His arm stole around her slim waist, and he pressed her to him more closely.
“And you must not mind my servant,” he exclaimed. “She’s been in our family for twenty years, and will naturally regard you with considerable suspicion, especially as you are a foreigner, and she can’t speak to you.”
“Very well,” she laughed. “I quite understand. Woman-servants never like the advent of a wife.”
Presently they alighted, and he opened the door of the flat with his latchkey.
“Welcome to my quarters, piccina,” he exclaimed as she entered the tiny, dimly lit hall, and glanced round admiringly.
“How pretty!” she exclaimed. “Why, it is all Moorish!” looking up at the silk-embroidered texts from the Korân with which the walls were draped.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said happily; and together they passed on into his sitting-room, a spacious apartment, the windows of which were filled with wooden lattices, the walls draped with embroidered fabrics, the carpet the thickest and richest from an Eastern loom, the stools, lounges, and cosy-corners low and comfortable, and the ceiling hidden by a kind of dome-shaped canopy of yellow silk.
Slowly she gazed around in rapt admiration.
“I delight in a Moorish room, and this is the prettiest and most complete I have ever seen,” she declared. “My Nino has excellent taste in everything.”
“Even in the choice of a wife—eh?” he exclaimed, laughing, as he bent swiftly and kissed her ere she could draw away.