But, strive as I would to concentrate my mind upon the objects in the
window, my memories persistently haunted me, and haunted me to the
exclusion even of the actualities. The crowds thronging the pavement,
the traffic in New Oxford Street, swept past unheeded; my eyes saw
nothing of pot nor statuette, but only met, in a misty imaginative
world, the glance of two other eyes--the dark and beautiful eyes of
Karamaneh. In the exquisite tinting of a Chinese vase dimly
perceptible in the background of the shop, I perceived only the
blushing cheeks of Karamaneh; her face rose up, a taunting phantom,
from out of the darkness between a hideous, gilded idol and an Indian
sandal-wood screen.
I strove to dispel this obsessing thought, resolutely fixing my
attention upon a tall Etruscan vase in the corner of the window, near
to the shop door. Was I losing my senses indeed? A doubt of my own
sanity momentarily possessed me. For, struggle as I would to dispel
the illusion--there, looking out at me over that ancient piece of
pottery, was the bewitching face of the slave-girl!
Probably I was glaring madly, and possibly I attracted the notice of
the passers-by; but of this I cannot be certain, for all my attention
was centred upon that phantasmal face, with the cloudy hair, slightly
parted red lips, and the brilliant dark eyes which looked into mine
out of the shadows of the shop.
It was bewildering--it was uncanny; for, delusion or verity, the
glamour prevailed.
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