I dressed, and ate the food I had brought with me. The wine enervated me, and soon I slept.
Again she sent her thoughts to me, and my dreams were soaked through and through with her rapacious personality. I was being nailed down under a rich carpet in Samarcand. In another room of the Palace were proud music and rejoicings....
Haunted myself by those dreams, I will not stain this page by recording them....
I awoke.
“If sleep means this,” I exclaimed aloud, “I’ll sleep no more.”
On my way back to Athens I told myself that on the following day I would set out for Corinth. I would escape. But I must see the Parthenon first. I would borrow Lovelace’s ticket and go to-night. There would be a moon....
There were no bounds to my relief when Lovelace, bringing me my soup at dinner-time told me, in answer to my inquiry, that Miss Langdon was resting.
“Madame has a headache,” he said, “and will dine in her own room.”
Immeasurable relief—yes! But profound disappointment and anxiety also!
What an unaccountable hunger mine was! Love-hunger! The wish to love what one fears and perhaps hates!