After dinner the servants carried chairs for them into the
verandah, with a small table laden with drinks and sweetmeats, that
they might sit and watch the moon rising behind the palms in the
compound, and see the hot silver light pour slowly through their
exquisite branches and foliage.
"How did you amuse yourself all day?" he asked her as she sat on
his knee, his arm round the flexible, supple waist pulsating under
the silky web of her tunic.
"I was so happy. I had so much to do, so much to think of," she
answered, gazing back into his eyes bent upon her, and eagerly
drawing in their fire. "I wandered in the compound and made garland
after garland, then I sang to my rabab and practised my dancing. In
the heat I went in and slept on my lord's bed dreaming of him--ah!
how I dreamt of him!" She broke off sighing, and those sighs fanned
the blazing fires in the man's veins.
"You were quite contented, then, with your day?"
"How could I not be contented when I had my lord to think about,
his love of last night, his love of the coming night?"
Hamilton sighed and smiled at the same time.
"English wives need more than that to make them content," he
answered.
"English wives," repeated Saidie, with her laugh like the sound of
a golden bell; "what do they know of love?"
"Not much certainly, I think," replied Hamilton.
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