Page:Frank Owen - The Scarlett Hill, 1941.djvu/257

RV 252 (AN LU-SHAN)

Yang Kuei-fei was intensely interested in An Lu-shan. She had met him for the first time at the elaborate feast in his honor. Every word he uttered, she absorbed into her thoughts. His conversation was not profound, his wit was clumsy, he laughed too much. He looked like a gargoyle with his ugly massive head, long arms, large hands, and somewhat cruel mouth. But his eyes, black, inscrutable, that burned through her clothes as brazenly as flames, held a quality that stopped her throat, until it was difficult for her to breathe. Any wrestler might have had his great bulk and strength, but no one had eyes so mercilessly daring, and, too, so warmly sensuous that she dared not think of his prowess as a lover.

She shrugged her shoulders. "After all," she reflected, "he is no more to me than the tiles in the garden on which I walk. I have captivated an Emperor. What use could I have for so hideous an individual?"

To even raise the question in her own mind, she realized was foolhardy. Merely its contemplation heated her blood and made her tremble.

Later, the members of the Emperor's immediate party detached themselves from the feast that showed no sign of coming to an end. They proceeded to the Orchid Pavilion on the Peony Terrace. Rigid formality of the Court had been cast aside as though the Emperor had removed a vermilion cloak.

An Lu-shan saw to it that he was close enough to RV 252 (252)