The servant closed the door silently and the little yellow man,
fixing his eyes upon the beautiful woman before him, fell upon
his knees and bowed his forehead to the carpet.
Madame's lovely lips curved again in the disdainful smile, and
she extended one bare ivory arm toward the visitor who knelt as a
suppliant at her feet.
"Rise, my friend!" she said, in purest Chinese, which fell from
her lips with the music of a crystal spring. "How may I serve
you?"
The yellow man rose and advanced a step nearer to the divan, but
the strange beauty of Madame had spoken straight to his Eastern
heart, had awakened his soul to a new life. His glance
travelled over the vision before him, from the little Persian
slipper that peeped below the drapery of Kashmir silk to the
small classic head with its crown of ebon locks; yet he dared not
meet the glance of the amber eyes.
"Sit here beside me," directed Madame, and she slightly changed
her position with that languorous and lithe grace suggestive of a
creature of the jungle.
Breathing rapidly betwixt the importance of his mission and a
new, intoxicating emotion which had come upon him at the moment
of entering the perfumed room, the yellow man obeyed, but always
with glance averted from the taunting face of Madame.
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