“Why have you hidden yourself until now?” he retorted in a dull and laboured voice.
“I have been here.”
“Where?”
“Here!... Looking at you.... And watching my scarlet fish. His name is Dzelim. He is nearly a thousand years old and as wise as a magician. Look upon him, my lord! See how rapidly he darts around his tiny crystal world!—like a comet through outer star-dust, running the eternal race with Time.... And—yonder is a chair. Will my lord be seated—at his new servant’s feet?”
A strange, physical weariness seemed to weight his limbs and shoulders. He seated himself near the bed, never taking his heavy gaze from the smiling, golden thing which squatted there watching him so intently.
“Whose limousine was that which you entered and then left so abruptly?” he asked.
“My own.”
“What was the Yezidee Togrul Kahn doing in it?”
“Did you see anybody in my car?” she asked, veiling her eyes a little with their tawny lashes.
“I saw a man with a thick beard dyed red with henna, and the bony face and slant eyes of Togrul the Yezidee.”