Page:Kéraban the Inflexible Part 1 (Jules Verne).djvu/80

82 already tried on your pretty dresses, and I went out upon the terrace, where they took me for you. If I was only pretty enough!—but no! that never will be, and to-day less than ever. Let me try these pretty slippers on."

"Do you wish it?" said Amasia, as she yielded to the girl's solicitations. So Nedjeb put on her young mistress's feet the slippers which were worthy of a place in a glass case of curiosities. "Ah, how can you now venture to walk in them?" exclaimed the young Zingara. "Your head may now be jealous of your feet."

"You make me laugh, Nedjeb," replied Amasia. "Yet—"

"And those arms, those beautiful arms, which you leave quite unadorned! Why should you? Seigneur Ahmet has not forgotten them, not he! I see here some bracelets which will suit them to a nicety. Poor little arms!—how badly they have treated you! Fortunately I am here."

And, laughing all the time, Nedjeb passed two magnificent bracelets on Amasia's wrists, and they looked more resplendent upon the white skin than within their case of velvet.

Amasia let her do as she pleased. Every ornament spoke to her of Ahmet, and to the incessant chatter of Nedjeb, her eyes, glancing from one jewel to another, responded in silence.

"Amasia, dearest!"

The girl at these words rose hastily, and met a young man whose twenty-two years suited well his fiancée of sixteen. Ahmet was somewhat above the middle height, of a good figure; easy, yet somewhat dignified: his black eyes wore a very sweet expression, and flashed like lightning in his passionate moments. His hair was brown and curly beneath his fez, his small moustache was trimmed Albanian fashion; his teeth were white—in fact, there was an aristocratic air about him, if the term "aristocratic" is permissible in referring to a man in whose country there is no hereditary aristocracy.

Ahmet adhered strictly to the Turkish dress. He could not do otherwise, being the nephew of such an uncle. His well-made costume became him well; it was of rich material, and in good taste.