I did not reply. I was engrossed in thought. All that she had said made it plainer to me that she was the wife of Hadj Absalam.
She watched me in silence. Then, with a sudden impetuousness, she sprang from her divan, and, standing up, flung her arms about my neck, kissing me passionately. The silk of her serroual rustled, her bangles jingled, and in her quick movement she lost her remaining slipper, and stood barefooted, a veritable Queen of the Harem, a houri of Paradise.
“Hark!” she whispered, starting in alarm as we stood locked in each other’s arms, while I rained kisses upon her fair face. “Hark!” she cried. “Listen! What was that?”
I held my breath, but could detect nothing.
“My foolish fancy, I suppose,” she added, a few moments later, after she had strained her ears to again catch the sounds that had alarmed her. “Think! If we were betrayed! It would mean torture and death!” she said hoarsely, and, disengaging herself from my arms, she walked quickly over to the opposite wall, and, drawing aside a heavy curtain, reassured herself that a door it concealed was securely bolted.
Returning, she flung herself upon her divan among her cushions and motioned me to a seat beside her. Then, taking from the little mother-of-pearl stool a box of embossed gold filled with cigarettes, she offered me one, and, lighting one herself, reclined with her head thrown back gazing up to me.
“We are more than friends, Ce-cil,” she said presently, thoughtfully watching the smoke that curled upward from her rosy lips. “I only wish it were possible that I could leave this land and go to thine. Ah! If thou couldst but know how dull and colourless is my life, how rapidly my doom approaches—how horrible it all is!”
“What is this strange destiny that the Fates have in store for thee?” I asked, mystified.
“Have I not already told thee that thy curiosity cannot be satisfied?”
“Yes. But I love thee,” I protested. “Surely I may know the character of any danger that threateneth?”