And it was well he did keep it.
CHAPTER XVI
Xenora of Lothar
I went back to the beautiful sleeping girl, and sat down again in my rapt contemplation of the quiet charm of her face. She was breathing quite normally, and the face bore a slight smile of pleasure. Suddenly she moved, and the eyelids were raised. Clear violet eyes looked straight into mine—they were those eyes that have haunted me always.
"Melvin Dane!" she breathed in a voice that was low and musical and wholly delicious. She knew me! She spoke my name! Truly, it was the Green Girl! She was aware of the meeting of our minds upon the ether! "My chieftain of dreams!"
From beneath the light covers she reached a slender rounded arm, white, with just a hint of green tan. I took her hand in my own, feeling a strange thrill at the touch. After a moment of hesitation, when I struggled fiercely with that thrill, relaxing to it briefly, I put her hand quickly to my lips, and then released it.
I did not feel capable of speech. For all the hours since we had found the girl, I had been undergoing a storm of emotions—alternate joy and despair. Now, when the Green Girl actually smiled upon me, I forgot all my old dreams of how I would cross oceans and voyage through space to take her in my arms. I sat still, with a curious lump in my throat, in incredulous joy, not daring even to surrender to the delicious thrill of her touch.
She laughed softly and questioned, "From whence did you come, chieftain of my dreams, or am I dreaming still?"
"It's no dream," I began awkwardly. "Though I can hardly feel that it isn't. I came from a land above the red sky. I have always dreamed of you! And now I find you real—living! What is your name? Do you have people?"