"Tell me what you think of me," he said, speaking in the merest whisper out of the depth of his love. "Tell me, and I will tell you what I think of you—thou lotus bud," he finished desperately in his own tongue.
Leonie answered in the sweetest, purest Hindustani, using the beautiful strange metaphors of India to describe the human body.
"Thou art," she said. "Thou art—how can I tell thee I——"
She stopped, laughing down at him as she put both hands out on a level with her chin, palm upwards, towards him, in a little supplicating gesture.
"Tell me!"
"Behold," she said softly as she passed the tips of her fingers from his forehead to his chin. "Behold is thy face softly rounded like the egg of a bird, and thy brow is even as a tautened bow——"
A great tremor shook the man at the touch of her hand, but he made no movement as he broke across her words.
"And thy face so fair, so dear, is even like the pan leaf, and thy dark brows like the neem leaf disturbed by the wind, when thou art displeased with him who so loveth thee. Yet when thou art not angry, are thy drooping lids like the water-lily in their sweet repose. Thy ears, those can I not see—ah!"
Leonie laughed softly as the very tips of her fingers passed down the side of his face.
"And thine are like vultures with drooping head, and thy nose——"