I
even tilted the shaded lamp, artlessly, a trick I had learned
from Harley, in order that the light might fall upon her face.
She may have detected this device; I know not; but as if in
answer to its challenge, she raised her gloved hands and
unfastened the heavy veil which had concealed her features.
Thereupon I found myself looking into a pair of lustrous black
eyes whose almond shape was that of the Orient; I found myself
looking at a woman who, since she was evidently a Jewess, was
probably no older than eighteen or nineteen, but whose beauty was
ripely voluptuous, who might fittingly have posed for Salome,
who, despite her modern fashionable garments, at once suggested
to my mind the wanton beauty of the daughter of Herodias.
I stared at her silently for a time, and presently her full lips
parted in a slow smile. My ideas were diverted into another
channel.
"You have yet to tell me what alarmed you," I said in a low
voice, but as courteously as possible, "and if I can be of any
assistance in the matter."
My visitor seemed to recollect her fright--or the necessity for
simulation. The pupils of her fine eyes seemed to grow larger
and darker; she pressed her white teeth into her lower lips, and
resting her hands upon the table leaned toward me.
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