Right in the centre, flanked on one side by the glass dish of glowing fruit and the other by a cut-glass jar of Keiller's marmalade, stood a cage tied at the top with silver ribbon and containing two cooing doves.
The doves were just ordinary ones, but their prison was no ordinary cage. Fair-sized and square, it was made of fine white bars of ivory. The underside was also ivory, square and unblemished, and would have made an ideal hairpin-tray; it stood upon ebony feet inlaid with infinitesimal precious stones.
"It has but just arrived, Miss Hethencourt," said the maître d'hôtel, who had been fluttering around upon the tiptoe of a most unusual curiosity. "There is no name, no message."
"Please send it to my room," she replied indifferently, whilst, for some unaccountable reason, her heart throbbed as she responded to the birthday greetings which came from every corner of the room.
CHAPTER VI
"A mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive."
COLERIDGE.
"May the blessing of Allah who is God be upon thee, O woman!"
The sonorous words, of the benediction rang through the room as Hugh Carden Ali stood with the silken curtain drawn back in one hand and the right raised in blessing upon his mother, who stood with arms outstretched in the centre of the room.
Then he knelt to receive the benison of the woman he loved, smiled when he felt the small hands upon his head and, leaping to his feet, swung her up into his arms, covering her face with kisses.