Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida'.djvu/212

204 with a certain amusemeat, yet with a graver and a gentler feeling too.

"Nay—you need not read my silence so. Come here again—if you wish."

Just then the clang of the Albanians' arms announced their readiness on the terrace without; he bowed down once more before her, and left her standing there, with the clusters of the roses at her feet, and the colour of the rich chamber stretching away into dim distance around her as she had suddenly broken on his sight, when he had dashed back the purple draperies in pursuit of his assassin.

And he went out into the night with one thought alone upon him; he felt blind with the glow of the light, intoxicated with the incense odours, dizzy with all that lustre and maze of delicate hues, of golden arabesques, of gleaming marbles, and of scarlet blossoms; but what had blinded his sight and made his thoughts reel, was not these, but was the smile of the woman who had suddenly lit his life to a beauty which he had passed through half the years that are allotted to man, never having known or cared to know.