“Who is in that room?” asked Nouna imperiously.
“My uncle, Nouna. Why are you so excited?”
“Your uncle Fanah? No one else?”
“No one.”
He stepped back and opening the curtains again, said a few words in a language strange to Lauriston. A little old man with a grey beard and a dried-up, wrinkled face, wearing a crimson turban and a very simple Eastern dress, came slowly in and bowed to the stranger.
“Are you satisfied now?” asked Rahas.
“Ye—es,” said the girl doubtfully, passing her hand over her eyes and shivering, “I suppose so.” Then, turning to Lauriston, she continued, with the tone of a child playing at royalty, “You will honour me by coming up stairs to my apartments for a few minutes. I will not detain you long.”
She curtseyed to the two merchants, and led the way back through the front room with a gesture to the young Englishman to follow her, as Lauriston did, after taking a hasty leave of his host. The girl seemed to be in such a subdued, sleepy mood that he was prepared for her to behave in a more conventional manner than usual. He was quite off his guard therefore when, having reached the top of the staircase, she suddenly swept round, her white garments swirling after her, and threw herself like a panther upon him, with such electric suddenness and force that, if his hand had not been upon the stair-rail, he would have fallen down the stairs. She was curled about him, her feet off the ground, her arms round his neck, her breast against his. It was such an altogether unlooked for and bewildering proceeding that Lauriston, after a moment’s choking sensation, put his arms round her, carried her to the door of her smaller sitting-room, and attempted to put her down on her feet. As she resisted and refused to stand, he looked round him, and seeing a chair against the wall, placed her, still limp and apparently helpless, very gently upon it, and laid his fingers on the handle of the sitting-room door. The little lady sprang back into vigorous life immediately.
“You are not going in!” she said in a hissing whisper, her face full of alarm and disappointment; “Mrs. Ellis is in there!”
“That is why I’m going in. I came to see Mrs. Ellis, not you.”