As he sat down for a smoke in the corner vacated by Robinson Crusoe, this feeling was strong upon him, and sent the blood tingling to his finger-tips.
The band had by this time ceased piping to unwilling dancers, so the still, warm, scented air was left to the tinkling ripple of the water, the rippling tinkle of distant voices; for supper had almost emptied the garden also. The better for its picturesque effect. Now the imagination could people it--as Laila Bonaventura (the girl had sense) had phrased it--with figures that matched; real figures.
A chiming silvery clash above him made him turn to look upwards to the archway where Laila Bonaventura had disappeared. It would be a bore if she were returning to interrupt his cigarette; though, in truth, she had been, he remembered, almost attractive.
Almost--
He gave an exclamation, and rose to his feet. She was coming, indeed, but not as she had gone.
There is no dress in the world which is at once so dainty and so sensuous, as the court dress of a Mahomedan lady, and Laila Bonaventura was wearing one as she came slowly down the stairs towards him, a radiant white figure against the radiant white marble.
The folds of her long silver-gauze skirt--so cunningly fashioned that it trailed in rolling shimmer-crested billows behind her, yet left no beauty of her round limbs hidden--clipped her about the waist like a serpent's skin. So hiding, yet revealing, was the soft film of fine muslin over the scented, ivory-tinted corselet, which fitted close to the full curves of her figure. So was it with the silver-streaked veil, through which the jewels in her dusky hair, the bracelets on her fair arms, shone undimmed. So was it even with the chiming fringes of her silver anklets, as they slid merrily to cover and uncover the small feet, tucked so carelessly into the little silver-tipped slippers.
To hide and to reveal, that was the note of all!
As she came nearer, too, he saw that her lips were reddened, her dark eyes darkened artificially. And yet her face did not correspond to all this. It was curiously grave, dignified, almost anxious.
"Do you like it?" she asked, suddenly pausing a pace or two from him to stand still, heaped round by those shimmer-crested billows, and so, with one hand, gather the straight folds of her veil to curves over her arm. As she did so, he saw, with a curious throb at his heart, that her wrists were fettered to each other by long trailing chains of scented jasmine flowers.