It had not to do with appearance alone,
though her eyes were so vivid, and her expression so swift and varying;
it was to be found in the whole presence--something mountain-like and
daring, something Eastern and reserved and secret, something
remote--brooding like a Sphinx, and prophetic like a Sibyl. But suppose
that in days to come the thing that did not belong, which was of the
East, of the tan, of the River Starzke; suppose that it should--
With a great effort he drove apprehension and the instant's confused
wonder far away, and when, come close to him, she smiled, showing the
perfect white teeth, and her eyes softened to a dreamy regard of him, all
he had ever felt for her in the past months seemed concentrated into this
one moment. Yet he did not look like a languishing lover; rather like one
inflamed with a great idea or stirred to a great resolve.
For quite a minute they stood gazing as though they would read the whole
truth in each other's eyes. She was all eager, yet timorous; he was
resolved; yet now, when the great moment had come, as it were, like a
stammerer fearing the sound of his own voice. There was so much to say
that he could not speak.
She broke the spell. "I am here. Can't you see me?" she asked in a
quizzical, playful tone, her lips trembling a little, but with a smile in
her eyes which she vainly tried to veil.
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