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Do you wonder I worshipped her that I just couldn't let her go out of my life forever?" "No, I don't wonder. She's very lovely," Stephen agreed. The coquetry in the eyes was pathetic to him, knowing the beautiful Saidee's history. "She was eighteen then. She's twenty-eight now. Saidee twenty-eight! I can hardly realize it. But I'm sure she hasn't changed, unless to grow prettier.
We started from Algiers, and he made a mystery even of the way we came, though I found out the names of some places we passed, like El Aghouat and Ghardaia " Saidee's eyes widened with a sudden flash. "What, you came here by El Aghouat and Ghardaia?" "Yes. Isn't that the best way?" "The best, if the longest is the best. I don't know much about North Africa geographically.
I've heard a good deal of him, from Cassim, in old days; but tell me all that concerns him and you. Don't skip anything, or I can't judge." Saidee's manner was feverishly emphatic, but she did not look at Victoria. She watched her own hand moving back and forth, restlessly, from the girl's finger-tips, up the slender, bare wrist, and down again.
Then, without turning, she walked almost blindly to a window that opened upon Saidee's garden. The little court was a silver cube of moonlight, so bright that everything white looked alive with a strange, spiritual intelligence. The scent of the orange blossoms was lusciously sweet. She shrank back, remembering the orange-court at the Caïd's house in Ouargla.
She longed to hear all, all about Saidee's existence, ever since the letters had stopped; why they had stopped; and whether the reason had anything to do with the mystery about Cassim. Saidee seemed willing to wait, apparently, for details of Victoria's life, since she wanted to begin with the time only a few weeks ago, when Maïeddine had come into it.
She had to conquer the little cold thrill of superstitious fear which crept through her veins, as Saidee's words reminded her of M'Barka's sand-divining. She had to find courage again from "her star," before she could speak. "Forgive me, Babe!" said Saidee, stricken by the look in the lifted eyes.
If she had not lived during all the years since Saidee's last letter, in the hope of some such moment as this, she would have felt that she had come into a world of romance, as she listened to the man of the East, speaking the language of the East. But she had read too many Arabic tales and poems to find his speech strange.
The eyes were brown, with a suggestion of coquetry absent in the younger girl's, and the hair, parted in the middle and worn in a loose, wavy coil, appeared to be of a darker red, less golden, more auburn. "That's exactly Saidee's colouring," repeated Victoria. "Her lips were the reddest I ever saw, and I used to say diamonds had got caught behind her eyes.
"Of course he must, Babe, if he's really come to search for you," Saidee said, looking at her young sister affectionately. "Thank you a hundred times for saying that, dearest! I do hope so!" Victoria exclaimed, hugging the elder woman impulsively, as she used when she was a little child. But Saidee's joy, caught from her sister's, died down suddenly, like a flame quenched with salt.
He was glad she had not said to Victoria what she had said to him, about Saidee having to live the life of other harem women. "I bought a string of amber beads at that curiosity-shop yesterday," the girl went on, "because there's a light in them like what used to be in Saidee's eyes.
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