But now, as she bent
and swayed to catch the spirit's whispers, as wheat sways to the whisper
of the wind, it was a man's face she saw. Stephen Knight seemed to stand
in the tent, looking at her with a curiously wistful, longing look, over
the heads of the Arab audience, who sat on their low divans and piled
carpets.
She thrilled to the look, and the desert spirit made her screen her face
from it, with a sequined gauze scarf which she wore. For a few measures
she danced behind the glittering veil, then with a sudden impulse which
the music gave, she tossed it back, holding out her arms, and smiling up
to Stephen's eyes, above the brown faces, with a sweet smile very
mysterious to the watchers. Consciously she called to Stephen then, as
she had promised she would call, if she should ever need him, for
somehow she did need and want him;--not for his help in finding Saidee:
she was satisfied with all that Maieddine was doing--but for herself.
The secret of the music which she had been trying to find out, was in
his eyes, and learning it slowly, made her more beautiful, more womanly,
than she had ever been before. As she danced on, the two long plaits of
her red hair loosened and shook out into curls which played round her
white figure like flames. Her hands fluttered on the air as they rose
and fell like the little white wings of a dove; and she was dazzling as
a brandished torch, in the ill-lit tent with its dark hangings.
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