She placed one fair arm
behind his head, pillowing him, and with a peacock fan which had
lain amid the cushions fanned his face. The strange scene became
wholly unreal to him; he thought himself some dying barbaric
chief.
"Rest there," murmured the sweet voice.
The great eyes, unveiled now by the black lashes, were two twin
lakes of fairest amber. They seemed to merge together, so that
he stood upon the brink of an unfathomable amber pool--which
swallowed him up--which swallowed him up.
He awoke to an instantaneous consciousness of the fact that he
had been guilty of inexcusably bad form. He could not account
for his faintness, and reclining there amid the silken cushions,
with Madame de Medici watching him anxiously, he felt a hot flush
stealing over his face.
"What is the matter with me!" he exclaimed, and sprang to his
feet. "I feel quite well now."
She watched him, smiling, but did not speak. He was a "very
young man" again, and badly embarrassed. He glanced at his
wrist-watch.
"Gracious heavens!" he cried, and noted that the tea-tray had
been removed, "there must be something radically wrong with my
health. It is nearly seven o'clock!"
The note of the silver bell sounded in the ante-room.
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