A Monk of Cruta

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Strangely enough it seemed to him, after his first hasty glance around, that the room was empty; but just then a sudden gleam from the bright fire fell upon Adrea's hair, and he saw her. He stood for a moment silent and motionless. She was curled up on a huge divan drawn close to the fireplace, with her limbs doubled under her like a panther's, and her arms, from which the loose sleeves had fallen back, clasped half-bare underneath her head. The peculiar grace of movement and carriage, which had made her dancing so famous, was even more striking in repose, for there was a faint, insidious suggestion of voluptuous movement in those motionless, crouching limbs, and the abandon of the shapely, dusky head, with its crown of dark, wavy hair thrown back amongst the cushions. It was beauty of a strange sort, the beauty almost of some wild animal; but Paul felt a most unwilling admiration steal through his senses as he gazed down upon her. Her tea-gown, a wonderful shade of shimmering green, tumbled and disarranged out of all similitude to its original shape, followed the soft perfections of her outline with such peculiar faithfulness that it seemed to suggest even more than it concealed, leaving the gentle tracery of her figure outlined there like a piece of living Greek statuary. She turned slightly upon the couch, and a slipperless little foot stole out from a sea of lace and white draperies which her uneasy movement had left exposed, and swayed slowly backwards and forwards, trying to reach the ground. Her eyes were still closed, but she was not sleeping, for in a moment or two she spoke in a low, drowsy tone.

"Celeste, I told you not to disturb me for an hour. It isn't five o'clock yet, is it?"

He roused himself, and moved a step further into the room. "It is still a quarter to five, I think," he said. "I have come before my time."

She opened her eyes, and then, seeing him, sprang into a sitting posture. Her hair, which had escaped all bounds, was down to her shoulders, and her gown, still further disarranged by her hasty movement, floated around her in wonderful curves and angles. Had she been a past mistress in the art of picturesque effects she could have conceived nothing more striking. Paul felt all the old fear upon him as he watched the firelight gleaming upon her startled, dusky face, and the faint pink colouring, wonderfully suggestive of a blush, steal into her cheeks. It seemed to him that she was as beautiful as a woman could be, and yet so different from Lady May.

She rose, and, with a shrug of the shoulders and a quick, graceful movement, shook out her skirts, and pushed the hair back from her face. Then she held out her hand, and Paul found himself compelled, against his will, to stand by her side.

"How strange that I should have overslept like this, and have taken you for Celeste!" she said. "Yet perhaps it was natural; for, Monsieur Paul, save Celeste, no one yet has permission to enter my chamber unannounced. How comes it that I find you here to laugh at my deshabille?"

He was silent for a moment, while she looked at him questioningly. Her soft, delicate voice, with its very slight but piquant foreign intonation, had often sounded in his reluctant yet charmed ears since their last meeting; but now that he heard it again he felt how weak were his imaginings, and what sweet music it indeed was.

"I am sorry," he answered; and the constraint which he was placing upon his voice made it sound hard and cold. "The porter rang for your maid twice whilst I waited in the hall; but as she did not come, I thought I had better try and find the way myself."

"And I mistook your knock for Celeste's, and let you discover me comme cela. Well, you were not to blame. See, I will just arrange my hair here, and you need not look at me unless you like."