“Well, what then?”
Oh! poor Dalima understood that look so well, and little as she knew of the world she knew so well why the “nonna” had been sent away. She repressed her emotion however, and calmly enough she said:
“Lim Ho went to smoke opium.”
“Of course, of course,” said Laurentia, huskily, “of course he went to smoke opium, before—” It is utterly impossible to convey in words any idea of the expression on the face of Laurentia van Gulpendam as she allowed the word “before” to slip from her lips. Those wildly gleaming eyes, that projecting slightly quivering jaw, those half-open lips which allowed the breath to pass with a slightly hissing sound, and that full bosom heaving convulsively under the wet kabaja—all these were the visible signs of passion raging unrestrained within. That face betrayed the whole story, aye and even betrayed her regret that van Gulpendam did not smoke opium.
“Well,” she said at length, after having for a few moments stared at Dalima; “well, and what happened then?”
“Nothing happened at all,” was Dalima’s quiet reply.
“Nothing,” cried Laurentia; “that’s a lie! Lim Ho would have had you carried to his ship merely to—”
“Before he had done smoking,” hastily interposed Dalima, “I was rescued.”
“Rescued! rescued! By whom?”
“By Ardjan,” replied the girl, trembling more violently than before.