"Then I succeeded!" The amethyst eyes, devoid of all hardness now, caressed Michael and disturbed his nerves. The woman was very beautiful, and he was conscious that her mind was set on her desire to win him. He knew that it was not love; he knew that their intimacy was not one of wholesome friendship. He was becoming more and more awake to the fact that this wealthy woman, who looked like a child but for the expression of her eyes, had taken an unreasoning desire to have him for her lover. In a measure he could not but feel flattered, for with her beauty and wealth she could have had the attention of better men than himself. He was too generous in his judgment of women to attribute her desire to the lowest motives, the prospect of enjoying through another the innocence which she had lost herself so long ago.
"I tried to reach you, Mike. I used every effort of my will-power, or mind-power, or whatever power you like to call it. I insisted on your feeling me. I sent myself out of myself to you."
"Why did you do it?" he said. He had leaned forward and had laid his hand on the cushions of her chair, at the back of her head. His distressed voice was less harsh.
"Why did I do it? Because, dear, I want you." Her voice was low and wooing; it was one of her charms.
Michael did not answer. His senses were beginning to throb. The sound of a native earthen drum, with its sensual thud, thud, thudding, and the watery note of a key striking a glass bottle, as an accompaniment to the slow measures of bare feet on the deck of a Nile boat, added an undefinable touch, of Oriental passion to the scene.
Michael tried to draw away his hand, but she caught it and pulled his arm round her neck and held his long fingers imprisoned under her chin.
He protested. The thud, thud, thud of the darabukkeh below kept time with the throbbing of his pulses, while the subconscious visualizing of the body-movements of the Sudanese dancers aided and abetted the woman in her designs.
"You know, dear, you are behaving very foolishly. I must never see you again if you do this sort of thing. It can only lead to terrible unhappiness for us both."
She gently kissed his fingers, pressing her teeth against his knuckles—with all her education and fashionable clothes, a creature as primitive as any tent-dweller in the desert.
"Don't say you won't see me again. I won't be foolish, I promise. But
I am very lonely, you don't know how lonely, Michael."