She personified the _outre_; nothing so incongruous as her presence in
that place could well be imagined. She was dressed as I remembered
once to have seen her two years before, in the gauzy silks of the
harem. There were pearls glittering like great tears amid the cloud of
her wonderful hair. She wore broad gold bangles upon her bare arms,
and her fingers were laden with jewellery. A heavy girdle swung from
her hips, defining the lines of her slim shape, and about one white
ankle was a gold band.
As she appeared in the doorway I almost entirely closed my eyes, but
my gaze rested fascinatedly upon the little red slippers which she
wore.
Again I detected the exquisite, elusive perfume which, like a breath
of musk, spoke of the Orient; and, as always, it played havoc with my
reason, seeming to intoxicate me as though it were the very essence of
her loveliness.
But I had a part to play, and throwing out one clenched hand so that
my fist struck upon the floor, I uttered a loud groan, and made as if
to rise upon my knees.
One quick glimpse I had of her wonderful eyes, widely opened and
turned upon me with such an enigmatical expression as set my heart
leaping wildly--then, stepping back, Karamaneh placed the lamp upon
the boards of the passage and clapped her hands.
As I sank upon the floor in assumed exhaustion, a Chinaman with a
perfectly impassive face, and a Burman whose pock-marked, evil
countenance was set in an apparently habitual leer, came running into
the room past the girl.
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