It came now to her, and it meant nothing but
vague fear and dread. She followed the slave with unelastic steps,
and her brain full of heavy thoughts; they passed the women's
apartments and went on to the Selamlik and to the room of Ahmed,
that looked out with unscreened windows into the cool, deep green
of the garden. The slave drew back at the door, holding a curtain
aside for the girl to enter. She went forward, the curtain fell
behind her, and she was alone with Ahmed.
He was sitting opposite on a low divan or couch, clothed from head
to foot in a deep blue robe, and with a turban of the same colour
twisted above his level brows--a kingly, majestic figure, and the
girl's heart beat and her eyelids fell as she crept slowly over the
floor towards him. At his feet she sank to her knees, and would
have put her forehead to the ground, but Ahmed bent forward, and
clasping both her arms lifted her on to the couch beside him.
"And you are the Druze child, Dilama?" he said gently, and leaning
a little back from her, surveyed her intently with dark lustrous
eyes. The girl felt swooning with terror; before his gaze her very
flesh seemed dissolving. It seemed as if her heart, her brain, with
the image of Murad stamped on them, would be laid bare to those
brilliant, searching eyes. What would he not know, suspect, find
out? What would he ask? demand of her? She could not ask herself.
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