Her cheeks were flushed. She spoke almost with violence, laying her hand upon his arm. Safti seemed to stare hard into the corners of the little room. Perhaps he was really looking at the Princess. At length he said: “It is true.”
“I will give any price you ask for it,” said the Princess.
“You!” said Safti. “But you—”
Suddenly he lifted his lean hands, took the face of the Princess between them quite gently, and turned it towards the small window. She had begun to tremble. Holding her soft cheeks with his brown fingers, Safti remained motionless for a long time, during which it seemed to the Princess that he was looking away from her at some distant object. She watched his frightful and surreptitious eyes, that never told the truth, she heard the distant Arab’s everlasting song, and her dream became a nightmare. At last Safti dropped his hands and said:
“It may be that some day you will need my emerald.”
The Princess felt as if at that moment a bullet entered her heart.
“Give it me—give it me!” she cried. “I am rich. I———”
“I do not sell my medicines,” Safti answered. “Those who use them must live near me, here in Tunis. When they are healed they give back to me the jewel that has saved them. But you—you live far off.”
With the swiftness of a woman the Princess saw that persuasion would be useless. Safti’s face looked hard as brown wood. She seemed to recover from her emotion, and said quietly:
“At least you will let me see the emerald?”