But she did not move. She sat back in her chair, withdrawn and shrinking, watching him out of those dark, terrified eyes.
"You are beautiful as dreams," he told her, leaning towards her with such abruptness that his sword struck clankingly against the table. "Beyond even the words of my babbling cousin—eh, Allah reward her!—but she did me a good turn with her talk of you!"
Fixedly he stared at her, out of those intent, inflamed eyes.
"I did not know that there was anything like you in the harems of Cairo. You are like a vision of the old poets—but I suppose that you do not know the ancient poetry. You little moderns are brought up upon French and English and music and know little of the Arabic and the Persian.... I daresay that you have never heard of the poet Utayyah."
Still leaning towards her he began to intone the stanzas in a very fair tenor voice, and if his movements were at all unsteady, his speech was most precise and accurate.
"From her radiance the sun taketh increase when
She unveileth and shameth the moonlight bright."
He chuckled.... "Ah, I shall put the triple veil upon you, my little moon.... How Is this one?
"'On Sun and Moon of Palace cast thy sight,
Enjoy her flower-like face, her fragrant light,
Thine eyes shall never see in hair so black
Beauty encase a brow so purely white.'"
He got up and drew his chair closer to her. "That is the song for you, little white rose of beauty."
Back went her own chair, and she rose to her feet.