"Ah! it is bright day again, and we have all the green world between us and the great vast brown tract of sand. And those are the Pyramids clear-cut against the turquoise sky, and soon we shall be there, only you must observe this green around us first, my Paul—the green of no other country in all the world—pure emerald—nature's supreme concentrated effort of green for miles and miles. No, I do not want to live in that small village in a brown mud hut, shared with another wife to that gaunt blue linen-clad man; I would kill them all and be free. I want to go on, beloved—on to the desert for you and me alone, with its wonderful passion, and wonderful peace…."
Her voice became still more dreamy; there was a cadence in it now as if some soul within were forcing her to chant it all, with almost the lilt of blank verse.
"Oh! the strange drug of the glorious East, flooding your senses with beauty and life. 'Tis the spell of the Sphinx, and now we are there, close in her presence. Look, the sun has set….
"Hush! hush! beloved! we are alone, the camels and guides afar off—we are alone, sweetheart, and we go on together, you and I and the moon. See, she is rising all silver and pure, and blue is the sky, and scented the night. Look, there is the Sphinx! Do you see the strange mystery of her smile and the glamour of her eyes? She is a goddess, and she knows men's souls, and their foolish unavailing passion and pain—never content with the Is which they have, always regretting the Was which has passed, and building false hopes on the phantom May be. But you and I, my lover, my sweet, have fathomed the riddle which is hid in the smile of our goddess, our Sphinx—we have guessed it, and now are as high gods too. For we know it means to live in the present, and quaff life in its full. Sweetheart, beloved—joy and life in its full——"….
Her voice grew faint and far away, like the echo of some exquisite song, and the lids closed over Paul's blue eyes, and he slept.
The light of all the love in the world seemed to flood the lady's face. She bent over and kissed him, and smoothed his cheek with her velvet cheek, she moved so that his curly lashes might touch her bare neck, and at last she slipped from under him, and laid his head gently down upon the pillows.
Then a madness of tender caressing seized her. She purred as a tiger might have done, while she undulated like a snake. She touched him with her finger-tips, she kissed his throat, his wrists, the palms of his hands, his eyelids, his hair. Strange, subtle kisses, unlike the kisses of women. And often, between her purrings, she murmured love-words in some strange fierce language of her own, brushing his ears and his eyes with her lips the while.
And through it all Paul slept on, the Eastern perfume in the air still drugging his sense.
It was quite dark when he awoke again, and beside him—seated on the floor, all propped with pillows, his lady reclined her head against his shoulder. And as he looked down at her in the firelight's flickering gleam, he saw that her wonderful eyes were wet with great glittering tears.
"My soul, my soul!" he said tenderly, his heart wrung with emotion. "What is it, sweetheart—why have you these tears? Oh! what have I done—darling, my own?"