Page:The Song of the Sirens.djvu/198

 laughed. He still held Mucia's hands, holding her away from him and looking down at her.

Pompeia, withdrawn the width of the tent, gazing from under her raven-black hair, her brown eyes wide in her proud swarthy face, not only admired her brother, but confessed to herself that they were a well-matched, well-looking pair. He was very handsome; bareheaded, after the Roman fashion; his hair glossy brown, soft and wavy, his face healthily tanned, and ruddy; his eyes a very dark bluish-gray, transparent and bright; around big, black pupils. He was wearing the embossed body-armor of pure gold which the city of Antioch had had made for him, which he had declined, as he refused all gifts everywhere, but which he had so admired, that he bought it from the goldsmiths at its full value. His crimson cloak, fastened by a big emerald brooch on his left shoulder, hung behind him. His bare arms were round and muscular. From under his military kilt of broad leather straps, plated with scales of chased gold, his knees showed brown and sinewy. He wore the half boots of a Roman nobleman, made of crimson chamois leather, with tiny gold crescents dangling by short chains from their tops.

Before him Mucia gazed up at him adoring and rebuffed, her yellow curls rippling down past her flushed, sea-shell cheeks, her pale blue eyes