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Page 89
Nevertheless, luncheon terminated, and Harley had not appeared.
"You have sometimes expressed a desire," said Ormuz Khan, "to see
the interior of a Persian house. Permit me to show you the only
really characteristic room which I allow myself in my English
home."
Endeavouring to conceal her great anxiety, Phil allowed herself
to be conducted by the Persian to an apartment which realized her
dreams of that Orient which she had never visited.
Three beautiful silver lanterns depended from a domed ceiling in
which wonderfully woven tapestry was draped. The windows were
partly obscured by carved wooden screens, and the light entered
through little panels of coloured glass. There were cushioned
divans, exquisite pottery, and a playful fountain plashing in a
marble pool.
Ormuz Khan conducted her to a wonderfully carven chair over which
a leopard's skin was draped and there she seated herself. She saw
through a wide doorway before her a long and apparently
unfurnished room dimly lighted. At the farther end she could
vaguely discern violet-coloured draperies. Ormuz Khan gracefully
threw himself upon a divan to the right of this open door.
"This, Miss Abingdon," he said, "is a nearly exact reproduction
of a room of a house which I have in Ispahan. I do not claim that
it is typical, but does its manner appeal to you?"
"Immensely," she replied, looking around her.
She became aware of a heavy perfume of hyacinths, and presently
observed that there were many bowls of those flowers set upon
little tables, and in niches in the wall.
"Yet its atmosphere is not truly of the Orient."
"Are such apartments uncommon, then, in Persia?" asked Phil,
striving valiantly to interest herself in the conversation.
"I do not say so," he returned, crossing one delicate foot over
the other, in languorous fashion. "But many things which are
typically of the Orient would probably disillusion you, Miss
Abingdon."
"In what way?" she asked, wondering why Mrs. McMurdoch had not
joined them.
"In many subtle ways. The real wonder and the mystery of the East
lie not upon the surface, but beneath it. And beneath the East of
to-day lies the East of yesterday."
The speaker's expression grew rapt, and he spoke in the mystic
manner which she knew and now dreaded. Her anxiety for the return
of Paul Harley grew urgent--a positive need, as, meeting the gaze
of the long, magnetic eyes, she felt again, like the touch of
cold steel, all the penetrating force of this man's will. She was
angrily aware of the fact that his gaze was holding hers
hypnotically, that she was meeting it contrary to her wish and
inclination. She wanted to look away but found herself looking
steadily into the coal-black eyes of Ormuz Khan.
"The East of yesterday"--his haunting voice seemed to reach her
from a great distance--"saw the birth of all human knowledge and
human power; and to us the East of yesterday is the East of
today."
Phil became aware that a sort of dreamy abstraction was creeping
over her, when in upon this mood came a sound which stimulated
her weakening powers of resistance.
Dimly, for all the windows of the room were closed, she heard a
car come up and stop before the house. It aroused her from the
curious condition of lethargy into which she was falling. She
turned her head sharply aside, the physical reflection of a
mental effort to remove her gaze from the long, magnetic eyes of
Ormuz Khan. And:
"Do you think that is Mr. Harley?" she asked, and failed to
recognize her own voice.
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