The sweet tones reached him as from a great distance; but as one dying in the desert turns his face toward the distant oasis, Deacon turned weakly to the speaker. She placed one fair arm behind his head, pillowing him, and with a peacock fan which had lain amid the cushions fanned his face. The strange scene became wholly unreal to him; he thought himself some dying barbaric chief.
“Rest there,” murmured the sweet voice.
The great eyes, unveiled now by the black lashes, were two twin lakes of fairest amber. They seemed to merge together, so that he stood upon the brink of an unfathomable amber pool—which swallowed him up—which swallowed him up.
He awoke to an instantaneous consciousness of the fact that he had been guilty of inexcusably bad form. He could not account for his faintness, and reclining there amid the silken cushions, with Madame de Medici watching him anxiously, he felt a hot flush stealing over his face.
“What is the matter with me!” he exclaimed, and sprang to his feet. “I feel quite well now.”
She watched him, smiling, but did not speak. He was a “very young man” again, and badly embarrassed. He glanced at his wrist-watch.
“Gracious heavens!” he cried, and noted that the tea-tray had been removed, “there must be something radically wrong with my health. It is nearly seven o'clock!”
The note of the silver bell sounded in the ante-room.
“Can you forgive me?” he said.
But Madame, rising to her feet, leaned lightly upon his shoulder, toying with the petals of the orchid in his buttonhole.