Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/132



very next moment, with startling suddenness, Hector passed from the stage of boyish, awkward, rather petty embarrassment to one of tremendous, voiceless excitement.

Not for the slightest fraction of a second did he lose his grip on his natural, perceptive faculties, did he forget his sober English commonsense. On the contrary, straight through, his five senses worked harmoniously together. Even while his eyes saw on a low taboret not far from him the ancient blade which had been his “Open Sesame!” ever since he had left the house of his ancestors, while his hand, almost automatically, picked it up and returned it to his pocket, his brain flashed the message that he should ask this tiny, picturesque bit of Oriental womanhood bluntly to tell him what she meant by her mysterious words.

Already his lips had shaped the query: “What do you …?” when, instantaneously, an abstruse something in his soul surged up and submerged the tail end of his sentence in a bizarre, yet deliberate decision, realization rather, that he must accept whatever Fate had in store for him unquestioningly.