“Thank you for the compliment, mignonne. I shall make it over to the gentleman from whom I stole the idea.”
“Stole? It’s not yours, then?”
“O yes! It’s mine, because I stole it.”
“And who from? Harrington?”
“Guess again, dear! But n’importe—no matter. Come and sit here with me.”
Muriel moved smilingly away to a couch of violet-velvet, and sinking upon the cushioned seat, waved her hand to her friend. Emily stood unheeding, in an attitude of sumptuous repose, with her rounded arms folded, a faint smile on her face, and her lustrous and lambent eyes half-veiled by their long lashes. The damask color was bright on her cheeks and on her parted lips, and with every slow breath, her bosom slowly lifted and fell, stirring the rich and heavy attar-of-rose odor which brooded slumberously about her form.
“Thou gorgeous queen-rose of Ispahan, why dreamest thou?” said Muriel’s voice of silver mockery. “Didst thou not hear me call? Come, I say!”
The beautiful brunette did not obey, but raised her proud patrician head from its drooping curve, and vaguely sighed. Muriel rose, lightly glided over to her, clasped her waist with both arms, and standing a little on one side and bending forward—a fresh and full-grown lily—a fair, gay woman, with the grace and glimmer of a bewitching child in her womanhood—looked with a naive and radiant, half-mocking, half-serious smile, into the face of her she had called the gorgeous queen-rose of Ispahan. Presently she began to lead her to the couch. Emily held back, but Muriel’s clasp tightened, and yielding to the firm, fairy strength with which, though strong, she was unable to cope, Emily suffered herself to be conducted to the seat.
“Ah, stayaway,” blithely said Muriel, sitting beside her, and playfully shaking a finger at her in sportive reproach, “who is the stronger now? You are fairly captured, and I hold you my prisoner until peace is concluded.”
Emily, amused by this pleasantry, showed the pearls of her red mouth in a brilliant laugh over her indolently folded arms.