beside her all
other flowers drooped in envy. She was as lovely as young Dawn to
the eyes of men. She was the ravishing embodiment of gaiety and
youth and delight. He quoted from the poets, not from his own
Oriental poets, but snatches from Campion and Wilde, vowing that
"There was a garden in her face,
Where roses and white lilies grow,"
and adding, with points of fire dancing in his heavy lidded eyes,
"Her neck is like white melilote,
Flushing for pleasure of the sun,"
and went on to add praise to praise and extravagance to
extravagance, till a sudden little imp of mirth caught Arlee by the
throat, hysterically choking her. "I shall never like praise or
poetry or--or men again," she thought, struggling between wild
laughter and hot disgust, while aloud she mocked, "Ah, you know too
much poetry, Captain Kerissen! I do not recognize myself at all! You
are laughing at me!"
"Laughing at you?... I am worshipping you," he said tensely, his
eyes on hers, and the fierce words shattered her light defenses to
confusion.
Silence gripped her. She tried to meet his look and smile in mock
reproof, but her eyes fled away affrighted, so full of desperate,
passionate things was the dark gaze they touched. She gripped her
cold little hands in her lap and looked out beyond the lebbek's
shade into the vivid garden. The hot sunshine lay orange on the
white-sanded paths; the shadows were purple and indigo. A little
lizard had come out from a crack in a stone and was sunning himself,
while one bright eye upon them, fixed, motionless, irridescent,
warned him of their least stir. She envied him the safety of his
crack.... She herself must meet this crisis--must turn this tide....
"It is--so soon," she faltered.
"Soon?" He had risen and was standing over her. "Soon? I was with
you on the boat--I walked by your side--I danced with you and held
you against my heart. And here in Cairo I walked and talked with
you.... And now for three days you have been under my roof, eating
at the table with me, alone within these walls, and you call it
soon! Truly, you are beyond belief! _Soon!_"
"But soon--for _me_!" she interrupted swiftly, and sprang to her
feet to face him with eyes and lips that smiled without a trace of
fear. Only her cheeks were no longer crimson but white as chalk.
"Too soon--for me to be sure--how _I_ feel! I hadn't realized--I
hadn't known--Oh, you mustn't hurry me! You mustn't hurry me!" She
broke off in a confusion he might well misconstrue, and moved
nervously away, her back to him.
He stood staring after her, a man not in two minds but in three and
four. Her broken words--her smiles--her emotion--these might well
arouse the most flattering surmise, and his vanity and his curiosity
were stirred to swift delight. He broke into a storm of words, of
protestations, of eager persuasion and honied flattery, drawing
nearer and nearer to her, while she slipped continually away from
him.
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