“Yes.”
“Twice,” she said, laughing, “you stopped to peer at the blossoms in the moonlight.”
“I thought I saw a face among them.”
“You were not sure whether it was flowers or a girl’s face looking at you from the blossoming hedge of white hibiscus,” said Yulun.
“I know now,” he said in an odd, still voice, unlike his own.
“Yes, it was I,” she murmured. And of a sudden the girl dropped to her knees without a sound and laid her head on the velvet carpet at his feet.
So swiftly, noiselessly was it done that he had not comprehended—had not moved—when she sat upright, resting on her knees, and grasped the collar of her tunic with both gemmed hands.
“Have pity on me, lord of my lost soul!” she cried softly.
Benton stooped in a dazed way to lift the girl; but found himself knee deep in a snowy drift of white hibiscus blossoms—touched nothing but silken petals—waded in them as he stepped forward. And saw her standing before him still grasping the collar of her golden tunic.
A great white drift of bloom lay almost waist deep between them; the fragrance of oleander, too, was heavy in the room.