“She gave none.”
“English?”
“No, sir, a foreign lady.”
“In.”
Hoskins having retired, and having silently closed the door, Nicol Brinn did an extraordinary thing, a thing which none of his friends in London, Paris, or New York would ever have supposed him capable of doing. He raised his clenched hands. “Please God she has come,” he whispered. “Dare I believe it? Dare I believe it?”
The door was opened again, and Hoskins, standing just inside, announced: “The lady to see you, sir.”
He stepped aside and bowed as a tall, slender woman entered the room. She wore a long wrap trimmed with fur, the collar turned up about her face. Three steps forward she took and stopped. Hoskins withdrew and closed the door.
At that, while Nicol Brinn watched her with completely transfigured features, the woman allowed the cloak to slip from her shoulders, and, raising her head, extended both her hands, uttering a subdued cry of greeting that was almost a sob. She was dark, with the darkness of the East, but beautiful with a beauty that was tragic. Her eyes were glorious wells of sadness, seeming to mirror a soul that had known a hundred ages. Withal she had the figure of a girl, slender and supple, possessing the poetic grace and poetry of movement born only in the Orient.
“Naida!” breathed Nicol Brinn, huskily. “Naida!”
His high voice had softened, had grown tremulous. He extended his hands with a groping movement The woman laughed shudderingly.