In a flash the veil was torn off and a man’s face appeared beneath it—young, bold, and handsome with the high features of the Imperial House, a splendid dissolute young man with the down black on his upper lip like the black astride the young swan’s bill. Prince Suleiman, the son of Dara the Emperor’s brother.
“Ha, daughter of my uncle!” he cried,— “Did I not wager, did I not swear, that I would see that hidden beauty and now I see it face to face. Poets have sung it and painters praised it, but their words and their colours were lies for they could not utter the truth. And having seen I entreat for my father’s sake, for love’s sake, that it may be mine.”
He made towards her eagerly, wholly disregarding Imami and me. I looked to see her confused or angry, but she spoke with a most misleading calm.
“Exalted cousin, you have won your wager and your bride. If her embrace is cold it is at least constant and——”
“Cold, with those burning lips of rose, those glowing eyes? O Loveliest, Divinest, grant me one kiss for earnest if you would not have me die at your feet.”
I saw her sign with her hand to Imami who glided away, flattening herself against the wall as if terrified, then she spoke serenely.
“Exalted cousin, when were you last in Shaitanpur?”
It stopped him like a lightning flash. He stood arrested on the marble before her face.
“I know nothing of Shaitanpur,” he said, breathless.
“No? Nor of the dancer Peri Mahal and her house with the courtyard of roses, nor of the song she sings?”