She spoke in Chinese, pointing to the incense-burner.
Ah Li bowed and removed the censer. As the door softly reclosed:
"You are better?" she whispered, sweetly solicitous, and, seating
herself beside Deacon, she laid her hand lightly upon his arm.
"Quite," he replied hoarsely; "please do not worry about me. I
am wondering what has become of Annesley."
"Ah, the poor man!" exclaimed Madame, with a silver laugh, and
began to busy herself with the teacups. "He remembered, as he
was looking at my new Leonardo, an appointment which he had quite
forgotten."
"I can understand his forgetting anything under the
circumstances."
Madame de Medici raised a tiny cup and bent slightly toward him.
He felt that he was losing control of himself, and, averting his
eyes, he stooped and smelled the orchid in his buttonhole. Then,
accepting the cup, he was about to utter some light commonplace
when the faintness returned overwhelmingly, and, hurriedly
replacing the cup upon the tray, he fell back among the cushions.
The stifling perfume of the place seemed to be choking him.
"Ah, poor boy! You are really not at all well. How sorry I am!"
The sweet tones reached him as from a great distance; but as one
dying in the desert turns his face toward the distant oasis,
Deacon turned weakly to the speaker.
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