“—The supper would choke me!”
O’Hagan coughed a third time, with bronchial violence, bowed low—as a Leicester before an Elizabeth—and surreptitiously kicked me shrewdly upon the shin.
I spun around sharply. I followed the direction of my friend’s enraptured gaze. And my eyes rested upon one of the loveliest women I have ever seen!
—————
III.
THE MAID AND THE RING.
I call her a woman, but she can have been no more than seventeen or eighteen, I think. She was one of those dark, supple Siresian girls who approach so infinitely nearer to one’s ideal houri of the East than any really Oriental beauty ever can do. Her great black eyes wandered nervously from O’Hagan’s face to mine.
“Tell me!” she cried, in pretty, broken English—“I saw you whispering together—tell me! You are from Leo?”
Nipping my arm, O’Hagan bowed again.
“I knew it!” cried the girl joyously. “Something told me!”
Good God! at her words, at sight of the mist of gladness, of gratitude, clouding her beautiful eyes, I could have kicked myself—I could have attacked O’Hagan nor counted the cost!