Beneath the
sloping belt of gold fell her loose Turkish trousers of gleaming
white, transparent tissue, clasped at the ankles by bands of gold.
On her feet were little Turkish slippers, on her brow--nothing, but
the crown of her radiant youth and beauty. Hamilton, gazing at it
across the footlights, thought he had never seen, either pictured
or in the flesh, a face so beautiful, so full of the beauty, the
goodness, the power and wonder of life.
The sight thrilled him. Like the power of electricity, its power
began to run along his veins, heating them, stirring them, calling
upon nerve and muscle and sense to wake up. He looked, and life
itself seemed to stream into him through his eyes. The girl's face
was a well-rounded oval, supported on the round, perfect column of
her throat; the eyes seemed pools of blackness that had caught all
the splendour and the radiance of a thousand Eastern nights. The
fires of many stars, the whole brilliance of the purple nights of
Asia were mirrored in them. Above them rose the dark, arching span
of the eyebrows on the soft warm-tinted forehead, cut in one line
of severest beauty with the delicate nose. Beneath, the curling
lips were like the flowers of the pomegranate, a living, vivid
scarlet, and the rounded chin had the contour and bloom of the
nectarine.
She smiled faintly as she met the fixed gaze of Hamilton's eyes
across the footlights--such an innocent, merry little smile it
seemed, not the mechanical contortions one buys with pieces of
silver.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25