Her head turned slightly, the light touching that perfect profile. She was smiling. Romney could not feel his limbs, yet they carried him forward to the outstretched hand.
"It's good to see you again, Sir Romney."
Something had broken within him. The strange elation had changed to a tangible power. There was sorrow in her loveliness. But such a sense of the beauty in the presence of the two together—a kind of entering into the heart of a sacred place. And queerly enough he felt himself at the end of commonness—mere man movements and matters put away, an end to the drift of the waterfronts, all helplessness and the stress of hand to hand. She was close, looking into his face.
"You have put on something that I could not find a year ago, Sir Romney," she whispered.
"For awhile I thought I had lost rather than gained. I hope you are right," he answered.
His eyes were held to the yellow rug. It lay over a low chair by the fountain. She led Nifton Bend to it, the bare arm ever close to his shoulder.
"I am glad that he is chosen for the mission to the desert," she was saying to the Hunchback. "I am glad you two know each other, for I found Sir Romney very much a man."
PART TWO: THE GOBI
ANNA ERIVAN
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