When the mist had cleared from before my vision, I perceived it was a face. What kind of face even yet I could not see; the shock of the unexpected added to my confusion. It was only after it had remained quiescent for perhaps the better part of a minute that I realised it was a woman’s.
A woman’s face!
But not like any woman’s face that I had seen before. As I gazed my fear began to fade; a sense of wonder came instead. Was I asleep or waking? I asked myself the question. Were these things happening to me in a dream? Glancing at me through the partly open door was the kind of face one reads and dreams about; not the kind one meets in daily life. At least, in the daily life which I have led. I was vaguely conscious that it was beautiful; beautiful in so strange a sort; but most clearly present to my mind was the bewildering fact that it had a more wonderful pair of eyes than any I had supposed a woman could have had. It was not only that they were large, nor that they were lovely. They had in them so odd a lustre. It was as though some living thing were in them, which kept coming and going, breaking into light, fading into darkness. They were wild eyes; such as no Englishwoman ever could have had. This face was brown.
For at any rate some minutes it stayed motionless, watching me. Only by degrees did it dawn upon me that possibly its owner was nearly as much startled as I was; that whatever she had anticipated seeing she had not expected to find me sitting on that chair. She kept her glance fixed upon my features; only for a second did it wander towards Pollie sleeping on the bed. I fancy she was endeavouring to determine what it was that I was doing there; why I was on the chair instead of on the bed; whether I was asleep or waking, or even dead. I was so huddled up upon the chair, and remained so very still, that it was quite possible for her, taken unawares, to suppose that I was dead.
“You sleep?”
She spoke to me; in English, which had a quaintly foreign sound; in a bell-like whisper, it was so soft and yet so clear.
I did not answer; the knot in my tongue had not yet come untied. I felt that she did not understand my silence, or the cause of it; and wondered, hesitated too. Presently she ventured on an assertion, uttered with a little cadence of doubt, as if it were a question.
“You do not sleep.” Apparently as if still in doubt as to the correctness of the statement, she endeavoured to fortify herself with reasons. “Your eyes are open; you do not sleep. We do not sleep when our eyes are open. Speak to me. Are you afraid?”
Perhaps the suspicion increased in strength that, if I was not stupefied with fear, there was at least something curious in my condition. She opened the door nearly to the full, and she came into the room. I saw that she seemed but a girl, tall above the common, clad in a gown which, while it was loose and seemingly shapeless, and made in a fashion which was altogether strange to me, yet draped itself in graceful folds about her figure. It was made of some stuff which looked to me like silk alpaca; in colour a most assertive, and indeed trying, shade of electric blue. It positively warmed one’s eyes to look at it. And it was covered with what looked more like sequins than anything else I could think of; though, with every movement of her body, they gleamed and glittered like no sequins I had ever seen before. Her hair, of which there was an extraordinary quantity, as black as jet, was most beautifully done. Even in my condition of semi-stupor I wondered how she did it. It formed a perfect halo about her face. And on the top was stuck what seemed to be the very double of that queer little thing which Pollie said she found in the scrap of paper which the man had given her. Only, to me, the creature in her hair seemed alive. Its eyes gleamed; its body inclined this way then that, as she stood in the open doorway.
She was covered with jewels; at least, I suppose they were jewels. Though, regarded as ornaments, they were as queer as everything else about her. Her fingers were loaded with rings; funny looking ones they seemed. She stood, bending slightly forward, with her hands in front, so that I could not help but notice them. Bracelets were twined about her arms; of the oddest design. A jewelled snake was about her throat. Another, not only a monster, but a monstrosity, was twisted, girdle fashion, three or four times around her waist. It looked as if it were alive.