Her fan of ostrich feathers lay idle on the Persian carpet.
"Come, my beloved," she said. "I have waited long."
Contarini knelt down, and first he kissed the arching instep, and then
her hand, that felt like a young dove just stirring under his touch, and
his lips caressed the satin of her arm, and at last, with a fierce
little choking cry, they found her own that waited for them, and there
was no more room for words. In the silence of the June night one kiss
answered another, and breath mingled with breath, and sigh with sigh.
At last the young man's head rested against her shoulder among the
cushions. Then the Georgian woman opened her eyes slowly and glanced
down at his face, while her hand stroked and smoothed his hair, and he
could not see the strange smile on her wonderful lips. For she knew that
he could not see it, and she let it come and go as it would, half in
pity and half in scorn.
"I knew you would come," she said, bending her head a little nearer to
his.
"When I do not, you will know that I am dead," he answered almost
faintly, and he sighed.
"And then I shall go to you," she said, but as she spoke, she smiled
again to herself. "I have heard that in old times, when the lords of the
earth died, their most favourite slaves were killed upon the funeral
pile, that their souls might wait upon their master's in the world
beyond.
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