Barlow shook his head, the flickering flame of the wick in an iron
oil-lamp that rested in a niche of the wall exaggerating to ferocity
the frown that topped his eyes.
But Bootea pleaded with a mute salaam, and raising her lips to his ear
whispered, "Not because of what is not permitted--not because of
Bootea--please."
With an arm he swept back the beaded tendrils of a hanging
door-curtain, the girl glided to the darkness of the room, and Barlow,
lifting from its niche the iron lamp, followed. Within, she pointed to
the door that lay open and Barlow, half in rebellion, softly closed it.
As he turned he saw that she had dropped from their holding cords the
heavy brocaded silk curtains of the window.
His limbs were numb from the long ride with the weight of the girl's
body across his thighs; he was tired; he was mentally distressed over
the messengers he had failed to locate, and this, the almost forced
intrusion of Bootea into his bedroom, the closed door and the curtained
windows, her doing, was just another turn of the kaleidoscope with its
bits of broken glass of a nightmare.
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