“There are years of life before the flaming gates of Jehaunum open. And I am very young,” said Yulun wistfully.
Somebody else laughed in the room. Turning his head, he saw Tressa standing by the empty fireplace.
“What you see and hear need not disturb you,” she said, looking at Benton out of brilliant eyes. “There is no god but God; and His prophet has been called by many names.” And to Yulun: “Have I not told you that nothing can harm our souls?”
Yulun’s expression altered and she turned to Benton: “Say it to me!” she pleaded.
As in a dream he heard his own words: “Nothing can ever really harm the soul.”
Yulun’s hands fell from her tunic collar. Very slowly she lifted her head, looking at him out of lovely, proud young eyes.
She said, evenly, her still gaze on him: “I am Yulun of the Temple. My heart is like a blazing pearl which you hold between your hands. May the four Blessed Companions witness the truth of what I say.”
Then a delicate veil of colour wrapped her white skin from throat to temple; she looked at Benton with sudden and exquisite distress, frightened and ashamed at his silence.
In the intense stillness Benton moved toward her. Into his outstretched hands her two hands fell; but, bending above them, his lips touched only two white hibiscus flowers that lay fresh and dewy in his palms.
Bewildered, he straightened up; and saw the girl standing by the mantel beside Tressa, who had caught her by the left hand.