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They went up or down marble steps, into quaint little alcoved rooms furnished with nothing but divans and low tables or dower chests crusted with Syrian mother-o'-pearl, on into rooms where brocade-hung walls were covered with Arab musical instruments of all kinds, or long-necked Moorish guns patterned with silver, ivory and coral.
There she stood by his bed, in her mother-o'-pearl gown and sari; clear in every detail; lips just parted; a hovering smile in her eyes. And round about her a shimmering radiance, as of moonbeams, heightened her loveliness, yet seemed to set her apart; so that he could neither touch her nor utter a word of welcome.
Not to be behindhand with Saunders, I seized one of the bivalves, already dead and with the shells gaping apart, and tore it open; but although the shell was lined with beautiful lustrous mother-o'-pearl, it was barren of gems.
The wind tore apart the fabric of lacy cloud which had been looped in folds across the rock-face, like a veil hiding the worn features of some aged nun, and showed jagged mountain peaks, towering against a sky of mother-o'-pearl. Suddenly, after a steep ascent, we saw before us a tall, lonely mass of grey stone, built upon the rock.
It was picturing the drawing-room; the restful simplicity of its cream and gold: but no dear and lovely figure, in gold-flecked sari, lost in the great arm-chair. Her window-seat in the studio empty. No one in a 'mother-o'-pearl mood' to come and tuck him up and exchange confidences, the last thing.
It was a crucifix of mother-o'-pearl and silver, the symbol of the Christian faith. But it seemed to carry no sacred suggestions to the soul of Mr. Dyceworthy. On the contrary, he looked at it with an expression of meek ridicule, ridicule that bordered on contempt. "A Roman," he murmured placidly to himself, between two large bites of toast. "The girl is a Roman, and thereby hopelessly damned."
Impressive too those baptismal names; implying a refinement invincible in the vale of adversity. Killing time up one street and down another Rampart, Ursuline, Burgundy he pictured personalities to fit them: for Corinne a presence stately in advanced years and preserved beauty; for Yvonne a fragile form suggestive of mother-o'-pearl, of antique lace.
Really, she was cleaning herself combing her antennae with her forelegs, provided with bristle hairs for the purpose, scraping and polishing her wings, as if they did not already shine like mother-o'-pearl, and washing her quaint face.
They reminded me very much of the Alhambra, only, instead of the honeycomb vaulted ceilings, and arches decorated in stucco by the Moors, the Eastern architect inlaid his ceilings with an extraordinary incrustation of glass, usually silvered on the back, but also frequently coloured, and giving a strange effect of mother-o'-pearl inlay, bordering on tawdriness when examined in detail.
"I foresee she's doomed!" Fred stared straight in front of him. "It looks as if we'll lose our little Willy too! One woman at a time, especially when the lady totes a mother-o'-pearl revolver and about a dozen knives! If you come out of this alive, Bill, you'll be wiser!" "Fond of bull, aren't you! You'd jest on an ant-heap."
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